The most controversial activist organisation of the 21st century, WikiLeaks has attracted strong, divergent opinions from across the political spectrum. Lauded by its supporters for its indispensable role in holding governments, corporations, and human rights abusers to account, its advocates and journalists have been excoriated by opponents as traitors, threats to legitimate governments, and misogynists. Yet so much media attention is focused upon founder Julian Assange, and his ongoing confinement in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, that the broader dimensions of WikiLeaks are rarely aired. Especially critical in these omissions is the role of women, both in the organisation and the more general struggle for information freedom.

The protagonists of the new book:Women, Whistleblowing, WikiLeaks will be in conversation to discuss the themes of their new book and show the various ways they’ve been at the forefront of such activity: acclaimed journalist and human rights advocate Sarah Harrison, Croatian-German theatre director, activist and author Angela Richter, and Renata Avila, a celebrated Guatemalan human rights lawyer and digital rights expert. Ranging widely, from the dishonesty of the mainstream media and its contrasting treatment of Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning to the terrifying monopolisation of personal data under tech behemoths such as Facebook and Google, join us for an ongoing debate around digital activism.

Link to book can be found here.

Chair

Pamela Anderson has a portfolio of work that encompasses entertainment and activism. She is a supporter of the Courage Foundation, that supports whistleblowers including Edward Snowden, Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning. She is a board member of both PETA and The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. The Pamela Anderson Foundation  supports organisations and individuals that stand on the front lines, in the protection of human, animal, and environmental rights

Speakers

Renata Avila is a Guatemalan human rights lawyer and digital rights expert. She has played a central role in the international team of lawyers representing WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and his staff. An access to knowledge activist, she is on the Board of Creative Commons and is a trustee of the Courage Foundation.

Sarah Harrison is a renowned British journalist and human rights defender. A former researcher with the London-based Centre for Investigative Journalism and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Harrison left to work at WikiLeaks during the height of its groundbreaking publication of US military and State Department documents in 2010. She is also a co-founder of the Courage Foundation.

Angela Richter is an acclaimed Croatian-German theatre director, activist and author. She founded the Fleet Street Theatre in Hamburg in 2001, and was house director at the Cologne National Theatre Schauspiel Köln from 2013 to 2016. Her interest in WikiLeaks led to the 2012 theatre piece “Assassinate Assange.” In 2015, Richter staged the large scale transmedia-project “Supernerds” in co-production with German national TV WDR, dealing with mass surveillance. The text was based on conversations with digital dissidents and whistleblowers, such as Edward Snowden, Daniel Ellsberg and Julian Assange. “Supernerds” received the Eyes & Ears Media Award, was nominated for the SXSW Innovation Award in Texas, and is nominated for the BANFF Award in Canada.

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.

“J. Edgar Hoover was apoplectic.”

On Monday 29 September 2014, the Frontline Club screened 1971, the incredible story of eight US citizens whose courage – both moral and physical – led them to break into an FBI office to confiscate evidence of the bureau’s grave abuses of power.

The self-incriminating documents revealed the existence of COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program), the remit of which ranged from spying on women’s tea parties to what Noam Chomsky described as the, “Gestapo-style assassination”of Black Panther leaders.

In the post-screeening Q&A we were joined by director Johanna Hamilton via video link.

“It’s the FBI!” exclaimed a member of the audience, when the video programme experienced a slight delay in connection.

Hamilton began by outlining the two main challenges she faced in documenting a story hidden for 40 years:

“One, that they had never been found. They never revealed themselves. They were talking to Betty Medsger, The Washington Post journalist, she was writing a book and that is how I gained access to the story.

“The other real substantive thing is was that because they had never come out, we weren’t sure how the government would react. It was one of the largest FBI investigations that the bureau had ever undertaken. That’s a very little know fact, obviously because it was such a public embarrassment. . . . This was really a we did it as opposed to a whodunit.”

Hamilton then quoted the FBI’s response to reporters covering the film:

“We’re a different institution today than we were in the 70s. We’re reformed. We’ve reformed ourselves partially as a result of the revelations that happened in the 70s.”

