 Hi everyone, welcome to the Assange extradition and the war on journalism hosted by popular resistance. This webinar and press conference is an important update and discussion of the extradition trial of Julian Assange and the threat that it poses to the freedom of press in the United States and across the globe. I'm Susan Udry, I go by Sue and my pronouns are she, her. I'm the executive director of a civil liberties group called defending rights and dissent. We work to protect our right to know what our government is up to and the freedom to take action when the government is screwing up. The US government's prosecution of Julian Assange poses an extraordinary threat to our democracy and free press. And I applaud the organizers of this event who have assembled for us an all-star panel that is uniquely qualified to help us understand the context, the process and the danger of this trial. One of those organizers Kevin Zeese passed away on Sunday. He was a friend and a comrade to me and a driving force in the progressive movement for 40 years. All of us who knew him and had the pleasure of working alongside him are devastated. We invite you to join us for an online tribute to Kevin on Saturday, September 19th at 3pm Eastern time. We'll put the info in the zoom chat and on the Facebook page. So we're joined today by Dan Ellsberg, James Goodale and Christopher Hedges to talk about the Assange extradition trial. James Goodale is the former vice chairman of the New York Times and author of Fighting for the Press, the inside story of the Pentagon paper and other battles, which was twice named as the best nonfiction year book of the year. In 1971, he led the team of lawyers defending the New York Times from being enjoined under the Espionage Act for publishing the Pentagon papers. His team won. Thank goodness. So James, what does what does the Assange trial mean for journalists and press freedoms in the US? Well, everyone should understand that the government has been thirsting for over 50 years to bring this criminal action against those who are performing journalistic functions. 50 years ago, it tried to stop the times from publication lawyers call that a civil case. If thereafter tried to bring a criminal case, very much like the Assange case, in which it was trying to show that Ellsberg conspired with the New York Times reporters to violate the criminal laws of the United States naming the Espionage Act. Now, they gave up on that case. It disappeared. But now 50 years later, it's reemerged. What the government wants to prove is that when a reporter tries to get a leak by talking to a leaker, he as a leaky can be criminally convicted of a conspiracy for talking to a source. So what's involved here is a criminalization of the basic journalistic function, which is a reporter. He tries to get a source for information and thereafter is able to publish it. If that source has classified information and is leaking it. The government is saying they both go to jail. I would say there is one other similarity with the Pentagon Papers case which turned out to have a lot of who we in it. The government made this seem very important, but it wasn't. It was stuff that had already been published the New York Times. The government does not have a case here really against Assange for publishing information that violates national security. The information informed the public he published. It did not damage national security. The government can show no damage to national security in this case, and indeed can show that no individual was damaged by this publication. So keep in mind that this is the other side of the Pentagon Papers case that was never decided. But the information that's involved in it is no more important in terms of damage to national security as it was in the first instance. Thank you so much, James. So I want to turn now to you, Dan Ellsberg. You're one of the witnesses for the defense in Assange's trial. I think you were supposed to testify today, but it got put off. I'm sure you don't need an introduction. Dan is the courageous whistleblower who exposed the truth of the Vietnam War to the American people via the Pentagon Papers in 1971. Dan, can you talk a little bit about what you're, when you do testify, what points you'll be raising for the defense in the Assange trial? I need to talk more to the lawyers than they've had a chance to do yet. Exactly is how what they want me to bring out for the benefit of the judge. In this case, there's no jury talking to a judge here to try to convince her that she should not extradite Julian Assange to the United States. And the stakes here are such that if the United States can extradite and prosecute Julian Assange, or someone like Julian Assange, a foreigner to the United States, living abroad, who has revealed true information and true documents, then no journalist in the world is who wants to publish information like that provided by Chelsea Manning or Ed Snowden is safe from the prospects of life imprisonment in the United States. Thus, this directly affects the interest, not just of the reporters, but the interest they serve, which is the possibility of democracy in various places, which is threatened very much in this country right now. They want to close down, in other words, unauthorized disclosures, meaning that the news we have of what our government is doing in our name, tax money, and to other people in the world is based entirely on government handouts, as it is in some places in the world, like I take in China or Stalinist Russia, the end of a republic essentially of any kind of public sovereignty. Now, as I follow the tweets on this by Kevin Gastola, and Joe Laurie of Consortium News, Craig Murray and some others, I'm forced to relive a trial, my trial, that I hoped not to have to think about ever again. And so I wore at the end of my trial to almost two years in court that I would never write a word about it, and I never have, because I just couldn't bear to relive it again, and I can understand very well. Julian's feelings when just yesterday, he expostulated, you know, this is nonsense, or other times they'll want to say, this is a lie as he hears these things, and having to bottle up those feelings for a matter of months, this is an experience I didn't want to think about, or relive again, very stressful. But the judge warned him, of course, in this case that he would be expelled from the courtroom if he did that again. So, the point is that I was the first to face the charges that he's now faced with, alleged violations of the Espionage Act, and in his case computer cases, which didn't exist my day. And the reason for that, that I was the first was not that there had been no leaks before that, every other day there had been leaks and important ones very constantly. But that we don't have an official secrets act, such as is in the minds I'm sure of the judge and the prosecutors as I read them, they take for granted that the law in the United States is equivalent to that of the British, the official secrets act, which criminalizes any revelation of protecting information, information, whatever the purpose, whatever the target, no question of motive, or certain stances or public benefit. It's just all criminal. And we don't have such an act in this country, because we have a First Amendment, which they don't. I don't think I've ever seen it said exactly, but the British official secrets act would surely not pass constitutional muster under the First Amendment in this country. I'm saying even with this for this Supreme Court. Well, you can't say what they would put five people on the same. But certainly when I was facing it, it was clear that that would be a violation, the act would be a violation of our First Amendment which forbids restraint on the on the press and on information. But nevertheless, starting with my case, for I as a session of administrations has tried you or has used the espionage act intended for spies who give secret information