House refused to testify last month in Alexandria, Virginia, before a grand jury hearing on WikiLeaks and the disclosure of thousands of classified US diplomatic cables. Democracy Now! spoke to House at the Frontline Club about the significance of WikiLeaks, how he helped found the Bradley Manning Support Network, his visits with Manning at the Quantico Marine Base in Virginia, the federal surveillance he and his associates have come under, and his experience before the grand jury.

“In my mind, this reeks of the Pentagon Papers investigation,” says House. “Richard Nixon’s [Department of Justice] 40 years ago attempted to curtail the freedoms of the press and politically regulate the press through the use of policy created around the espionage investigation of the New York Times. I feel the WikiLeaks case we have going on now provides Obama’s DOJ ample opportunity to continue this attempt to politically regulate the U.S. media.”

The full transcript of the interview can be found here.

On Saturday 2 July at 4pm GMT (11am EST; 8pm AEST), this page will host a live stream of Frontline Club’s special “in conversation” event featuring WikiLeaks editor-and-chief Julian Assange in conversation with Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek, moderated by Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman… (live blog here.)

Speaking at a special Frontline Club event on Saturday alongside renowned philosopher Slavoj Žižek and investigative journalist Amy Goodman, Assange claimed a Cablegate was needed not only for US and Russian intelligence services but for the American daily which first published in 1851.

"It would reveal the extent to which stories have been suppressed and how they have been managed,” said Assange, who told the audience that Daniel Ellsberg claimed the New York Times had been in possession of 1000 Pentagon Papers before he passed them onto the Washington Post and 17 other newspapers in1971. 

Only when it realised its rivals had the papers did the New York Times begin publishing the documents on 13 June of that year, Assange claimed.

Since he was propelled “inside the centre of the storm”  by the publication of the Iraq and Afghanistan War Logs and the Embassy Cables last year, Assange said he had learnt the extent to which history “is shaped and distorted by the media.”

Contrasting Fox News’ decision, on account of its "hunger" for ratings, to show more of the July 2010 Collateral Murder video than its rival CNN had "under the pretext of sensitivity", Assange said:

"The truth that we got out of Fox was greater than we did out of CNN and similarly for many institutions in the media that we think are liberal."

The 400,000 Iraq War Logs documents, which were published in October 2010, were "the most detailed, significant history of a war to be published," said Assange. Among them were details of some 15,000 hitherto unrecorded civilian deaths:

"Just think about that 15,000 people whose deaths were recorded by the US military but were completely unknown to the rest of the world, that’s a very significant thing."

Responding to claims that have been made that WikiLeaks has not told us anything we didn’t already know, the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek said WikiLeaks worked in the same way as "that beautiful old fairy tale" the Emperor’s Clothes. He added:

"WikiLeaks is not simply telling the truth. You are telling the truth in a very precise way of confronting explicit lines of justification, rationalisation of the public discourse."

Asked about his decision to collaborate with more than 80 media organisations, Assange said it was necessary in order to "maximise the impact" of the material.

"If you want to have an impact and you are an organisation that is very small then you have to coopt or leverage the mainstream press," he said, raising the question of what what impact a new "internet educated" generation working in News Corp and other big corportations might have.

Discussing the impact of WikiLeaks in the Arab Spring in Tunisia and Egypt this year, Assange said it was "hard to disentangle". He described how a number of factors, including the rise of staellite TV, and Al Jazeera’s decision to film protests in the street, had meant the regime could no uphold its claim that opposition was merely "an outcast voice".

"What the media does is censor those voices and prevents people from understanding that actually what the state is saying is the minority is in the majority," said Assange.

"Once people realised their view was in the majority then they understand that they physically have numbers," said Assange, adding that it also became impossible for US to support the regime in Tunisia after Embassy Cables likened President Ben Ali’s family to a Mafia elite.

Žižek said it was significant that WikiLeaks publication of material meant that politicians could no longer operate on the basis of ‘I know that you know but we can still play the cynical game of pretending that we don’t know’.

He added: "The function of WikiLeaks more than to tell us something that we don’t know, is to push us to the point when you cannot pretend you don’t know."

Full coverage of the event can be found here. Video can be watched here and you can read our live blog of the event here.

