 Welcome to CN Live, episode 12 of season four, John Young and Dite Me Too. I'm Joe Lauria, editor-in-chief of Consortium News. And I'm Elizabeth Boss. The founder of a US-based website that earlier published the same unredacted documents that WikiLeaks publisher, Julian Assange, was later indicted for. This week, invited the US Department of Justice to make him a co-defendant with Assange. Well, Krypton published the decrypted unredacted state department cables on September 1, 2011. Prior to publication of the cables by WikiLeaks, John Young wrote in a Justice Department submission form, which Young posted on Twitter Tuesday. Quote, no US official has contacted me about publishing the unredacted cables since Krypton published them, he wrote. I respectfully request that the Department of Justice add me as a co-defendant in the prosecution of Mr. Assange under the Espionage Act. Assange has been charged with possession and dissemination of classified or defense information, some of the same material that Young possesses and disseminated. And yet Assange was indicted and Young was not. Young founded Krypton, which he calls a free public library in 1996. It was a precursor of WikiLeaks in publishing raw classified and unclassified government documents on the internet. Young testified to Assange's extradition hearing in London in September, 2020. His sworn statement says, quote, I published on krypton.org unredacted diplomatic cables on September 1, 2011 under the URL krypton.org, et cetera. And that publication remains available at the present since my publication on krypton.org of the unredacted diplomatic cables, no US law enforcement authority has notified me that this publication of the cables is illegal, consists or contributes to a crime in any way, nor have they asked for them to be removed. The cornerstone of the Justice Department's case against Assange is that he allegedly recklessly published state department cables leaked to him by army intelligence analyst, Chelsea Manning, which the US says endangered the lives of named US informants. Young is asking the Justice Department why he too hasn't been prosecuted for publishing these names before Assange did. At Manning's court marshal, Brigadier General Robert Carr testified under oath that no one was actually harmed by the WikiLeaks releases. Then Defense Secretary Robert Gates occulted the leaks, quote, awkward, and quote, embarrassing, but said they did only, quote, fairly modest damage to US foreign interests. Reuters reported in January, 2011, quote, internal US government reviews have determined that a mass leak of diplomatic cables caused only limited damage to US interests abroad, despite the Obama administration's public statements to the contrary, a congressional official briefed on the reviews, said the administration felt compelled to say publicly that the revelations had seriously damaged American interests in order to bolster legal efforts to shut down the WikiLeaks website and bring charges against the leakers. Assange was actually more concerned about redactions than the editors of his mainstream media partners who worked with him on publishing the releases. Mark Davis, an Australian television journalist who documented Assange's activities during the weekend in London before publication of the cables, said that while the other editors went home, Assange pulled all-nighters to redact informants' names. What's happening in the bunker? In the bunker, we have our team from Guardian, US, Spiegel, and New York Times. And it was here that they were taking what Julian had, which was a chemical weapon that went way through the material. If there was any cavity or attitude going on from my observations, it was the Guardian journalists. The Guardian journalists had this disdain for the impact of that material. The Guardian journalists, at best, had a type of gallows humor as to what would happen to anyone revealed in these documents. And I can tell you, he often narrates, if you read the books, he narrates a dinner that they went to. We're drawn in and said, well, if they die, they die. Now, that is the only event that I wasn't at. I remember the dinner, I didn't go to the dinner. But I can then contribute every other account they talk about from that room where anyone expressed any concern whatsoever about the lives of people except for Julian Assange. Except for Julian Assange. Two days before publication, Assange wrote to the U.S. Ambassador in London seeking help from, quote, United States government to privately nominate any specific instances, record names or numbers, where it considers the publication of information that would put individual persons at significant risk of harm that has not already been addressed. The U.S. responded by demanding that WikiLeaks stop publication of the cables and return those in its possession. In the end, only a redacted version of the state development cables was published in November, 2010 by WikiLeaks and its mainstream partners, The New York Times, The Guardian, El País, Le Monde and Der Spiegel. This remained the case until a book was published by two Guardian journalists in February, 2011 in which the password to the unredacted files mysteriously appears as part of a chapter heading. This went unnoticed as WikiLeaks tried to keep it quiet until a German publication named Freitag said it had the password in August, 2011. When Assange learned this, he contacted the State Department to try to warn them about the impending publication of informant's