to a foreign powers, especially an enemy in time of war, and don't have much of a public interest defense to rely on. So the lack of it is not a terrible violation of their rights. But to apply that force not meant to to whistleblowers who are trying to reveal wrongdoing or information that the public has a right to know and should know, and that has been wrongfully withheld from them. To apply that and not only to apply it but in the sense of a strict liability law where they can't even explain their motives and the reasons that led them to believe reasonably that this information was wrongfully withheld and the secrecy was dangerous and was causing harm and lives. I couldn't argue that at all I was not allowed to say to my jury. Answer the question, why did you copy the Pentagon papers and after trying a number of times to get that question through in different ways. Well being said to the judge Matthew Byrne, who unknown to us had been offered the post of the FBI, if you got the trial through expeditiously and with the right effect. And I think the right effect did not allow him to see an acquittal of me on 12 felony counts, all of them. But we didn't know that. And otherwise I would have said we had a fair trial up to that point with a very intelligent judge. And the lawyer said your honor I've never heard of a trial where the defendant could not tell the jury why he had done what he did. And the trial and the judge said, you're hearing one now. And at that point I'd see a full implications of that right away. But for the last 50 years I've had to reflect. No, I didn't get a fair trial. It's not available to me under these charges. And it wouldn't be available to Julian and it hasn't been available to any of the people that have been tried since one 10 years after me that long because they were so aware of the unconstitutionality of this process, but they tried it again 10 years later. And in another 10 years or so went by Obama with a historical record then have three prosecutions before him prosecuted nine people under this and Trump has done even more. And what's new now is that for the first time, they are attempting to use it against not just a former official who signed a secrecy agreement, which he's violating, which I violated a promise that I broke, because I felt it had been wrong for me to promise in these circumstances. Okay, the civil who's never made such a promise is not an official a journalist protected by the First Amendment, freedom of the press is now for the first time, actually being indicted as James Goodell said earlier, they set out to indict the New York Times, in my case but backed off on that. So this is the first actual indictment. And if it succeeds, there won't be anything left of the First Amendment with respect to reporting on what the government defines as national security. And that really means their personal bureaucratic interest security their political security, what not everything that gets stamped with a secrecy stamp. So the public's ability to hold public officials accountable in this best field of military matters and national security will be essentially mill, except for heroes who are prepared to go to jail for life. He Julian is facing 175 years in prison. I only faced 115. So we can see that things have deteriorated, aside from the fact that he is a journalist. This should be of the immediate concern, not personally, not only personally, but for their profession and the role they play in our country for every journalist, and they have not yet awakened to that they've been in a state of denial. And I would say for 50 years, as to the threat that was hanging over their head. Well, that threat is now directly confronting them. So I hope that people will follow this and the lawyer and the journalists will at last make themselves aware of the constitutional aspects of this project. Thank you so much, Dan. And I think it's true. The First Amendment is the foundation. I don't know if I'm echoing for everybody or not. The First Amendment is really the foundation of our democracy. And so Chris Hedges, I wanted to turn to you. Chris Hedges is a longtime activist and rabble rouser. He's also a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and a New York Times bestselling author and television host. But Chris, the impact of these attempts to prosecute and whistleblowers under the Espionage Act have implications actually far beyond press freedom and First Amendment. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that and what are your concerns about this trial? I want to echo, of course, everything that James and Dan said about what this will mean for press freedom. But I also want to highlight how there has been, from the moment Julian was charged, a kind of gross distortion of the rule of law itself, in order to carry out what is in essence an illegal activity, an assault against the First Amendment, an assault against journalism. You had the United States pressure, the President of Ecuador, Lenin Moreno, to terminate Julian Assange's rights of asylum as a political refugee. Then you had Moreno be pressured again by the United States. He got a large IMF loan after this to authorize British police to enter the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. This is diplomatically sanctioned sovereign territory to arrest Julian's in Australia, but he's also a naturalized citizen of Ecuador. You had then Prime Minister Theresa May authorize the police to kidnap and hold Julian, who's never been, never committed a crime. And then you had Trump demand his extradition, although, as was mentioned, he's not a US citizen and WikiLeaks is not a US based news organization. And then in the trial itself. So they had the first indictment. This was in March 2018. January 2019, they had a provisional request for extradition that was implemented with Assange's removal from the embassy in April of that year. And then in June of 2019. This was replaced by a second indictment, which was supposed to be the basis of the current proceedings. And so all of the hearings up until now, I had taken place on the basis of the second indictment. So then what did the United States do. They were worried that they would not be able to extradite him under the espionage acts so they wrote a superseding indictment that dated from June 20. So the hearings kept going based on the second indictment. And the defense was never properly informed about this superseding indictment they only learned about its existence through a press release last June. And then they were only officially served. I think the end of July that was about six weeks ago. What we've seen in essence is that the United States government through this superseding indictment has changed the charges leveled against Julian and the new charges that don't depend on the earlier allegations have nothing to do with the espionage act. They are about stealing data from a bank and from the government of Iceland about passing on information on tracking police vehicles hacking the computers of a security firm, helping Edward Snowden escape to Hong Kong, although a son was never charged with this crime. In charging that assigned encouraged people to hack computers track police vehicles in Iceland, etc. So what they've done is essentially create a whole series of new charges that without any real evidence that are in fact criminal to push through the extradition and then of course he will be charged. Without doubt, if he is extradited under the 17 counts of the espionage act and the account of attempting to break into a government computer which is 175 years but I think that that those kinds of details illustrate how the rule of law itself has been distorted and ignored and trampled on in order to push through this case so it's not just that we are looking at an assault against the First Amendment rights of a journalist or I would call Julian a publisher to publish this material, but we're seeing I think a very frightening