Full coverage of the event can be found here. Video can be watched here and you can read our live blog of the event here.

Speaking at a special Frontline Club event on Saturday alongside renowned philosopher Slavoj Žižek and investigative journalist Amy Goodman, Assange spoke at length about the pressures faced by WikiLeaks amid a political backlash.

He dismissed threats of assassination made against him by prominent commentators and politicians as “wrong and outrageous”, but admitted documents reportedly obtained by WikiLeaks about the Bank of America – who stopped processing payments to the organisation in 2010 – had not yet been released due to a complication.

“We are under a kind of blackmail in relation to those documents that will be dealt with over time,” he said, though did not divulge the kind of blackmail the organisation was facing or from whom, saying only that “there are a range of possibilities.”

The event, held at the Troxy in East London, was attended by almost 2000 people and streamed live across the internet by independent US broadcaster Democracy Now! It was originally set to be held at the University of London’s Institute of Education (IOE), but was moved after the IOE raised concerns over potential controversy.

Discussing the ethics, philosophy and implications of WikiLeaks – particularly in relation to the Afgahanistan War Logs, the Iraq War Logs and Cablegate – Assange said that “what advances us as a civilisation is the entirety of our intellectual record.”

He added: “If we are to make rational policies, in so far as any decision can be rational, then we have to have information that is drawn from the real world.”

The 40-year-old Australian, who has been on strict bail conditions at the Norkolk home of Frontline Club founder Vaughan Smith for over six months, stated his belief that a pervasive element of the mainstream media is “our single greatest impediment to advancement”.

“History is shaped and distorted by the media,” he said. “The journalists themselves having read our material and having been forced to go through it have themselves become educated and radicalised. And that is an ideological penetration of the truth in to all these mainstream media organisations.”

Assange is set to appear at the High Court in London on 12 July over sex-crime allegations made against him in Sweden. His greatest hope for the future, he said, was to see a more civilised world and to change the author George Orwell’s dictum that ‘he who controls the present controls the past.’

“By civilised I mean people collaborating to not do the dumb thing,” he added. “To instead learn from previous experiences … to pull with eachother, together, in order to get through the life that we live in a less adverse way.”

Žižek, who has authored over 50 books and is widely held as one of the most influential living philosophers, spoke passionately about the impact of WikiLeaks on global politics.

“You are not just violating the rules, you are changing the very rules [and] how we are allowed to violate them,” he said. “We may all know that the emperor is naked, but the moment somebody says the emperor is naked, everything changes.”

Part I and II of our reports on the event can be found here and here. Full video can be watched here and you can read our live blog of the event here.

WikiLeaks had a prominent role in the Arab Spring, acting as a catalyst and pushing global information to a point where the US and other Western countries could not prop up Arab dictatorships anymore, according to WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange.

Speaking at a Frontline Club event in East London, alongside renowned Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek and investigative journalist Amy Goodman, Assange said he had lived in Egypt in 2007 and was familiar with Mubarak regime.

“The economic basis and the technological basis of Cairo seems pretty much the same as London," he said. "If we say that it is democracy that rules and manages the United States, or it is electoral democracy that rules and manages London, then this is completely ridiculous. Because when we look at countries that are dictatorships – or soft dictatorships – the day to day life for most people is exactly the same."

Assange also claimed that the Tunisian government had blocked the website of Lebanese news organisation Al-Akhbar website shortly after prohibiting access to Wikileaks.

“Tahrir square was important because people could see many others had similar views while the media suggested they were a minority,” Assange said.

Talking about his recent decision to sue Mastercard and Visa after they had cut off services to the secret-spreading website last December, Assange dubbed the two companies as “instruments of
Washington’s patronage policy”.

He also claimed that Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg had told him the New York Times had 1,000 pages of the Papers for one month before Ellsberg gave them to the American newspaper.

The Australian publisher also conversed candidly about Bradley Manning, the US soldier who was arrested in 2010 in Iraq over allegations of leaking secreted material to WikiLeaks.

“When people of high moral character like Bradley Manning are pressured by power, they
become stronger,” he said, adding that between 19 to 23 people are on the Wikileaks Grand Jury in Virginia.

“If there’s anybody who deserves a Nobel Peace Prize, it’s Bradley Manning,” said Žižek to applause.