names. He was rebuffed, and this is shown in a scene in the Laura Fortress' film, Risk. All of the U.S. Department of State Cables we have intelligence that they are about to be put on the web unredacted, not by us. Pirate Bay published the unredacted files first and then Kryptome did on September 1st, 2011. It was the next day that Assange decided to publish the unredacted files so that informants could then search for their names and try to get to safety. This was before it was known that no one was harmed. Quote, the notion that Mr. Assange knowingly put lives at risk by dumping unredacted cables is knowingly inaccurate. That was a quote from Assange lawyer Mark Summers at the extradition hearing in February of 2020. The publishers and editors of WikiLeaks partners opposed Assange's Espionage Act indictment, and on Monday this week wrote an open letter to the Biden administration urging the case be dropped. Having published WikiLeaks classified documents, are these newspapers too ready to take the same step as Young, a U.S. citizen who is daring the Department of Justice to indict him too under the Espionage Act for doing the exact thing Assange and Australian did only earlier? With us now to discuss this is John Young, the founder and publisher of krypton.org. John, thank you very much for joining us. Good. So tell me, why did you do it? Why have you asked the Justice Department to indict you? Well, because I think that it's wrong to blame Assange for publishing an unredacted version. We did it on purpose and that it's unfair to blame him for that. We did it. The other party did it because it was available. He tried hard to not publish an unredacted version so he shouldn't be charged with that. Our version has been downloaded thousands of times since then and there have been any attempt to keep us from publishing this. So I think it's a double standard being used here. And why do you think that the authorities have never gone after you? Never questioned you even about this. I think they're afraid of us. They don't know what we're gonna do next. We're not as disciplined as WikiLeaks is. In fact, we go looking for trouble. We've been increasingly concerned that WikiLeaks has curtailed some of its stuff by working with journalists, outlets who censor information. We have to be a side that does not believe in any kind of censorship at all and no reduction of official secrets. So why do you think they went after WikiLeaks then because they are more careful? I think they're looking at WikiLeaks for more serious issues. I think that they want to take the side down and that's why we like to come to their defense. Why won't they want to take down krypton.org? Because we're not as well known and not as prominent as WikiLeaks. In the extradition hearing, the prosecutor for the U.S. James Lewis basically said that WikiLeaks had greater reach and influence and that was essentially why one reason the U.S. was going after them. So that's what you're saying here too, that their partnership example with these major newspapers gave them that prominence and that's why it damaged the U.S. more than anything you've put out. That's correct. Most governments want to control the media and they offer threats in cities to do. So we're less susceptible to that because we have less to lose. We actually think that journalism is a buying around the world by governments and they offer both threats and continues to obey that. You published many things including exact documents that WikiLeaks did which were classified. So both you and WikiLeaks have published classified materials. Do you think another reason they did not go after you the police or the authorities and why they shouldn't go after Sange is because neither of you have hacked or stolen that information. You were simply the recipients as publishers and traditionally the U.S. government is not prosecuted journalists or publishers. They go after the person who did the theft of the documents and the leak. There was an attempt by FDR in the Second World War but a grand jury stopped the indictment of the Chicago Tribune and Richard Nixon tried to go after the New York Times in the espionage case. He actually impaneled a grand jury in Boston but when it became known that the government had tapped the phone, the FBI had tapped Ellsberg's phone and broke into his psychiatrist office that the case collapsed. But here we see the Obama administration that had an opportunity to indict Sange. In fact, Joe Biden as vice president in December of 2010 on Meet the Press was asked point blank are you going to indict Julian Sange? And he said only if we could prove that Sange took part in the theft of these documents. If it was just handed to him on his lap and he's a journalist, we can't do it. And guess what? The Obama administration did not indict Sange and they cited what they called the New York Times problem. I.e. if they indict a Sange for publishing these documents they have to indict the New York Times for publishing the exact same documents. And I'm asking you now, now Trump was the one of course who did indict a publisher. So are you also saying that Sange shouldn't be indicted because he didn't steal the documents? He like you only received them? Correct. As I think what they're going after WikiLeaks is to threaten the media because he's becoming increasingly embedded with the media and we're not. I think that this is a way to get at the media and intimidate them by going after him. Are you surprised that Biden has kept the charges