OFFICIAL SECRETS is based on the true story of Katharine Gun, a British whistleblower who leaked information to the press about an illegal NSA spy operation designed to push the UN Security Council into sanctioning the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The Observer newspaper later broke the story and Gun was subsequently arrested and charged under the Official Secrets Act, sparking a public outcry.
The screening will be followed by a Q&A with the people behind the true story, Katharine Gun and journalist Martin Bright, as well as the film’s director Gavin Hood. It will be moderated by FT film journalist Danny Leigh.
Complimentary drinks will be available from 7pm before the screening starts at 7:30pm.
]]>Cold Case Hammarskjöld, is a controversial investigation into the mysterious plane crash over Zambia that killed idealistic U.N. General Secretary Dag Hammarskjöld in 1961 as he was attempting to negotiate a ceasefire in the Congo . Winner of the 2019 World Cinema Documentary Directing Award at the Sundance Film Festival, this documentary has been described at “provocative”, “singular” and “jaw-dropping”.
Followed by a discussion with the film’s lead investigator and producer Andreas Rocksén.
Reviews
“It’s impossible to emerge from this film without being shaken to your core. Mission accomplished: mind blown.” – Washington Post
“Cold Case Hammarskjöld may be the most unusual and upsetting film you’ll see this year.” – Time Out
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In the last 48 hours, Shahmir Sanni, a whistleblower working for Vote Leave/BeLeave has come forward with material evidence pointing to foul play.
The whistleblower evidence suggests senior Vote Leave staff members – including some now working in No.10 – may have broken campaign coordination rules and overspent to the tune of up to £1 million, on top of their already £7 million limit. That extra money could have bought billions of extra online adverts in the final days of the election. With a result so close, any such cheating could have made the difference.
Shahmir Sanni, will be speaking with Chris Wylie, the Cambridge Analytica whistleblower, and Byline’s Peter Jukes on Monday, at 8pm at the Frontline Club. Get your tickets here: https://bit.ly/2pDpVBk
In 2013, 23-year old CHRIS WYLIE, a Canadian analytics guru who had worked on the Obama campaign, was recruited as head of research for SCL Ltd. Within months he met Steve Bannon and Robert Mercer to set up Cambridge Analytica – an election machine designed to win the 2016 US Presidential elections, using Brexit as its ‘petri dish’ The award-winning Observer journalist, CAROLE CADWALLADR persuaded Chris to come forward as the key whistleblower last year.
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In 2013, 23-year old CHRIS WYLIE, a Canadian data scientist who had worked on the Obama campaign, was recruited as head of research for SCL Ltd, a contractor developing military ‘information operations’ for the US and UK. Within months he met Steve Bannon and Robert Mercer to set up Cambridge Analytica – a ‘propaganda machine’ designed to win the 2016 US Presidential elections, using Brexit as its ‘petri dish’. The tools of cyber warfare were now turned on the countries that developed them.
The award-winning Observer journalist, CAROLE CADWALLADR persuaded Chris to come forward as the key whistleblower last year.
Chris will be in conversation with Byline’s PETER JUKES to discuss the story behind the story of one of the biggest political scandals of this century.
Tickets are sold out for tonight’s event, for those who missed it, watch our Facebook live stream here: https://www.facebook.com/FrontlineClub/
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Speakers
Khadija Ismayilova is an award-winning investigative journalist who will be joining us by video link from Azerbaijan to discuss her stories, and the government’s response to them. She has been repeatedly jailed, harassed and defamed, but has continued to expose the financial dealings of her country’s ruling family.
Rebecca Vincent is the UK Bureau Director for Reporters Without Borders, known internationally as Reporters Sans Frontières. She is a human rights activist, writer, and former US diplomat. She has worked with a wide range of international and Azerbaijani NGOs, and has published widely on human rights issues.
Baroness Helena Kennedy QC is a legendary barrister, who was worked for dozens of campaigns over the decades. Last year, she introduced the Sergei Magnitsky amendments in the House of Lords, which seek to restrict visas to those credibly accused of gross human rights abuses.
]]>Fogel’s investigation into doping — the art and science of evading drug tests in global athletic competitions — leads him to Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, the scientist in charge of Russia’s anti-doping laboratory. Over a year of Skype calls and visits from Moscow, Dr. Rodchenkov orchestrates a steroid regimen for Fogel designed to game the system. When news breaks of an alleged Russian plot to cheat the Olympics, Fogel discovers that Rodchenkov is in possession of state secrets. Within days, Rodchenkov confides to Bryan that his life is in danger, setting off a chain of events revealing a conspiracy with its roots at the heart of the Kremlin. Rodchenkov escapes to the United States with Fogel’s help and becomes a whistleblower.
The revelations first made by Rodchenkov in the film, have since been corroborated by multiple forensic and journalistic investigations. His on-camera testimony along with the film itself was cited as critical evidence in The International Olympic Committee’s decision to ban Russia from the 2018 Winter Olympics.
Watch the trailer here.