kind of erosion within the British and American courts of the rule of law itself. Thank you so much. Um, so, so that concludes our opening statements and I'd like to open this. This press conference slash webinar to questions from the media. Hello. Hi. Hi, my name is Gabriella Vivancon from Blauera newspaper and Ecuador and my question is regarding the involvement of Ecuador's government and if there is any actual evidence that the change of policy regarding Mr. Assange with the Lenin Moreno's government and with the IMF loans that the country has been getting if there is any either evidence or stronger correlation between the policy and the and the fact that Mr. Assange was allegedly granted citizenship under circumstances which is what the government says. Let me talk about what I know since I made those charges. There's absolute evidence that the United States began to put heavy pressure on Lenin Moreno to push Assange out. Michael Penn, the Vice President made a trip there. The IMF loan was clearly held up. US officials admitted as a kind of reward for compliance. And, you know, what actually took place within the highest levels of the Ecuadorian government. I don't know. You might know. But I do know that there was a lot of pressure put on Moreno by the US government to facilitate the seizure of Assange within on sovereign Ecuador and territory in London. And of course we had preceding that April seizure a series of harassing moves that were carried. Life became exceedingly difficult for Julian inside the embassy. They cut his visitors. They cut access to the internet. They, there was, I mean, they were what they were really trying to do is kind of push him out on his own volition. And that didn't work. And so they allowed the British police to go in. But that the United States put a lot of pressure on Moreno and that that IMF loan came through once Moreno was willing to hand Julian over is fact. We've got a couple of questions that came in through the Q&A function of Zoom. And one person is asking whether or not you feel that Julian's health should be a factor in extradition consideration. Well, I can, I can add to that generally because there is some law in the English expedition cases that reflects the fact that the health of the person being extradited should be taken into consideration, which shouldn't surprise anybody. And also there is material in the British extradition cases that allows the extraditing judge to consider the conditions of confinement once the person has been extradited. So the health of Julian, which has been stated to not be very good at all has to be taken into consideration by this judge. In theory, the prison conditions of the United States should be a factor two. We all know that the prison population in the United States is at an all time high as and has been increasing over at least a decade. And I said to introduce this statement in theory, because I'm not sure for what I can see of the actions of the court, whether this will be of interest to the court, but to that, yes, is the answer. Thanks, James. Anybody else want to chime in on that. Well, the conditions of his confinement seemed to have been outrageous here for the time that he's been in England. Why he's held in isolation. And of course there's some benefit to that in the pandemic now I suppose, but in general the idea that he continues to be in isolation. This is a man who hasn't been out in the sun for how many years, close to nine years, I would say. And when I saw him in England, he was already had great trouble with his shoulder, which he's still complaining of according to his partner, and his teeth condition, which required examinations that couldn't be made in the Ecuadorian prison. I'm not aware that he's ever gotten the medical attention that he really needs. I understand that almost 200 doctors have said that his conditions require, you know, it's wrong for him to be in the conditions that he's been in and it should be, even while being detained, should be get the hospital care that he needs. So they're torturing him as two successive rapporteurs for the UN for torture and inhumane conditions have each judged along with many other doctors and lawyers. They're called conditions that amount to torture, or as he put it at the very least, to inhumane conditions altogether that's violating that. I would say that as somebody put it, if he dies, which could very possibly be the case in prison, he will have been tortured to death. And that's a, I suspect, actually, in these prolonged proceedings that the United States would be very happy to see him die before he ever gets to air his issues in a court. They prefer that. So, Britain is showing up very badly under these circumstances under these conditions and serves great protest. Thank you, Dan. There's a question for you, Chris. What real chance do you feel that Julian actually has of the British government not extraditing him? Close to zero. That doesn't mean we shouldn't fight as hard as we can. And there's always that slim chance that we can win. I sued Barack Obama in 2012 over section 1021 of the Natural Defense Authorization Act, which in essence overturned the 1878 Posit Kamatatas Act, which prohibits the government from using the US military as a police force. No one thought we would win. The lawyers, Bruce Afron and Karl Mair didn't think we were going to win. Dan joined us as a plaintiff in this case, along with Noam Chomsky and others. And in fact, Catherine B. Forrest in the Southern District Court of New York ruled in our favor and issued a temporary injunction, which was overturned by the Second Circuit. So I think we, when we carried out that action, it was to bring it to light, to bring the egregious violation of law in the same way that I think all of us are attempting to shine a spotlight on the persecution, unjust persecution and evisceration of law, which has been used against Julian. But I mean, honestly, especially watching Beritzer in this court with her, who is, I sat in on the last hearing in London and I was going, except for COVID, I would have been there, although now, of course, nobody's getting in the courtroom. They had 40 spots for journalists and they were all shunted aside to another room where the audio, they couldn't hear the court proceedings through the audio, that wasn't accidental. I have British press credentials through the National Union of Journalists. I should be, have been given a link. I requested one as a member of the British press and I was just denied a link. There were 16 journalists who were allowed to listen yesterday and it's in and out. So I think the British government is working very hard to hide this kind of Dickensian farce that it's undergoing because it's an embarrassment. And there's no, first of all, there's a conflict of interest with the judge herself, because her husband is part of the defense industry. And, and so, you know, you'd have to be extremely naive to think that somehow this is a real trial or a real judicial process as Dan mentioned in his own case. It's a lynching. But that doesn't mean that, you know, we have to fight for all the reasons James pointed out. The consequences of this and I speak of someone who published classified information on the front pages of the New York Times. The consequences of this are truly, truly terrifying. And I can't stress that enough as as a journalist. Thank you. There's a few questions from people who are who are jumping ahead, also feeling that that this trial is a sham and that he will be extradited. He'll face trial here in the United States then. And people want to know kind of two questions. First on the personal question about Julian Assange himself, what sort of if he is convicted, particularly under the Espionage Act, what sort of rights of appeal does he have. But then also, if he is extradited and found guilty, then then what happens to political journalism as a profession? Will this type of news no longer exist? Will it