It was a meeting across generations and technology. Daniel Ellsberg, who made his name nearly forty years ago by providing copies of the highly classified Pentagon Papers to Congress and the press, was sharing a bill with Julian Assange, a principal in WikiLeaks, the newly prominent Web outfit that publishes documents others would rather keep hidden.
This morning’s meeting was the first time the two had spoken. It was arranged by the minds behind the Personal Democracy Forum (PDF), an annual New York City conference that brings together technologists, activists, developers, journalists, thinkers, and others interested in the intersection of the Internet, politics, and policy.
Assange hadn’t been brought together with the crowd, in the strictest sense—he appeared by Skype from his native Australia, where it was nearing midnight, wearing the black shirt and red tie combination that he often favors. And while WikiLeaks relies on a robust suite of technology to protect the anonymity of their leakers, the video stream left a little something to be desired, depriving the audience of a robust exchange.
Micah Sifry, the onetime Nation editor who along with Andrew Rasiej makes PDF come together each year, was moderating, and did his best to deal with the many “can-you-hear-mes” coming across Assange’s feed.
Ellsberg started with a joke, saying that having Assange’s face projected behind his head made him feel like he was back in psychoanalysis, with a shrink over his shoulder. (The joke had a historical fillip, as Ellsbergs psychoanalytic records were stolen in a government smear campaign against him.)
“Well, I’m naked from the waist down,” Assange volleyed back, before turning serious. “Dan is a hero of mine,” he said, offering that he was being born while Ellsberg was releasing the Pentagon Papers. (Until very recently, Assange had been cagey about his birth date.)
Sifry asked Ellsberg to elaborate on a quote of his that appeared in The New York Times after WikiLeaks released the headline-grabbing video showing the deaths of journalists, civilians, and children at the hands of a U.S. helicopter in Iraq in 2007. Ellsberg had said that rather than go through the laborious work of photocopying the papers on primitive machines, and then schlep them across the country, he wished he had been able to use the Internet to leak the documents.
“If it had all been dumped out on the Internet, which a scanner would have allowed me to do,“ Ellsberg mused, “they’d have said, ‘Well it’s out,’ and not attempted to enjoin it”—as the Nixon White House tried to, going all the way to the Supreme Court, once they knew that the Times was moving to publish the articles around the documents.
In turn, Assange said that his organization had done its best “to set up ourselves to be an unsueable publisher.” Their most significant lawsuit to date came when a Swiss bank tried to stem the dissemination of a collection of their offshore account records in a San Francisco federal court.
“We deliberately set up shop there hoping to be attacked in the free speech hotbed of the United States,” said Assange, noting that it had been an instance where WikiLeaks had worked to “draw those dragons out of the cave.”
“Every organization,” said Assange, “rests on a mountain of secrets.”
“We are just starting to take it on,” he added. “It is inherently an anarchist act.”
“Dan has a wonderful statement that we’ve used. And that is that courage is contagious,” said Assange, citing a leaker who spoke to Ramparts magazine in 1972, who credited Ellsberg as his inspiration.
Sifry asked Assange if he thought the unprecedented spate of leak investigations launched or carried on by the Obama administration was a response to the ease of dissemination of classified information via WikiLeaks, and more generally the Internet.
In response, Assange defended his organization’s security record, and offered another explanation behind the uptick.
Perhaps Ellsberg will recruit Assange in his new found mission to find out who was really behind 9/11.
#1 Posted by Mike H, CJR on Thu 3 Jun 2010 at 06:55 PM
it is important not to attribute to malice, what is more easily explained as human stupidity & incompetence. 9/11 did serve it's purpose, giving birth to a state of perpetual war, but it's less Orwell and more Gibson/Stevenson.
#2 Posted by kitsune361, CJR on Sat 5 Jun 2010 at 11:40 AM
Assage and HIS COHORTS are all in danger.
Assage may be found dead, committing "suicide"
or dead at an "unexpected" traffic accident where a BIG Truck "accidentally" lost control and run into him. specially in an open road in Australia.
or his cohorts could disappear being tortured and waterboarded to tell the secrets of their cryptography, tech'gy, etc.
They need to secretely pass on the secrets to trusted Friends for safe keeping.
We ALL must do our share to work against the NWO and "Elite" trying to Control this whole planet where only a few will control the life and destiny of all others. and where only the necessary slaves will be allowed to live to SERVE. All others (Billions) will be TERMINATED.
This is REAL and I believe it is the ZIONISTS who are steadily working towards that end.
It is NOT the Machines against Humanity. It is the Zionists against Humanity.
Prepare!!
This is not a JOKE! Prepare!!