Chair
Luke Harding is a foreign correspondent for the Guardian and was the Russia correspondent from 2007 – 2011 whereupon he was refused re-entry to the country due to his reporting. He is the author of Mafia State, which describes the political system under Putin
Speakers
Bryan Fogel (Director)
Dan Cogan (Producer)
Bill Browder is the founder and CEO of Hermitage Capital Management, which was the investment adviser to the largest foreign investment fund in Russia until 2005, when Bill was denied entry to the country and declared a “threat to national security” as a result of his battle against corporate corruption. Following his expulsion, the Russian authorities raided his offices, seized Hermitage Fund’s investment companies and used them to steal $230 million of taxes that the companies had previously paid. When Browder’s lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, investigated the crime, he was arrested by the same officers he implicated, tortured for 358 days, and killed in custody at the age of 37 in November 2009. Since then, Browder has spent the last 5 years fighting for justice for Mr. Magnitsky.
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Speakers
Anne Koch is Programme Director for GIJN the Global Investigative Journalism Network. She’s worked as a broadcast journalist and executive for more than 20 years, mostly for the BBC, before becoming a director at anti-corruption NGO Transparency International. Her award-winning career in BBC journalism included service as deputy director of the English World Service; executive editor of the BBC’s flagship radio news and current affairs programs, and editor of the World Tonight.
Richard Sambrook is Professor of Journalism and Director of the Centre for Journalism at Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies. Until February 2010, he was a BBC journalist and later, a news executive, producer, editor and manager. He is a visiting Fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University where he’s undertaken research into the future of international news gathering and the place of impartiality and objectivity in the digital world.
Bastian Obermayer is a Pulitzer Prize-winning German investigative journalist with the Munich-based newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, and the reporter who received the Panama Papers from an anonymous source as well as more recently the Paradise Papers with colleague Frederik Obermaier. Subsequently after the Panama Papers broke, they published a book on their experiences, The Panama Papers: Breaking the Story of How the Rich and Powerful Hide Their Money.
Rachel Oldroyd is the managing director at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. She joined as deputy editor shortly after its launch in 2010 and has led many of the organisation’s key projects. Before joining the Bureau she spent 13 years at the Mail on Sunday, where she ran the award-winning Reportage section in Live magazine.
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Obermayer and fellow Süddeutsche journalist Frederik Obermaier soon found themselves immersed in a secret world where complex networks of shell companies help the super-rich to hide their money. In the face of the largest data leak in history, they activated an international network of fellow journalists to investigate every line of enquiry. Working in strict secrecy for over a year, they uncovered incriminating cases involving aristocrats, kings, international dictators, celebrities and European prime ministers.
We will be joined by Bastian Obermayer and Frederik Obermaier – in conversation with The Guardian‘s Luke Harding – to hear the inside story of what Edward Snowden has called “the biggest leak in the history of data journalism.”
Frederik Obermaier and Bastian Obermayer are award-winning investigative journalists at Süddeutsche Zeitung, Germany’s largest broadsheet. The first people to have access to the Panama papers, they were previously part of the international team of journalists who revealed the Offshore Leaks, Luxembourg Leaks and Swiss Leaks.
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Jesselyn Radack and Thomas Drake
Whether they spoke out against torture or mass surveillance, government officials who blew the whistle on the deplorable changes made to U.S. legislation after the 9/11 attacks have been left bankrupted, broke and broken.
The documentary Silenced, directed by James Spione and screened at the Frontline Club on Monday 9 March, follows the cases of three prominent whistleblowers who confronted and made public the unlawful practices of U.S. authorities.
Focusing closely on former CIA analyst and case officer John Kiriakou who spoke out against the CIA’s use of torture, Silenced shows the impact on Kiriakou and his family in the lead up to his nearly two year imprisonment, which ended in early February 2015.
In a Q&A following the screening, two of the film’s protagonists – activist and retired NSA executive Thomas Drake, and former DOJ Ethics Advisor Jesselyn Radack, director of National Security & Human Rights at the Government Accountability Project – discussed their struggles as whistleblowers and how journalists can help foster change.
.@SilencedFilm @frontlineclub Q&A: knowing what you know now would you do it again? @Thomas_Drake1: yes, but I’d go to the press earlier.
— Jen Robinson (@suigenerisjen) March 9, 2015
What Could Have Been Done Differently?
Thomas Drake said that both he and the government should have done things differently before and after he blew the whistle on the dubious legality of NSA dragnet surveillance. “I would have gone to the press a lot sooner,” said Drake.
“Despite the huge personal costs, what price do you put on freedom and liberty? We don’t have to forsake the future of freedom and liberty for all. Are there threats to civil society? Yes. It doesn’t mean that we turn everybody into suspects, even if it’s virtual. What it means to be free and what it means to have liberty means more to me now than ever.”
He responded to an audience question about how methods of surveillance could be changed to protect privacy. “You certainly don’t have to go outside of the constitution,” Drake said. “The U.S. unchained itself. Because they had failed to protect Americans, they decided they would unchain themselves from the rule of law. Five days after 9/11, Cheney said ‘we’re going to the dark side.’”