somehow go underground? What's on the horizon? You know, the best person to answer this is James, but just let me before he does say that in many ways that's already happened. Because of the wholesale surveillance, and I know because I did investigative reporting for the New York Times I have friends who still do it. Government officials are terrified to talk. And this was really Obama. They're terrified to talk because they know that they can be charged under the Espionage Act. And so in many ways, it's only those people who hack into systems. People like Chelsea man, people like Jeremy Hammond who hacked into Stratford, the private security firm, and dumped I think 5 million emails, which by the way we used in our trial challenging section 1021 of the National Defense Authorization Act, because it showed private security firms and Homeland Security officials, actively trying to tie dissident American groups, not not not talking about like Al Qaeda or anything but just dissident American groups to Islamic terrorists as a way to use some laws to go after them. So I'll let I'll let James, you know, deal with the legal aspect of that but I think it's important to know that there's always been already been a terrible chilling effect on the ability of investigative journalists to shine a light into the inner workings of power. James do you want to add to that. I want to reiterate what the government is trying to do is close the loop, which is half open half closed, because as Dan points out, even under Obama there have been multiple prosecutions of sources leakers, which never happened before when Dan and I started off in this world. 50 years ago, it never happened. It's now happened and there are multiple examples of the government criminalizing leaking. The question before the extradition court and for the referring court back if indeed this case goes back to the United States is you can, can you close the loop and make the receipt of the leak also criminal. Because the leakers know of the prosecutions. It is my experience but it's not the same as Chris of course that leaks have dried up so you can expect that if they close the loop, it's going to be very difficult for them to continue making to exist because it would just be too dangerous for everybody for everybody with respect to the second part of the question, can it be appealed the action, if any, in the United States. You know it's not clear whether the question is an appeal of the extradition proceeding or an appeal if you were to lose back in the United States. It may be the latter, and I'm not an expert on the human rights law of the of Europe but my understanding will be attempts to appeal should the extradition be ordered through the human rights procedures that are available to us on in Europe, with respect to the question of an appeal. There's a hypothetical and hypothetical of a loss in a court in the United States the Supreme Court of the United States, obviously yes. Question then becomes what do you think this court will do. I'm not optimistic. This Supreme Court will do I'm not optimistic that they would be as favorable as our court was 50 years ago towards leaking. Yeah. Thank you James. Did you want to jump in there Dan. I have another question I'd like to ask James that I see a question from somebody here and I like to ask James on this. I don't understand how this is going on with the lawyers unable to confer to a full extent with their defendant with their client. I think the lawyer said yesterday that they hadn't seen him for months and had talked to him on the phone and a very bad connection only a couple of times. They, they delayed the court for 530 minutes yesterday to allow them to talk to their client apparently for the first time, at least one of the lawyers had never met him before. What's going on here I don't see how this can be illegal process. I don't know what's going on because I'm not there. All I know is what I read. And by the way, my client here is not Julian Assange is the first amendment so I'm not in contact necessarily with the Assange defense team so my knowledge is based on what I, what I read and I, what I read is that there's no due process in this that for months, the lawyers could not get to Assange when he was in prison. He is a furthermore or was I'm not sure what happened today or yesterday in the trial, but was, can you believe it in a glass cage in the courtroom. Let's not forget that it seems to me, I get angry just thinking about it being a lawyer who wants to talk with his defendant. As the case goes on, and he can't because the defendant in this case is in a glass cage or was in a courtroom can you believe them anything as primitive as that. So, Mr. Mr Assange is not a terrorist. He is a representative of a new breed of intellectual that have come to for because of the digital revolution, whose intellect is into digitalization, a subject I don't understand very well but he's not somebody who uses his hands to murder people. He uses his hands to access information and to take someone who's intellectually inclined or in any event and put that person in the glass cage, not make him available to his lawyers is absolutely primitive. Yes, thank you and that that kind of reminds me Chris I was I was rereading the interview that you did with Assange back in I think 2013 you traveled over to the Ecuadorian Embassy and you opened that that article talking about just the surveillance and the the militarized presence of the police around the Ecuadorian Embassy as if you know creating this really impression of Julian Assange as a highly dangerous. Do you want to comment on that and your relationship with Well, that's why he's in the glass cage because every all of the kind of the stage set, whether it was outside the Embassy which had all sorts of police officials and a police van with all sorts of monitoring electronic monitoring eaves dropping equipment. It is to present him as a terrorist. I, this is one of the last hearing when I was in London. The, the defense asked that he be allowed to sit at the table with them and the and the prosecution didn't object. But the judge refused to move him out of the cage. And it's for that reason. It's a matter of presentation. It's not a matter of security. It's, as James said, you know, legally suspect at best. But yes, that's right. It's that's they, they attempt to create you know a kind of ambience or a kind of with all of the props to essentially when you when you look at that when you looked at the Embassy or when you look at him in the glass cage to tar him with, you know, that tag of being a terrorist that's that's why he's in the case. For adding, but let's not forget, he was eavesdropped by the CIA through a Spanish contractor. When he was in prison, his communications with lawyers were subject to such eavesdropping. The information that was obtained, which was obtained by putting micro secret microphones in the bathroom in his bedroom, everywhere, all the information that was gained through that process was sent back to the CIA. To say some stories said that it was sent back in live time. That is a clear violation of due process and is quite comparable to what the government did to Dan Ellsberg by breaking into his office to get his psychiatric psychiatric information. That's in Los Angeles and it was when brought to the attention of the court in which Dan was tried influential in the court's decision to dismiss that case. It is my view. There is no difference between what the CIA is done here, and what was done to Dan, and that's the grounds for the special of the case. There's a possibility here that this could not only lead to a dismissal of the case as it should, it would seem to me that he was being overheard with his lawyers. The reason they had surveillance in the bathroom was that in fear surveillance he was having discussions with his lawyer in the bathroom where there was surveillance at that point. We're overhearing that deliberately. Not