“They didn’t reference the burglary directly,” noted Hamilton, “but obviously that was a great relief that the Citizens’ Commission was not going to go to jail.

“President Obama has become known for prosecuting whistleblowers,” she continued, “and obviously the film was coming out in the wake of the Edward Snowden revelations so there was a lot of hoopla surrounding that.”

Director Johanna Hamilton

“I really did want to be able to tell the full personal story and the political aftermath of the story,” said Hamilton, on her decision to use recreations:

“I wanted it to be cinematic, and for people to really be able to put themselves in their shoes. And they’re very unconventional whistleblowers. They’re very non-traditional, they’re not insiders. They were outsiders, so they do have to do this quite extraordinary thing. It was really improbable that they would pull it off, number one, and that they would find what they were looking for, and that they would remain undetected all that time.”

A member of the audience commented that he had left the states as a student in 1967: “What I found in your film, that very few people who are not of my generation may not feel so much, is how innocent we all are. . . . The brutishness of it is still active today. I see Laura Poitras is in your production credits. She’s got an indictment against her . . . and I think the situation has got much worse.”

Future screenings and workshops can be found on the film’s official website and Twitter account.

Anonymous, a group of hackers, activists and technologists, came to the fore in 2008 when they attacked the church of Scientology. Since then their coordinated collective action has come up against global corporations and supported the Arab revolutionaries, but how much do we know about who they are and what motivates them?

Six years ago Gabriella Coleman, an anthropologist, set out to study the rise of this global phenomenon just as some of its members were turning to political protest and dangerous disruption.

Coleman will be joining us in conversation with Ben Hammersley, presenter of the new BBC World News series Cybercrime with Ben Hammersley, to share her story of becoming an Anonymous confidante, interpreter, and erstwhile mouthpiece. She will be talking about the motivations of the group, the meaning of digital activism and the many facets of culture in the Internet age.

Gabriella Coleman holds the Wolfe Chair in Scientific and Technological Literacy at McGill University. Trained as a cultural anthropologist, she researches, writes about, and teaches on computer hackers and digital activism. She is the author of Coding Freedom: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Hacking and most recently Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous.

On Friday 28 June there was a palpable sense of anticipation among the Frontline Club audience, ahead of the preview screening of Alex Gibney’s most recent documentary We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks. The film chronicles the history of WikiLeaks and looks at the roles Bradley Manning and Julian Assange played in what was referred to as the biggest leak of state secrets in the history of the United States.

Documentary filmaker Alex Gibney and moderator Owen Bennett Jones listen to questions from the audience. Photo: Alex Glynn

Before moderator and freelance journalist Owen Bennett Jones opened the floor for audience questions, Gibney explained that he was approached to make the film and “jumped at the opportunity”. The winner of the 2008 Academy Award for Taxi to the Dark Side pointed out he has ‘done a number of films about events that were prominently featured in the mass media and had gone into those stories after they had occurred in order to “try to understand better what had actually happened”. On his decision to make a film about the well-known story of WikiLeaks he said:

“It seemed to me it was a very important story, a story I was very interested in. And I was interested in Julian Assange as a tremendously powerful figure – a man with a computer and a laptop setting out to expose abuses of power.”

Despite a one-year period of negotiations, Assange did not agree to be interviewed.

“When I first met Julian, I told him frankly that I was going to do the film whether he agreed to participate or not, so he didn’t like that very much. I told him I hoped he would participate. He felt that somehow he should have more control over the process.”

After the world premiere of the film, WikiLeaks released an annotated transcript of the film. Gibney explained:

“Someone had a tape recorder at a screening of the film at Sundance, tape-recorded the film and transcribed it. Unfortunately that meant that one quarter of the film was left out of the annotated transcript because, as you know from having seen the film, all of Bradley Manning’s chats are written, but not spoken.”

The annotated transcript has been updated in the meantime:

“I have read the annotations and there is not one in there that makes me feel that we were factually incorrect in any way.”