Both before and after bulk surveillance was introduced, Drake said he had continuously advocated for the use of a program called ThinThread, which would have protected the privacy of American citizens.
Foundation of Courage
Much has changed since Radack and Drake first spoke out, not least of which are the mass surveillance revelations by Edward Snowden, who brought international attention to the act of whistleblowing.
Radack praised the establishment of the Courage Foundation last year, set up to help financially support whistleblowers as they navigate the expensive court cases that stem from their revelations. “That foundation is now supporting legal defence for [Edward] Snowden, other clients of mine, other clients of other attorneys. None of that existed back when I blew the whistle and when Tom and John were going through their ordeals,” she said. Even if a whistleblower is found ‘not guilty,’ Radack added, “it’s very hard to recover,” and “there’s still such a price” financially.
Panel discussion with two of the “Original 7 #Whistleblowers” who were prosecuted under #Obama @frontlineclub pic.twitter.com/RiIOrpgBeH
— Luigi Rappallo (@LuigiRappallo) March 9, 2015
Double-edged Media
The media is both a key aspect in “demonising and vilifying the whistleblower,” Radack said, and at the same time their “saving grace” since “robust investigative journalism has been a tremendous help to whistleblowers.”
Whistleblowers “are always painted as being out for fame, or profit, or revenge,” she said. “Some journalists in the U.S. act more like the government lapdog than the government watchdog. And they very much care about maintaining their contacts.”
But the war on whistleblowers is really a backdoor war on journalists, Radack maintained. “There’s been a war on whistleblowers, a war on journalists, a war on hacktavists, and an overall war on information… because information is the currency of power, especially in the digital age.”
When leaks come from official sources, such as in the recent Hillary Clinton email controversy that has seen the former Secretary of State release State Department emails to the public, and former CIA Director David Petraeus’ leak of classified material to his lover, “they’re very self serving,” said Drake. “Whistleblowing is done in the public interest. The whistleblowers, the truth tellers, are really the canaries in this democratic liberty and freedom coal mine.”
Visit the Silenced website for more information on the film and upcoming screenings.
]]>On Wednesday 29 October, the Frontline Club held a special preview screening of documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras’s new film CITIZENFOUR ahead of its UK cinematic release on Friday 31 October.
While working on a documentary trilogy about post 9/11 America, Poitras began to receive encrypted emails from a subject known only as ‘Citizen Four’. This citizen claimed to be ready to blow the whistle on a global intelligence effort involving private information and communications of regular people. Poitras and confidant Glenn Greenwald flew to Kong Kong on Citizen Four’s instructions, where they would dissect the information he had to give them. It was here that Citizen Four revealed himself as the man we now know as Edward Snowden.
The film recounts the next eight days of interviews between Snowden, Greenwald and other investigative journalists. Poitras takes us through the day-by-day process of interviewing Snowden, making sense of the documents, writing the stories, and then eventually releasing them to the world. CITIZENFOUR puts to its audience clips from other experts such as Bill Finney, shedding light onto one of the most debated and controversial topics of the 21st century.
29/10/14 I cannot urge this enough – go see @laurapoitras @citizenfour @frontlineclub – chilling, compelling SEE IT pic.twitter.com/xq40XmycsS
— Fiona Hampton (@FionaHampton) October 29, 2014
Poitras joined via Skype from Germany, where she had just received the Leipziger Ring Award, at the Dok Leipzig Film Festival.
The first question addressed the style of the film, which one audience member characterised as ‘dressed down’. She wondered what her approach had been while editing the film. Poitras responded she “wanted it to unfold chronologically”. This would give the audience an idea of how the actual events unfolded, leaving them with the feeling they were actually present in the room.
Next, Poitras was asked how the film had effected how she communicates with people everyday and whether, as Greenwald joked, Snowden’s fear of snooping had rubbed off on her.
Poitras explained that even before she started this project she used encrypted messages and had only recently started using Skype for Q&As such as tonight’s, but had never felt it was secure as a means of communication.
When asked whether the film was able to attract a wider audience, Poitras said that it was more to do with a “shift in consciousness” and that it was the nature of the information that Snowden leaked that was attracting the attention.
@frontlineclub UK journalists putting questions to Laura on Skype after #CITIZENFOUR as she can't enter UK pic.twitter.com/natfLmbjQi
— SearchMe@universeodon.com (@jesssearch) October 29, 2014
Another question queried why Poitras thought the large telecoms and internet companies implicated in the scandal were willing to work with the US and other governments.
Poitras alluded to companies such as Twitter who did resist pressure from the US government to give them access to their user databases and then at the other end of the spectrum there is Microsoft who gave the NSA warning about encryptions and security changes ahead of them taking place so that the NSA could get a head start. Poitras’s main reason as to why she thought these companies were so compliant was the US government persuasion factor, sending National Security letters to these companies under legislation such as the PATRIOT Act and the PRISM program.
To find out more about the tools of encryption that were used in the making of the film, read this article.
CITIZENFOUR will be released in cinemas across the UK on Friday 31 October. Find our more screenings dates here.
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