going? He was part of an administration that refused to indict a Sange. There's been no real additional evidence against a Sange since then and Trump is the one who indicted him. And Biden who wants to undo everything Trump ever did is not undoing this indictment. Is that surprising or trouble you? No, I think this is what governments do. And I think they are in cahoots with the media to exclude the public. I think that they have a common interest and that I think one of the things that both the media and the government agree on is to exclude the public from classified information. We think that's unfair to the public. Why do you think Biden is not dropping the case when he was part of Obama administration? They never started it. It's commonplace for democratic countries to do that. They talk one way and act another. They're in cahoots of course with national security interests. And I think this is a monetary interest on all the way around. I think it's profitable for governments and media to cooperate. Why did you come forward with this now, with this request? I mean, the prosecution, the attempt to extradite sound has been going on for a while now. What was the timing for you? What it has to do with the five major readers coming out and defending publishing rather than journalism. We're a publisher, we're not a journalist outfit. In fact, we've applied to be a journalist and we've always been turned down because we, as they say, don't have regular commercial outlets. And so I think that when they use the term publishing I say, click, that's us. So we'd like to see them on up to being publishers rather than journalists. There's a very big difference. I think that the publishers control journalists by privilege and salaries and prestige. And so I think that it's gonna be an interesting situation to see how you get publishers to own up to their responsibility to the public. Notice it's publishing, not journalism. And so I think they've got a big struggle on their hands between their commercial interests and their public interests. And I expect that you don't expect anybody else who's published these documents to come forward with a similar offer or similar statement. Well, I don't know who else has published a full on redacted version other than just one other party that you mentioned. Certainly none of these five papers have published a full on redacted version. They've only published excerpts of the redacted version. And redaction, of course, to us is a grave public sin. Our motto is no redaction of officials in this period. Sure. Maybe they're more of a bad publishing, but they kept quiet. That's true. However, the New York Times and the other four newspapers published classified material and that's what a soldier is being charged for. In fact, I can't find, although our producer, Kathy Wogan, did find some mention in the statute that harming informants is a crime and revealing the names of an informant is a crime. Certainly it's a crime to reveal the name of an undercover U.S. agent, as we know from the Valerie Plum case very well. As far as informants being revealed, that does not appear in the indictment. All the statutes that Assange allegedly has violated are all listed at the top of the indictment. There's nothing listed there about revealing informants. So while the Times and the Guardian and LeMond, et cetera, never published the names of the unredacted files, they did publish classified material. Why isn't the government going after them? Because they're highly selective in what they publish. They do not publish full documents. They always carefully craft documents and they admit consulting with governments about what they're gonna publish before they publish. And so I think that Assange's attempt to coordinate what he's gonna publish with the State Department and hooked him into the trap. But if you read the language of the Espionage Act, anyone, even consortium news, or I would say thousands of people watching this right now who have emailed a WikiLeaks document to someone else or quoted from it in a tweet, they have essentially violated the Espionage Act because the government still considers that material classified, even if the whole world has read them now for years. So you said selective publication, but this is selective prosecution by the government, isn't it? Yes, it is. And they're using WikiLeaks notoriety to advance their message. They don't go after small fraud. They actually go after big fraud because they want to leverage. And it usually works, by the way. And so the question is what, you know, I'll be kind of paranoid and say, well, I wonder what these five publishers get out of this from governments by doing it this way. I think the fact that they're using the term publishing rather than journalism is to give away. I think that needs to be looked at more carefully. I think there are a lot of journalists out there who are now wondering, you notice that the Times has admitted that newsroom was not involved in this decision to make this revelation. I think the journalists now are gonna be in some interesting discussion between publishers and journalists as to who's getting the benefit of this. You know, journalists are on a great risk around the world, publishers less so. But the isolated journalist is the one who actually takes the hit using publishers, go to the same clubs as government officials do. So I think it's a troublesome, if you start looking to journalism to advance your own interest, to publicize what you're doing, you're