“I call this an ethical miracle: there are people who still care. We should not leave dignifying morality to agencies like the Catholic Chruch.”

Later, the Slovenian philosopher spoke about human rights, claiming that torture “even if
conducted out of despair” should never be “legalistic and therefore normalised”. The truth, according
to Žižek, needs to be “contextualized, rationalised and confronted”.

“WikiLeaks is not only telling the truth, but telling it in a precise way,” he said. “You’re here because you think change is possible, and probably you’re right. Most internet-educated young people see new values of spread of new information and get their hands on the machinery.”

Referring to the fact that the original venue had cancelled the booking because WikiLeaks was deemed ‘too controversial’, Assange said that there wouldn’t have been such problems five years ago, but it was unlikely also that 2000 people would be prepared to pay £25 to attend.

When asked about the allegations of rape made against him and the possibility that he could face extradition to Sweden, Assange was critical of the European Arrest Warrant system.

“Extradition without charge is Kafkaesque,” agreed Žižek, who concluded that WikiLeaks “pushes us to the point that we can no longer pretend not to know.

“Even if you ignore WikiLeaks, it has changed the field,” he said. “Nobody can pretend that WikiLeaks didn’t happen.”

Part I of our reports on the event can be found here. Full video of the event can be watched here and read our live blog of the event here.

A "new McCarthyism" has emerged in response to WikiLeaks and is evidenced in the calls for assassination by US politicians, the site’s editor-in-chief said today.

Julian Assange, the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek and Amy Goodman from Democracy Now! shared a stage at a packed Frontline Club event at the Troxy in London’s east end to discuss the impact of WikiLeaks.

Goodman read the statements made against him by US politicians, including Sarah Palin who said he had "blood on his hands" and asked the Australian, who is 40 tomorrow (3 July), to respond.

"Obviously they are wrong and outrageous," he said, referring to calls for his assassination made by the likes of Tom Flanagan, a former aide to the Canadian prime minister. "It is worrying that a new Mccarthyism can come up so quickly."

Focusing on 2007 footage released by WikiLeaks last year showing US air crew shooting down Iraqi civilians in Baghdad, Goodman said: "Information is a matter of life or death… If more people had seen the videos before they might have asked for an investigation. This is why information is so powerful and important."

Assange said that the Iraq War Logs provided insight into the "everyday squalor of war" and were the only account of the thousands of Iraqis killed.

"It is of course controversial, but the result was finally that we were the only ones in the world to report that story," he said.

The impact of WikiLeaks was emphasised by Žižek during the first part of the debate.

"If you give me a couple of hours I will explain it properly," he joked. "First of all we need to consider the context where the leaks acted. We need to consider the way ideology works today. Let’s not be naieve, people knew about the things that were revealed even before, the point is that now they are not allowed anymore to ignore them."

Pointing out the essential difference between abstract and concrete knowledge, Žižek, who is famous for his temperament, said: "Isn’t it different if you know that your wife is cheating on you and if you actually see her while doing so!

"WikiLeaks has not simply changed the rules,” he said to Assange, "it changed the way we violate the rules, the rules of bourgeois media."

Focusing on the mainstream media, Assange credited the US channel Fox News for showing more of the Iraq video and ultimately reporting more of the story than CNN had.

Žižek said that Assange was "a terrorist" in the same way that Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi was. "As he tried to subvert the British colonial system, Assange is trying to interrupt the normal flow of information. This is a real revolution."

Part II of our reports on the event will soon follow. Full video of the event can be watched here and read our live blog of the event here. Photo by Charlotte Cook.

On this page we will be blogging updates live from the Troxy in East London, with updates from behind the scenes, pictures and whatever else we can find to post…

11:30am: Lots of people are tweeting already on the hashtag for the event, #FCwiki. @Owl_Food says: "have mixed views & hoping to develop some clarity on them.What better way than direct insight into #Assange #WikiLeaks #Zizek".

12:00pm: We will be live streaming the event from 4pm on frontlineclub.com. Link to follow.

12:37pm: Twitter users @KaiWargalla and @m_cetera have tickets going spare.

13:24pm: Anyone looking for directions to the Troxy can find them here.

15:03pm: Photo of the stage being set up: click here.