A vocal part of the audience perceived the representation of Assange in the film as unflattering, but Gibney defended his portrayal:

“I believe that we’re all entitled to an opportunity to look at the whole truth. Just because somebody tries to right a wrong, or tries to hold powerful people to account, it doesn’t mean that person is above the law, or is entitled to speak lies to power instead of truth to power. I believe this film tried to disentangle these issues.

 

“I believe there were a number of people who were giving Assange too much of a break and allowing us to believe that it’s ok to endorse the vilification of two Swedish women because we stand for transparency.”

One audience member voiced a counterweight to some of the criticism of Gibney’s portrayal of Assange, striking a cord with others in the room:

“I just wanted to say – because there have been such extremes of opinions expressed – that I came to this film with an open mind about Julian Assange and I leave with an open mind. The film just makes me want to read some more – so thank you.”

With regards to Bradley Manning, the film not only looked at his role in releasing the classified files, but also his personal background. Some in the audience felt that this may have been an unnecessary dramatic tool, but Gibney defended its inclusion as crucial to the story, saying that it’s terribly important that we do not regard whistleblowers and people of conscience – such as Manning – as superhuman, but as human beings.

“I don’t believe what the military said about Manning, that he leaked because he was troubled. I believe he leaked because he had a political conscience and he felt this material should be seen, and that he was doing a larger good. But I also think he’s a human being with flaws and in some ways deeply inspiring. I think for us to ignore that would be to end up playing into the hand of those who attempt to silence people. The idea that we need to be Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King in order to do something great [is incorrect]. I think average people can do extra ordinary things, no matter what their flaws.”

You can find further information about the film’s release dates here.

In 2010, WikiLeaks and its sources used the power of the internet to usher in what was for some a new era of transparency, and for others the beginnings of a new information war. Julian Assange. Bradley Manning. Collateral murder. Cablegate. WikiLeaks. These people and terms exploded into the public consciousness by fundamentally changing the way democratic societies deal with privacy, secrecy, and the right to information, perhaps for generations to come.

Academy Award winner Alex Gibney tells the story of what happens when an incredibly small group of people decide to break open the intelligence vaults of the most powerful nations on the planet. We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks explores how this enormous trove of classified US data was leaked and the impact the documents have had on international events.

Directed by Alex Gibney
Duration: 130′
Year: 2012

In 2010 U.S. Army Private Bradley Manning committed the largest security breach in US history, handing the classified Afghan War Diary, Iraq War Logs, and 250,000 State Department cables to Wikileaks. Imagery like that of an American helicopter team gunning down citizens and journalists on a Baghdad street in 2007 has been lodged in the global consciousness.

With Manning standing trial before a military court in June, the Frontline Club engaged an expert panel on Monday 15 May to ask what lies ahead for the whistleblower, along with what his experience might mean to governments and the media.

(L-R): Naomi Colvin, Chase Madar, Richard Gizbert and David Leigh. Photo credit: Jim Treadway

Naomi Colvin, a writer, activist and founder of UK Friends of Bradley Manning, declared him a “touchstone for people involved in social justice movements.”

“2011 is one of those years that will go down in history, like 1989, or 1968, or 1848,” she said.  “Political action was on a worldwide scale. . . . That spark of enthusiasm started in the Middle East, and the [documents that Manning released] are at least a contributing factor to that.”

Chase Madar, a New York attorney who has written a book detailing Manning’s experience, agreed:

“The State Department cables [were] just a very brutal and candid assessment of corruption in the Ben Ali government . . . Tunisian intellectuals I’ve spoken with have said you really can’t tell the story of the uprising there without at least mentioning Bradley Manning and his leaks.”

The panel rang of frustration with the American media’s failure to cover the Manning story in fairness or depth. Americans “know very little” about his case, Madar observed.

“The New York Times fails to send a journalist to cover the first public hearing with Manning,” lamented Richard Gizbert, Presenter for al Jazeera’s Listening Post, “which even the Times’ own ombudsman said was ridiculous.”

“I got adopted by the staff of a fish restaurant in Glasgow [recently],” Madar recounted. “The bartender and the waiter knew all about [Manning’s case], and it’s because The Guardian’s coverage [has been] much better than anything in the United States.”