starting to get very close to a fast end deal. Speaking of that letter now, they specifically point out that they don't agree with the Espionage Act indictment, but they kind of agree with the conspiracy to commit computer intrusion charge. So they are still, they are trying to say there that they think that Assange is possibly guilty or is guilty of having hacked a government computer to get these files. Now, if you read the indictment itself, it states clearly that Chelsea Manning had security clearance for every document that she gave to WikiLeaks. Number two, it was clear that she had already given most of this material to Assange before this conversation that Chelsea Manning had with someone at WikiLeaks has never been positively identified as Assange about getting more materials sent to her. And we know that the Trump administration tried to trump up the indictment on the computer intrusion charge by saying that Assange made speeches calling on hackers to get material and give it to him. Now, the founder of our website, the late Robert Parry wrote in December 2010 right at the beginning of all of this that he, as an investigative reporter, and of course he's very well known for the Iran Contra stories that he broke, including revealing the name of Oliver North, that he encouraged his sources to break a law, which is to release classified material in order to prevent a larger crime from being committed. In other words, commit a crime to stop a larger crime from being committed. I want to know what do you think about that part of the letter of the newspapers where they are still saying that they're not defending him or asking that the charges, the computer charges be dropped? And this is really the linchpin of the government's attack on Julian Assange. Because without that, as Biden said in that Meet the Press interview, without proving that he hadn't got involved in stealing the documents, they don't really have a case against him because even though the Espionage Act would allow that, it's a clear conflict with the First Amendment. What did you make of that when the newspapers basically said that, well, did not call for the computer charges to be dropped? I think that this has come out of the negotiation between these publishers and their governments, I think they've got a deal in the works. Some reporters have admitted that they knew that kind of thing goes on between publishers, attorneys and the government. They don't get into details. They say, yeah, actually we're finding our advice by our attorney, we can do this, but we can't do that. So there's deal making. And I think that is what Assange was going on. It's a real making going on and he was trying to get a deal made with the State Department, but he just didn't have the kind of clouds these five newspapers had. So I think that that is an interesting question to pursue is that what were they trying to do? In fact, I don't know what these five publishers are trying to accomplish by their late coming to the game. What is it they want to get out of this? Because it's very late and I think that they are trying to get something going on their own behalf, not because of Julian Assange, but for their own purposes. For example, Martin Gelman has talked about the long discussions opposed and their attorney had with him about what the publisher of the Snowden material and says it's very contorted discussion is going on. And that usually it's the editor in the publisher and the attorney who makes to find the decision and in cooperation with government. So they are deal making. So I think that Biden, Trump, all of them are our deal makers. So I think this question needs to be asked is what's going on here now? That's one of the reasons we'd like to get involved. We're not part of any of that deal making and we'll bite them in the ass if they try with us. Thing is, is that we have no leverage, but except for public exposure. But we certainly know that there are a number of unknown, unnamed people who are actually out there that don't have the kind of public for some of it Assange does. I'm afraid he got into a very fast deal with the publishing machine that he geared up on. He's also gotten pretty wealthy in the process. But that's why we split company back in the startup with Felix and he made a statement about wanting to make money out of linkage. We pulled out a 10 point. So I'm sorry to say that the commercial interests are very powerful here. I think you referenced something important and that was the early association between yourself and Wikileaks. Can you talk a little bit more about that? Well, as you may know that Assange asked me to be the registrar of the domain name. Yeah. Without identifying who he was. So I agree because I've done that for several other people. We've never tried to hide who we are what our identity is. So we did and a private email list was set up for the early participants. You may know I published all that later on after we had a falling out. But the falling out was over his desire to raise a million dollars as soon as possible. So I think that his interest actually was commercial from the beginning. And because we are, me and my partner are practicing architects. We don't do this with the income. A lot of these people who are involved in the leak industry, journalism industry it's their source of income as well. So it was a separate event. So it's an open question. It's how do you do it if your whole livelihood is being put at risk? And I think that's a hard question