only is that grounds for dismissal. Remember, in my case actually Jim, the judge refused to say that having either offered him the head of the FBI director. He said that was of no consequence because it wasn't a grounds for dismissal because it hadn't influenced him. But this pattern of things included warrantless wiretaps on which I'd been overheard and which the FBI had repeatedly denied that they had and they convicted. And then the final out fine was when the judge asked for the records of the wiretaps. He said they couldn't find the records, which was true because the number two man in the CIA in the FBI had turned them over to the White House. So that Hoover could not blackmail the White House with the existence of these illegal records and so forth. And that was a critical thing in dismissing my case, but more than that. In this country, it was an illegality, which confronted the president with impeachment proceedings and led to his resignation and help shorten the war. Now, if we want to look for a bright thing in this, it's not impossible. And it's unlikely, but it's not impossible that illegalities in felicitants, which seem to be manifold. And the case you mentioned is this surveillance in particular, could actually redound, you know, to the administration and be be a charge not only in dismissing the case. I just want to add James and Jim and Dan are talking about the Spanish private security firm global. So yes, they provided the CIA with audio and video recordings, including, of course, as Dan said with a lawyer, but they also photographed the passports of all the visitors, including mine and Dan. They would take the phones which were not permitted into the embassy, they open them. I don't know why probably in an effort to intercept calls. They would steal data from laptops and electronic tablets and USB sticks, which we were all required to leave in the embassy reception area. They compiled detail of Julian's meetings and conversations with visitors. And, of course, the famous move they tried to steal the diaper of a baby to perform a DNS DNA test to establish whether this was Julian's son. He worked at the behest of the CIA so what does that mean it means that the prosecution has all of the transcripts of the meetings between Julian and his his attorneys. I think that one thing that I learned from the Pentagon papers case and this has been proven to me following such security cases since don't get into litigation with the Justice Department with respect to national security, because they are totally a moral in this regard. They will do anything and you cannot trust them they will lie they will cheat. If I may point out, in the Pentagon papers case. They caused the former dean of the Harvard Law School Erwin grizzled to lie to the Supreme Court to say that the Pentagon papers broke the Vietnam code which is absolute total nonsense you cannot trust them. It is a very difficult fight to get into. But if you catch them. There is a chance, you know that something if they have almost total immunity, but not 100%. I make one little comment on, as I say I'm reliving this case when I saw that the Julian had stood up and said this is nonsense and been warned been warned by the judge. And I thought how many times I wanted to say that during my trial. However, in my trial I'm sending at a defense table with my lawyers. I'm being looked at by the judge at all, you know, asylum is all you're invisible. He looks at the defense attorneys, the lawyers, the reporters didn't come to me at all, because they went to the prosecution table, not to look biased in in my favorite one. So you're sitting there and I like Julian, knowing a lot more about the Pentagon papers that were being testified. And of course my lawyers were able to do all the prosecutors here Julian, as you say, knowing the digital aspects of this and the content far more than anybody else in the cartoon in the in the courtroom. So I was able to pass almost continuously notes to my lawyers, even and this drove them crazy. I don't know how much they hated me for this, but I would give them notes while they were on the stand, ask this, or as that you can imagine as a lawyer, how irritating that would be, but I couldn't couldn't resist to ask the questions. They did ask the question. Julian is sitting there in that glass cage. And which by the way they said the big difference from before is, it has no top. So he can hear better, but he's sitting in that glass cage he can't pass notes to anybody or do anything. It must be driving him crazy. I'm sure it is. If everything else hasn't already done that. I want to ask a, here's a red meat question for you all. Will the change, if there is a change in administrations come January does will that anyhow, how do you think that will impact a Sanchez trial if he is expedited, extradited here to the United States. Not at all, because the Democratic Party is furious with a son for publishing 70,000 hacked emails belonging to the DNC and senior Democratic officials they were was Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman, and those emails were exposed the hypocrisy of Clinton herself in terms of her telling Wall Street one thing and telling, you know, saying another thing on the campaign it exposed the donation of millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation by Saudi Arabia and Qatar. It exposed the amount of money that Goldman Sachs paid to Clinton $657,000 for three talks, which I think is such a ridiculously large sum it can only be considered a bribe. And as well as by the way the Clinton campaigns efforts to influence the Republican nomination to make sure that Trump was the nominee and then finally Clinton's deep involvement was one of the architects of the war in Libya, because she believed it would burn her as a presidential candidate so they've earned the enmity of the Democratic Party. And we should not forget that WikiLeaks also made public the hacking tools used by the CIA and the NSA, and their interference in foreign elections, including the French WikiLeaks was tolerated when it went after the war crimes by the Bush administration, but it has no friends and Hillary Clinton himself equipped that Julian should be taken out with a militarized drone. So the aggressiveness of the effort to extradite Julian will be as fierce under a Biden administration as under Trump administration. Thanks for that Chris. Dan or James did you want to jump in on that. Well, I'll jump in I think that Chris has two arguments that are very difficult to meet, and that is the DNC leak and the use of the of the tools which permitted hacking. He reported how that worked. There is no question that the DNC break in public. I don't mean that break in DNC leak is very influential and I think is the principal reason that a science has no journalistic support in the United States, however, I am naive enough to think that maybe someone in the Biden, if it is Biden, I hope it is administration has a first amendment quirk that they will do what Obama did and terminate the prosecution. I think there's some chance that happening though, I wouldn't put it above 50%. Dan did you want to add anything. You know, Jim was saying earlier, good deal that they've wanted for years to have the perfect candidate for a case against a journalist. And they for years now both the Obama administration, even though they backed off. And this administration, see a science as a candidate for that, because people like Bill Keller and others were willing to say I don't see him as a journalist. I think very much to this credit of Keller to say that, and not to recognize the differences in the digital age here of that effect of journalism, but also as Jim said, he then lost the sympathy of a very wide range of people by his role in 2016. And without going into that so much. I don't know whether people have really adjusted to the fact he not charged with those, at least he wasn't in the second indictment. And I don't, I'm not