15:19pm: Assange, Žižek and Goodman take to the stage for a soundcheck. See photo here.

15:29pm: Crowd gathers patiently outside the Troxy. Photo here.

15:34pm: Another soundcheck photo: click here.

15:44pm: The crowd is slowly filtering in. @thisisnotariot tweets: "I feel like I’m at a gig. Should academics/whatever Assange is be elevated to superstar status? It’s not undeserved, granted…"

15:47pm: "Another Assange love-in or can we expect some robust questioning of Assange concerning Wikileaks, and its future direction?" asks @PGPBOARD.

16:00pm: Picture of the audience. See here.

16:04pm: Word is the event should be starting in approx ten mins from now.

16:19pm: Frontline Club founder Vaughan Smith just gave his introduction speech. Amy Goodman, Julian Assange and Slavoj Žižek now on stage. Goodman says: "Information is powerful, it is a matter of life and death."

16:23pm: Goodman discusses the WikiLeaks ‘Collateral Murder‘ video. "That is important we know what is done in our name," she says, describing Julian Assange as "the most widely published person on Earth".

16:28pm: "What advances us as a civilisation is the entirety of our knowledge," says Assange, explaining his motivation for starting WikiLeaks.

16:39pm: "We all know that the emperor is naked, but the moment somebody says the emperor is dead: everything changes," says Žižek. "You [Julian] are not only violating the rules, you are changing the very rules that we violate."

16:47pm: Žižek is making an analogy about the TV series 24. "We can often learn more from honest conservatives than liberals," he says. "They are more likely to tell you the truth than bullshit."

16:50pm: Goodman asks Assange about the calls for his assasination. "Obviously they are wrong and outrageous," he says. "It is worrying that a new Mccarthyism can come up so quickly."

16:55pm: Assange: "We shouldn’t always see censorship as a bad thing. It shows society is not yet completely sown up, but still has some political dimension to it."

16:59pm: Žižek on his alleged friendship with Lady Gaga: "Absolute denial. I didn’t even listen to one of her songs."

17:00pm: Another photo of the stage as Žižek tells Assange: "You are a terrorist but if you are a terrorist my God what are they who say you are."

17:07pm: Assange says alleged WikiLeaks whistleblower Bradley Manning is of "high moral character" and adds that there are 19-23 people on the WikiLeaks grand jury in Virginia, US.

17:10pm: Assange says there is another grand jury looking in to anti-war activists in the US. Describes it as "another witchhunt".

17:20pm: "If there’s anybody who deserves a Nobel Peace Prize, it’s Bradley Manning,’ says Žižek to applause.

17:26pm: Assange: "You’re here because you think that change is possible, and you’re probably right."

17:32pm: Photo’s from Frontline’s Charlotte Cook: here, here, here and here.

17:37pm: Žižek says "Truth must be contextualised… and you [WikiLeaks] are not just telling the truth."

17:41pm: Assange says he stayed in Egypt through 2007 at Miss Egypt’s house. "The technological basis to Cairo is pretty much the same as London," he says. "When we look at countries that are soft-dictatorships, the patterns of behaviour for most people are the same…"

17:45pm: Discussing Egyptian unrest, Assange says Tahir Square was important because people could see many others had similar views while media always suggest they are a minority.

17:50pm: Assange heaps praise on Lebanese news organisation al-Akhbar.

17:56pm: Assange says Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg told him the New York Times had the Papers for a full month before publishing.

17:57pm: Assange explains WikiLeaks’ decision to sue Visa and Mastercard over blocking payments to the organisation. "[It has been an] extra judicial, economic blockade that has occured without any due process whatsoever."

18:02pm: Lots of great live tweeting going on over at Twitter.com on the #FCwiki hashtag. See here.

18:10pm: Žižek: "WikiLeaks pushes us to the point that we can no longer pretend not to know."

18:13pm: Žižek: "Even if you ignore WikiLeaks, it has changed the field. Nobody can pretend th
at WikiLeaks didn’t happen."

18:17pm: Goodman asks Assange his hopes for the future are, given that it is his 40th birthday tomorrow (3 July). "I want to move away from the Orwellian ‘he who controls the present controls the past’," he says.

18:18pm: The event concludes with massive applause. It can be watched again in full here.