to answer. We encourage people to not ever reveal to us who they are unless they want to. Now you know his manning was burned by a friend of his. He was also trying to remain anonymous. So we caution people about how you can submit material to us without identifying who you are because all these sites like ours are watched all the time. WikiLeaks has turned into a gigantic honey pot. We warned early in our days that we would be a honey pot whether we know it or not. You know the vast industry who can watch whatever we're doing particularly those who are dealing with leaks. So all the major media are watched as well. These various secure drops and other programs to protect submissions don't work. We learned that on the cyber function is how to help porous everything that's going over the internet is to these folks who set it up. So anonymity is very hard to come by. Yeah, when you say they don't work what do you mean by that? How is it that they don't work? I mean without getting too technical. Well, it's that the internet has a technology that makes everything get fast over it accessible to those who have hands on the strings of the operation of the internet. You can't do anything over there that can't be tracked and traced. Encryption really puts some lipstick on it but it doesn't keep people from following what you're doing. And it's hard to get people to believe because they enjoy the internet so much which is very seductive apparatus and so that they tend to be unguarded and really don't want to hear about this. They think it's just fear mongering. So we have a fairly long list on one of our trials that describes what you might do to avoid ever being tracked. It's a mini test and it's a multi-level steps but it's not the kind of thing that WikiLeaks does when they promise anonymity. It's a tough one because of course it's copying of the phone system, telegraph system, radio system but none of these technologies are free of surveillance. What we're doing right now is, if you give a damn, it's being watched. Now you mentioned being practicing architect too. What prompted you initially to found crypto? We were on the cyber-functionist and it was interesting that discussion when the first mailness we were on there's a whole new world for us as architects who we actually just leapt into because we saw an magazine article and wired and just took part and it turned out we had equipment to scan hard copy. So we started scanning hard copy and posting articles, things like that. And the more we did that, the more we got sent hard copy of classified and unclassified material which we scanned and put up. Because we're not scanners, we're not common at the time. We use it in our architectural practice for drawings and so we had the equipment on hand and we still got tons of stuff that we were never able to get around the scanning. So a lot of the material is still in hard copy form. That was one of the ways it was secured was in hard copy form. But once it gets digitized, it's out there. And as you know, now scanners will will rat on you along with printers and computers. But there's still some hopes on me there's some good stuff going on out there but I think that in the end I think that more members of the public like us can and there are dozens of people doing what Cripton sorted out doing. We're now putting stuff up on our own and not using journalism as an outlet to set up websites to do their own stuff. So there's people doing stuff now like one site that publishes nothing but CIA also names. For as I know, that person's never been indicted. One of the most sacred things are the names of spies and he's got hundreds of them up. So there's some latitude that's going on. So right now I think that one of the interesting things that USG would like as well as others they'd love to make a special out of WikiLeaks. I think they'd like to be as much interested as they can, will help a matter if we can. As I think that they'd like to be like showpiece and I think they'd see WikiLeaks and like a number of these, WikiLeaks sucked in dozens of journalists outlets who also want that attention. So I think that the USG would love to have a trial with the Sange. They got a pretty good head of steam up in Britain but I think they'd like more. So I think they're gonna, I think that's probably what D.O. has been co-produced with the five publishers. I think they want a public scene about this. Great, bring it on. I will probably get dumped at some point because I'm a small fry. But as I sent to Joe and his colleague this morning or yesterday, well, we've also sent letter to the judge in a case asking for, let us come in, we'll see what happens. So right now we'll use your public forum rather than hire a lawyer to do this. We'll see if he'll let us in or not. What judge was that that you contacted, Joe? The judge in charge of the Wicke-Leaks prosecution, Hilton, this is his name, Virginia Eastern. You mean the US Attorney Gordon Cromberg you're talking about, right? Who? Gordon Cromberg, he's the US Attorney that is leading. There's no judge he had assigned to this case. He hasn't been extradited. Well, it's the judge in charge of the charges against the Sange in the US. Hilton, H-I-L-T-O-N. Okay, and you want to do what? You want to, what do you want to do with this judge? I want to come to the court and be a participant. I see, if he gets extradited. I'd like to be a defendant. You want to be defended in the trial in Alexandria, Virginia if he gets extradited here because you