aware that he has in the superseding indictment with anything he did in 2016 correct me if I'm wrong. But we're talking about 2010 and where I would say his entirely entirely different issue. But it is true then that I think a reason that journalists have backed off from realizing how strong in this case affects each and every one of them. The only thing in the world, not just in not just in the US is that they are don't sympathize with Joanna Sonners as a person because of the judgments he made in the year 2016 during the election. And that's very short sighted. I would be in this position I've said this, it sounds almost hard to believe but I think in my heart, it is believe. I would be arguing this case as strongly if Steven Bannon weren't exactly the same position in London. And he's a guy who's, you know, views and judgments and practices. I despise I love. And yet, if he would be excited or tried for actions at Breitbart, however much you can argue whether Breitbart is journalism. I would be engaged to journalism, at least if not propaganda. But nevertheless, I would back Breitbart's ability to publish this material and to be free from extradition, as I do for Julian. And I do like Julian, as a matter of fact, he is a friend but that's not why I'm testing for him testifying for him here. It's because of the issues that go beyond any question of personality. You can could I suppose as journalists have, and others have made the argument that, you know, Julian should not have released the information in the pedestrian emails. But really what you're saying is the American public, the public doesn't have a right to know. And at that point I don't think you can call yourself a journalist. We are not. We are not in the service. We're in the service of providing as much transparency and truth about power, no matter who is in power, Democrat, Republican or anyone else. And so I think, as Dan has pointed out, the fact that so many in the press have turned their back on him, well, not only after using his information, publishing it page after page in publications like The Guardian, The New Times, and others, but they still refer to it. And, you know, that that is one of the great, I think, change. You know, when I say that journalists all over the world would be subject to this. I don't see why the British journalists who published the information that Chelsea Manning provided to Sergeant he turned over to the server, The Guardian, LaMonde, Der Spiegel and other places. Why aren't they equally subject to extradition? Is there, is there any legal basis why they're not as subject? I was glad to see that Alan Ruschberger of the, of the former server has denounced this, this process, but others have not. And he said, Am I wrong? They are equally, equally indigable, it seems to me. Good point Dan that we haven't focused on particularly, which is that Julian is being accused of publishing information that violates the espionage act and therefore anyone similarly situated which would mean in this case, The New Times, Der Spiegel, Il Monde, the Spanish paper, I did pretty well to remember them all, but most of them are equally liable for such publication, which means that they could be criminally accused and they could be indicted to that is one of the great dangers of the case. The first time that the espionage act has been used against publication. And let's remember the notorious John Mitchell wanted to do the very same thing against the New York Times and panel the grand jury on a conspiracy theory just like this last indictment which Dan referred to a huge conspiracy, including Sarah Harrison everybody you've ever heard of, all lumped together in this in this indictment, the government wanted to do the very same thing. 50 years ago they wanted to include Dan, Sheehan who was the reporter, Noam Chomsky, everybody who was in the Boston area where Dan used to live. Hendrik Smith. An indictment reaching out with no connection to one another which is what they've done with this indictment and put them all in a great big conspiracy indictment for aiding and abetting the publication of the Pentagon papers. And so therefore, all of the above could be applied to all who publish, which include the New York Times I didn't mention the New York Times published in my list I assumed everyone knew. And by the way, I repeat, how about being extradited as I understand the Luke Harding, I'm not mistaken, not only helped publish this through Assange in the hope it was at the Guardian of the Observer. Anyway, British paper. He published a book about it, and uses the epigraph for one of the chapters, the full password, which had never been published for an entire unredacted account of all the information that had not been released, just to make it more interesting in the chapter now. Why is he not subject to extradition to the United States. I don't want to answer that question but I got a bigger question. Why does that violate the. Why does that mean that Assange is violated law when he published the information and question after the event that you described let me just be very clear about something as complicated. The government is making a big deal about hacking I don't pretend to be a hacking lawyer. I would say that the latest indictment which talks about hacking here hacking there hacking everywhere. When you pull it apart doesn't make any legal sense but makes public relations sense for the for the government. When it issued the first of the three indictments. I tried to get everyone sympathy on its side by saying Assange haptory greed, greed to hack, because many wanted them to have Manning have access to so called supernet which is the the Google of the intelligence intelligence world that charge and my humble opinion is an absolute number one, a number two, and showing that the that Assange was violating the hacking act. It said that he had published all the information about the diplomatic cables and endangered everyone's safety as a consequence. But what actually happened was as Dan said, a password to the computer storage of these documents was published by a guardian author in a book, which was then picked up by a United States publisher and that publisher published all this information first and Assange published it later all of this is I'm sorry to say very, very complicated but it just proves that the government is reaching over backwards to try to get Assange for things that he really didn't do himself, at least initially. It is complicated. Thank you. Thank you so much James. There's a statement that I wanted to read that came in through the through the group chat there's so much going on there that it's a hard to catch everything. But we got a comment from Martha Schmidt who's an international human rights lawyer. And she said that quote the denial to defendants and their attorneys of due process rights, such as the refusal of access and placement behind glass cages during a trial is not unknown in other countries outside the US and the UK. It clearly violates international human rights norms. I saw this and heard about this when I was a trial observer in the second trial of Lori Barrenson in Peru. I am wondering if any trial in the US will even be open if he's extradited to the United States. I wanted to share that with people and ask if any of the panelists have a comment about that. Well the trial, the trial will be generally open but subject to closure, as was the Pentagon Papers case. Parts that will be closed and parts that will be open. It takes me back to my old criminal trial where the first day of the trial we went in and the public section, I was going to be at the defense table of course, the public section was blocked off effectively including the press by a huge screen, it has never been written about it, a huge like a movie screen on which they were going to project parts of the Pentagon Papers for the benefit of the jury. And the effect of that was going to be that the trial was going to