David Leigh, the Guardian‘s investigations editor until 2013 and co-author of a book on Julian Assange and Wikileaks, reduced Manning’s trial to “a piece of theatre by the American military to expose, dramatise, penalise and terrorise whistleblowers.”

Even still, Madar harbored optimism for what Manning will ultimately represent:

“He delivered a 35-page statement of intent in court a couple of months ago…  it was very impressive… poised, very self-possessed, very thoughtful and reflective, as opposed to the way he’d been demonised as some naricissistic little punk… The more people hear from Bradley Manning in his own words and in his own voice – because someone smuggled a recorder into the courtroom, you can hear him with his own voice – the more they’re going to realise that Bradley Manning is the responsible, ethical citizen; that it’s his detractors in government and the media who are the narcissistic, little, punks.”

You can watch a recording of the event or listen to the audio podcast below:

https://soundcloud.com/frontlineclub/the-case-of-the-us-vs-bradley

In February this year Private First Class Bradley Manning pleaded guilty to sending restricted documents to Wikileaks in violation of military regulations, making him the source of the largest intelligence leak in US history. Ahead of his trial in June we will be examining the charges he faces and the implications if he is found guilty.

In his statement to the court he talked about “revealing the true costs of war” and how he “believed that if the general public, especially the American public, had access to the information… this could spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general”.

Manning has denied some of the most serious charges such as “aiding the enemy” which would see him face a life sentence, but has pleaded guilty to 10 out of 22 charges, which could carry a sentence of up to 20 years.

We will be discussing the questions raised by this case about the fate of whistleblowers and the future of relationships between journalists and their sources.

Chaired by Richard Gizbert, presenter of The Listening Post on Al Jazeera English.

The panel:

Naomi Colvin is a London-based writer and activist. In late 2010 she founded UK Friends of Bradley Manning, which successfully lobbied the UK government to recognise Bradley Manning’s dual citizenship status.

Professor David Leigh was the Guardian‘s investigations editor until 2013 and is a professor of journalism at City University. He is one of Britain’s leading investigative journalists, and winner of the 2007 Paul Foot Award for Campaigning Journalism. He is co-author of WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy.

Chase Madar is a human rights attorney in New York, where he specializes in youth law, LGBT law and disability law. He reports and reviews for the London Review of Books, Le Monde diplomatique, CounterPunch, Al Jazeera, and the TLS. He is author of The Passion of Bradley Manning: The Story Behind the Wikileaks Whistleblower.

We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists explores the historical roots of early hacktivist groups like Cult of the Dead Cow and Electronic Disturbance Theater, and tells the story of how they evolved into groups such as Anonymous. Director Brian Knappenberger traces the birth of a powerful democratic online activism which in these rapidly changing times is beginning to make corporations and governments very nervous.

Knappenberger takes us inside the world of Anonymous, the “hacktivist” collective with no defined leadership or structure that has taken responsibility for numerous acts of a new internet-based civil disobedience. In a time when a number of the group’s most prominent activists face long prison sentences, Knappenberger tells their stories and explores the precedents these trials might set for the future.

In the course of the film we hear from a group that began as a forum to share jokes, we learn about the development of their ideology and their ability to mobilize thousands worldwide. Through interviews with current members and those awaiting trial, as well as with other major online figures, writers and academics, we gain an understanding of their motives and what it means to be involved with groups defining online activism.

Directed by Brian Knappenberger

Duration: 89 mins

Year: 2012

 "Thursday 5 July 2012, WikiLeaks began publishing the Syria Files – more than two million emails from Syrian political figures, ministries and associated companies, dating from August 2006 to March 2012. This extraordinary data set derives from 680 Syria-related entities or domain names, including those of the Ministries of Presidential Affairs, Foreign Affairs, Finance, Information, Transport and Culture. At this time Syria is undergoing a violent internal conflict that has killed between 6,000 and 15,000 people in the last 18 months. The Syria Files shine a light on the inner workings of the Syrian government and economy, but they also reveal how the West and Western companies say one thing and do another."