have also possessed classified material. You disseminated it. You even published your unredacted files and they're only going after the Sange. And by the way, it's a very highly principled thing you've done. Another thing that you said that you, or at least the Forbes interview that they conducted with you some time ago, mentioned that you released the names of CIA agents. Is that true? Some, not nearly as many as a site called Crypto-Com-C-O-M-B which does nothing but publish CIA agents names. So we've used some of that material we publish a lot of British spies. We publish a lot of Japanese spies names. Those that come our way, we publish, we love to publish spies names. By the way, they don't seem to mind. They don't seem to mind. Why don't they seem to mind? They don't like being undercover. They get bored stiff. They get treated like shit if they're undercover. Other bosses, the bosses love publicity. They get treated like shit just like journalists are. But I mean, it could expose these people to risk. So speaking about exposing people to risk, if you name a undercover agent. The names are well known by their opponents. Yeah. They swap names. They share names. Spies are in cahoots around the world. Well, the fact they didn't do anything to you, maybe that proves what you just said to be true. Now you earlier said that WikiLeaks was trying to make a deal with the State Department was unable to. Can you elaborate a little bit on that? Well, I'm just quoting what I've read. And he said, Sons claims he was trying to set up a discussion with State Department one about how to redact names. But then after he heard that the unredacted version was out there, he tried to warn them that it was out there and they should be prepared for it. But I believe that they were trying to set up a way to agree on what names to redact before the full unredacted version was out there. Now that's my best recollection. Well, then you have no problem with that to you or you do. You don't believe in redaction you said earlier, right? Well, I think WikiLeaks has had such wonderful effect on the public discourse that I don't want to nitpick this, but yeah, I'm concerned about their dealing with authorities. But I'm concerned with all these well-known journalists who cut deals and their publishers with the authorities post-times, John Gordian have all cut deals with their governments. Usually under pressure they are. So they say it's under pressure. I don't know if they're under pressure. I guess it's just part of how things work. Okay, now. But I also think that many of their journalist partners insisted that they do this. I think 40 or 60 people that they list as their journalist parties, I think wanted them to consult with the US government. So they will not be put at risk by publishing this material. And yet something you won't do, okay. Now, you earlier said that, if I heard correctly, that do you believe WikiLeaks is motivated by money or commercial interests, not transparency? Is that what you said? Well, it's a big thing that Saan just talked about, yeah. And it can be lucrative, apparently. They've had an enormous success in raising funds. The more trouble they're in, the more funds they raise. Now, this is just stuff I get off the internet. I don't know, they're actually pretty guarded about their funds. But at least there's some pretty large numbers that are kicked around. Right, but if someone was setting out to make money at one point in their lives, it's kind of risky to put out classified material and maybe risk indictment and extradition exactly as Julian Assange is risking right now. Why would the, certainly transparency was part of their motivation, if not the main one, isn't it? Well, classified material is very valuable. And so that Assange said it's gold and diamonds to some people, even if they're fake. And you can still fill, sell fake classified information. And as you know, all the spies overclassify on purpose in order to, it's like baiting for fish to classify something as top secret. So the money, but weakly access raise is not a byproduct of their work to try to reveal government secrets and uncover crimes, et cetera. You're saying it was really their prime motive. Well, it was a point that Assange made in these private mail lists, yeah. He used the term a million dollars. Do you think that that also would have gone to something like legal fees that are necessary when you do get the level of publicity and pushback that they were getting at that time? It's possible, but at the time he was trying to recruit people to his cause. And it worked. You know, it's still a powerful perfume. Money is still a powerful perfume to all of us. I mean, we make our money through in the practice of architecture. And so we're familiar with commercial activities. You make your own journalism. I assume which of you are journalists and which are publishers? How about the one we're speaking to now? We're journalists and our publisher is a nonprofit foundation to consortium for independent journalism. Yeah. And so you raise money for your consortium. I don't want to get diverted, but that it's a factor that we all have to fix. Yeah, but it's only funded by readers and we have no advertising whatsoever. We take no money from governments, corporations, et cetera. But I'll motive is publishing journalism and we hope that the public likes it enough to give us money to continue doing it. And so far they have. But our motive isn't making money. I would have gone into banking. I'm not