affect the screen as far as the public was concerned. And there was an objection to that to both the screen so far. And when they finally brought that down. I remember thinking, I am being prosecuted by sinister buffoons. Kind of a mockery, you know what's going on in one very similar sort. Indeed. Kafkaesque and by others as a Stalinist show trial, or a kangaroo court, or a star chamber. These are the metaphors, they're not metaphors these are the comparisons that are being raised by people who are allowed to follow the proceedings. So a bunch more questions here. Thank you everybody for putting your questions in the chat and trying to highlight as many of them as possible. Here's one. Isn't Assange accused by journalists of having published names of people that because of that were exposed to great risks. Can you clarify that this charge that we're hearing over and over again. He is accused of that but as James just pointed out the names of first of all they're informant so they're not members of the national security state I think that's an important point that is a violation remember Valerie playing when her name was when her name was released. Largely because her husband was advocating against the invasion of Iraq. That is a crime. But informants is a far more nebulous role that's number one number two. And James may have something to add to this number two. I just pointed out these were released by Luke Harding in his book and by releasing the password to the documents that was done by the Guardian correspondent not by Julian. Well I think this is the heart of the government's case. I understand from reading some briefs of today's proceedings that the government tried to say that he Assange was not being pursued for publishing information that violated national security or particularly the espionage act. Only for the names which was resisted heavily by the government. The fact is that the government has never been able to show that the there was danger created for any of the names named persons. They were so named in the material that was published by Assange. That being the case I don't think they can cry cry wolf and say they should have been endangered when in fact they weren't. That won't pass First Amendment muster but it is clear. That is part of the case as I understand it. The names appear in the diplomatic cables were scrubbed as Chris said in the publication initially done by the Times and then released by the Guardian by mistake. Other parts of the material that were published by Assange. The names were scrubbed so it's pretty much the diplomatic cables and the names there that are the heart of the case as I see it from a distance I may point out. Thank you. Here's another question. The situation is clearly outrageous but most of us have little or no agency here. The custodians of the system are not open to persuasion. Media is increasingly controlled. What unorthodox angles of attack might be worthwhile. Well I've got an orthodox. Sorry. I like to think of myself unorthodox as being unorthodox and therefore what follows is that. But it wouldn't help to have some truth here. I mean we've we have for the last 20 minutes tried to state what the facts are. The government has not stated the facts and that is why they're being attacked by the defense. Sorry to give such a banal answer but national security cases go off on fiction. Okay. The prosecutor brought out yesterday that he was assigned was not entitled in Britain to a public interest defense in other words, sometimes called public accountability or lesser evil or defensive necessity. And that's true in Britain, by the way, in their official secrets act for a period that's gone through various modifications. And through one period, they did allow a public interest defense. And that led to the acquittal by the jury of Clive Ponting, who had revealed that Margaret Thatcher had lied when she said that the battleship Bill Grano was moving toward British ships and therefore had to be torpedoed and sunk. When the reality was they were moving away from this were having no officials knew this so Clive Ponting revealed this and the judge virtually ordered the jury to ignore that to find him guilty on the basis that he had reviews classified information. And this was the case where they called a jury nullification, the jury acquitted him. And it wasn't really nullification they acted on the public interest defense. As a result of which, the parliament quickly null, you know, legislated out the public interest defense. Well, somebody in the trial I saw just yesterday said, Well, but in the US, there would be such a defense. Unfortunately, that's wrong. There never has been such an offense in connection with the espionage act. And as Jim has pointed out before my case 50 years ago 49 years ago. The espionage act was not used as an official secrets act in effect, but now it is and it is without a public interest defense. So one thing that people can do it's urgent to do actually, starting with journalists, but not only journalists. And that is to back some legislative proposals that have been made for such a defense to be available to any whistleblower who is accused. That could be a matter of legislation. Parliamentary. Yo hi bank per professor at Harvard has written articles on public accountability defense. And it's very important to change that. So that's a major thing that can be done. It's not a question of repealing any espionage act of having no law against spies. And that law is used against spies all the time. The point is, it should not be used against whistleblowers at all. It should be unconstitutional as now written. You should rewrite that. And second, if they find it necessary, which I would not agree to criminalize any form of free speech other than espionage. And I question whether that's necessary or worthwhile, but it can certainly be written so as to allow the whistleblower to explain their motives and the actual impact of this. And as I say in the case of Julian in particular when they bring up these informants names. The fact is, Defense Secretary Gates admitted acknowledged that there had been embarrassment, but no real harm to national security by these releases. And I can say that I was worried when this charge was first made that he had revealed the names of the informants, that there would be a headless body on the cover of Time magazine shown and with the allegation that this had been informant revealed. And no matter the fact that the secrecy involving these this unconstitutional this aggressive war in Iraq, that the secrecy had led to hundreds of thousands of lives in Iraq. And whether the fact that revealing the secrecy led to one person being revealed would would would be heavily against Assad. But the fact is, neither in the Chelsea Manning trial, nor in this, have they brought out one person who was on that surprised me, actually, that they weren't even able to fix that. And the person in the Defense Department who was in charge of looking into possible charges against him you know propaganda effort against him said they never found any evidence of harm. As I say, that was a surprise, but it certainly bears on the question of whether he was after all irresponsible in revealing this information. Thanks, Dan. I'm a big proponent of fixing repealing getting rid of the espionage act as it is written because of the way it's been used, brought against repress and free speech in the past. I guess 15 years. Did you want to add anything Chris about about tactics that folks should be that that those of us on participants in this call could be doing now what can folks be doing to help Julian Assange. Now. Well, Kevin disease I mean so much of activism is education, which we're all doing today. The last time I was in London and if I don't know whether they're having, they are having demonstrations outside the court but the last time I was in London for the hearing. There were events almost every night, which I participated in so I think making our voices heard, especially when they're largely shut out by the mainstream media which unfortunately is betrayed Julian. And that is about education it's about being on the streets. It's about carrying out acts of nonviolent civil disobedience. And that has more influence and pressure I think than often activists understand I was involved with Zuccotti at Occupy Wall Street, Kevin and Margaret were with Occupy down in Washington. Unfortunately, large numbers of my family work on Wall Street. And but what was fascinating was how terrified they were of the Occupy movement they were all bringing their lunches and eating at their desks. And they had their private security firms I know because they told me of dating them every hour well now they're marching down Bond Street with a puppet, like a giant squid. So we have more impact than I think oftentimes we understand and that's extremely important that we that we raise our voices but also we are physically present to oppose, you know what's what's being done to Julian now in London and I fear potentially in the United States. Yep. Get out there in the streets. So, so we're, we're closing in on 90 minutes so I'm going to gently wrap up our conversation which has been phenomenal thank you so much to, to all three of you for your, for your amazing insights. So what we're going to do in the, in our closing I guess seven minutes is ask each of you, you know what what last words you have to bring us out of this webinar and I will start with you James. I just like to reiterate what all three of us have said that this is an extremely dangerous case for free expression. It's extremely dangerous case for the relationship between the governed and the governor. If in fact, it comes out badly. We're going to be a lot worse off because governments will then have or at least United States government but I'm sure others will follow more control over their information than they did before. And while we haven't focused on it. It seems to me the secure national security system is there primarily for political purposes to keep information private about how the power of our government is exercised and while the government should have some ability to do that. Certainly, it doesn't apply to the millions and millions and millions of documents that they classify as secret so forth and so on. So, the deleterious, the most deleterious consequence I can see of this whole proceeding is the government's will control information even more than they have before and use it to their private advantage and not for the advantage of the rest of us. Thank you and as they as they limit our access to their information they are building up the surveillance state to have ever more access to our information to use. Thank you, James. Dan, what closing words do you have for us. Many people are involved in preserving a republic and making it worthwhile. Let me pay tribute, for example, to both my panel members here. In the first place, I identify with Chelsea Manning and Ed Snowden, more than with any other two people in the world. I've been in their position, our lives, the trajectory of our lives has been very similar to the ethical issues we faced. And we reacted the same way. Julian, on the other hand, is in the position of let's say the New York Times, in my case, facilitating making available what I had to offer to the public without which they would not have gotten it. And in James was actually personally critical, as we know, from the Council of the New York Times decision making in going ahead and facing the risks of injunction even prosecution and was involved there, like Julian. In fact, he was like Julian's lawyer, you might say. In the in that role. So without them without him and the decisions that he for some reason. Well, there was a long chain there but it had an effect of helping shorten the war. In the case of Chris, not only for his long effort as a journalist, but he gave rise to one of the most surprisingly happy events of my life. And he asked me to be part of a suit on the that he mentioned earlier against the government on the Defense Authorization Act. I think it was, which I did as a matter of form why not if Chris Atchison is asked me to do it. Fine why not. I know I get a lot of requests like that. And little did I think that anything would come of it. And to my amazement, of course, what he mentioned was that a district court actually enjoying the government on the basis of this. And here was, you know, hedges in Ellsberg and Chomsky on the winning side of a court case against the US government. I could honestly believe it. That was a red letter day. It's so happens that in the last couple of weeks was 10 days or so there has been a district court decision claiming that the, the practices that Ed Snowden revealed of universal surveillance of Americans, which had been denied by Michael Hayden and others, Clapper Rather and others, and not only occurred with that they were illegal and probably unconstitutional. What comes of that case remains to be seen, but it nevertheless does show, we've got to knock on every door and Chris's willingness to knock on the door of the Justice Department with respect to the unconstitutional activities of the executive branch is not has a possibility of keeping us a republic. We aren't facing the likelihood of that in the next six months I would say it's a very great challenge. It will be a challenge to a general I think that our president faced with defeat. We'll take actions to which the only appropriate public reaction is a general strike. And that would have seemed totally impractical during the pandemic, although the reaction to George Floyd at whatever risk does show it's not a practical. So our republic is in a kind of imminent danger that I can't remember ever having encountered before. And definitely keeping the role of the press alive is part of our process of resistance to that. Thanks Dan. Chris. Julian with three other co authors wrote a book a couple years ago called cipher punks, which I highly recommend because Julian understands, perhaps better than anyone, how in his words were galloping into this transnational corporate dystopia that the internet is not just a tool to educate, but has become a mechanism for postmodern surveillance. And this is super national. It's dominated by a global corporate power. And as they write in the book, the, the, they will merge global humanity in a one giant grid of mass surveillance and mass control that at its core is what Julian and wiki leaks and other Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden are really fighting against the whole sale of surveillance of all of our communications which are permanently recorded permanently tracked all of our interactions are followed from birth to death. And that is a terrifying it's something even Orwell couldn't imagine that's really what we're fighting here. And the decay of democratic institutions, the seizure of power, both nationally and globally by these corporate cabals that have fused themselves a Silicon Valley has with the national security state presages a really terrifying new dark age. And that's why I have such deep admiration for Julian, who as Dan said is not just someone I respect and defend but as a friend. And all of those who have had the courage to come out and let's not forget Kevin, who understand what's coming, and to put themselves on the line as we have to put ourselves on the line to protect and reestablish an open society. Thank you Chris. Thanks. Thanks so much to popular resistance for organizing this event and to Chris hedges, James Goodale and Dan Ellsberg for being part of this incredible panel. Thanks so much to everyone who joined us. This this webinar the video will be archived and it will be available. I'm not exactly sure well certainly will post it on our website at rights and descent.org but also I imagine on popular resistance. And thank you all so much for joining us.