journalism, believe me. If I wanted to make money. Or dentistry or something like that. It's not what I chose to do. So if you get rewarded for good work, especially by the public and not having to compromise at all, because we have our readers span the entire political spectrum. We have right, left, center, all kinds of people read us and donate to us. So that shows us we're not catering to any particular political camp, by the way. Godspeed and good luck. I appreciate that. Tell me, why did you decide to testify at the subject tradition hearing? And were you initially trying to do that by video or they only asked for written statement? I was curious about that. In Britain, they asked for a written statement. I did not go to London. They asked me to send this over. They coached me and how to write it and what to say. And so I did that and sent it over and they really read it in the court. I was hoping to get a shot at going to London, but I didn't get it. Yeah. No, no, I was going to London because it was the pandemic then, but they did video testimony. Like Dan Ellsberg did testimony from California. Yeah. To the courtroom live, which we saw on the hookup. But there were several people who only did written statements. And that was impressive. And what you've done is impressive. No, there's that scene. I put it at the end of the article I wrote about you. That's seen from Spartacus when. They're all captured and saying the commander demands to, who is Spartacus, please stand up. And of course they all stand up. I was reminded of what you're doing here. You're basically saying, I'm Julian Assange. And you think that the New York Times should stand up and say that. Yeah. You're going to be part of this party and then there's Spiegel and anybody else who has done exactly what Assange did. Publish. I sort of don't want to call myself Assange. We're still competitors. He's got better hair than me. And then a generation younger. So, but I'm surprised at the outpouring of support for what we're doing. get about three retweets of our stuff. So the Spartacus thing is interesting, but you know that the hoard of people who are assigned supporters, we're not one of them. We're supporters of WikiLeaks, but we're not a fan of assigned. I think he's harmed WikiLeaks, but I don't want to get into that. They say, I will speak my own say, but I do think that if we can give him a hand from this jam, he's gotten himself in. He is pretty good at getting himself in jams fine, but I'm in the U.S., I'm ready to go to Washington. I want to reach out and Washington, New York is boring. Nothing happens in New York City. I mean, politically, but right. So basically it's the principle. I mean, you don't have to love Julian Assange to stand up for the principle that he should not go to jail or stay in jail for publishing truthful information. And clearly, as you said, they want to make an example of him and they want the trial. Some people believe they don't want the trial on Alexandria would be a media circus, but you think the government does want this trial to send a message. How do you expect the major newspapers to cover this? After the letter they put out, but as you pointed out, that was from the publishers, not the newsroom. So they're not going to... I've been watching a journalist comment on one of these publisher statements. They're kind of like a quiet critique going on because even the major bosses let them make some of these statements and they're wondering, well, where does that leave us? So we'll see what comes up when the journalist will bite the hand that treats them. But no, let me just say more than one important thing. Assange should not be in jail. That's cruel and unfair treatment. There's no need for him to be in jail. I think that's just pure, well, bad shit. Either you've been in jail. I'm just happy to say. Except for a couple of hours once on the Paris train station, but everyone go into that. So I think this is a water body. I think it's cruel in your main treatment. So yeah, they should let him out and do whatever they're going to do to him, but not keep him in jail. But I think he's going to be interested to see if what... I've not heard from DOJ. I don't expect to hear from them any time soon, but I'm pretty persistent. We'll see what other people do. Send them a letter. Anyone can send a letter. But there's a form on the DOJ website. You can send your message. Tell them to fuck off her. I'm ready to come to DC. Do you want to be live? I don't know what they do with them. Maybe they don't read them. Well, that's an interesting call because, as I said, anyone who's ever shared a WikiLeaks document online or with their friends or printed it out is possessing and disseminating classified information. So we could all stand forward and say, and died us, too. Yeah. Welcome. Thank you very much, John Young, for joining us on CN Live today to discuss this issue. And we look forward to perhaps talking to you again. OK, thank you. That's your note book. If you are a consumer of independent news, then the first place you should be going to is Consortium News. And please do try to support them when you can. It doesn't have its articles behind a paywall. It's free for everyone. It's one of the best news sites out there and it's been in the business of independent journalism and adversarial independent journalism for over two decades. I hope that with the public's continuing support of Consortium News, it will continue for a very long time to come. Thank you so much.