#3 Posted by j1, CJR on Fri 11 Jun 2010 at 11:42 PM
So why can't he just buy or borrow a contact list of a left wing organization or a couple social justice groups, or some sivil right or human rights organizations etc. and see to it that each person that gets a copy then makes several mor photocopies, many times over, and passes these along to every "fellow traveler" they trust not to be working for the Great Evil Cabal -- they haven't quite turn everyone into a OHS pod-person quit yet you know!? And of course the ACLU should receive multiple copies and be kept in the loop at each stage of the debunking.
I remember very well how back in late 1969 oe very earkt 1970, when the Ellsberg broke the Pentagon papers. Everyone I knew back then -- and I was living in a tiny midwestern town at the time -- had already read the PPs long before the MSM,,-- or as they would much better be called today, the NLM (for [Neoliberal Media},-- was still deciding what they could possibly do, and how they must clear every statement the printed with the pack of liars in the White House beofre making som oblique and vague allusion to "what some say may have happened" etc. For weeks they were in a tizzy as to what, if anything, they could legitimately report as good loyal American Cold Warriors, sitting up in their office each night until 4 AM on the phone with there especialy vile editor in chief, trying to decide what to redact entirely -- i.e. all of the even nalf way important sections etc. While meanwhile the cat was completely out of the bag and passing from one intelligence agency to another and one left group to another on civil liberties association to the next etxc. It never even occurred to the clowns as the NYT and Wash Post that the People,, in anything that comes within ten miles of a serious democracy have every right, firmly guaranteed in the Constitution, to know about such horrific actions of their own and other equally nefarious governments! And we the people, if we are to be anything more courageous than a groundhog, simply can't afford to live in the constant fear the G.O.P. wingnuts are forever spreading abroad, and live in perpetual childish fear, especially when leaking such materials as the present ones is largely child's play, as was indeede the leaking of the Pentagon papers in 1970, which demonstrated, if nothing else, the futility of trying to keep such matter undercover in a society where not only every progressive group had the entire hefty packet of the Pentagon Papers with a couple three days of their being rapidly eaked by Ellsberg, where news services and media outlets around the globe already felt confident enough to run with story,, and where even the always cowardly U.S. MSM were finally getting on top of thing within another couple of days. Not that there weren't some inaccuracies cropping up in the earliest reporting, of course, but by the end of a month it was darned clear to anyone who hadn't been burying his head in the sand what the ten or twelve major findings of the Pentagon Papers were, -- and most all of them had been known on the left for years -- and that they were clearly true, since no civilian could possible write such terrible prose, or even credibly fake it!!
#4 Posted by MI-17, CJR on Sun 13 Jun 2010 at 03:36 PM
So why can't he just borrow or buy a contact list of a left-wing organization or a social justice group, or some civil right or human rights organizations etc. and see to it that each person that gets a copy then immediately makes several more photocopies, many times over, and passes these along to every "fellow traveler" they trust not to be working for the Great Evil Cabal -- they haven't quite turn everyone into a Night og the Living Dead or Office of Homeland Security Zombie pod-person quit yet you know!? And of course the ACLU should receive multiple copies and be kept in the loop at each stage of developing the story.
I remember very well how back in late 1969 or very early 1970, when Ellsberg broke the Pentagon papers. Everyone I knew back then -- and I was living in a tiny mid-western town at the time! -- had already read the PPs long before the MSM -- or as they would much better be called today, the NLM (for [Neoliberal Media}, -- or NLCM, for neoliberal capitalist media in the spirit of Kurt Weil and Brecht’s opera, Mahagony, was still deciding what they could possibly do, and how they must clear every statement they printed with the pack of liars in the White House before making some oblique and vague allusion to "what some say may have happened" etc. For weeks they were in a tizzy as to what, if anything, they could legitimately report as good loyal American Cold Warriors, sitting up in their office each night until 4 AM on the phone with their especially vile editor in chief, trying to decide what to redact entirely -- i.e. all of the even half way important sections etc. While meanwhile the cat was completely out of the bag and passing from one intelligence agency to another and one left group to another and one civil liberties association to the next etc. It never even occurred to the clowns as the NYT and Wash Post that “the People,” always an object of contempt, in anything that comes within ten miles of a serious democratic open deliberation, have every right, firmly guaranteed in the Constitution, to know about such horrific actions of their own and other equally nefarious governments! And we the people, if we are to be anything more courageous than a groundhog frightened of his own shadow, we the living breathing working people who ARE this sorry country, simply can't afford to live in the constant fear the G.O.P.’s endless wingnuts are forever spreading abroad, we can’t afford to live in perpetual childish fear, especially when leaking such materials as the present ones is largely child's play, as was indeed earlier leaking of the Pentagon papers in 1970, -- if you don’t believe me read Ellsberg’s own writings on the matter, -- which demonstrated, if nothing else, the futility of trying to keep such matters undercover in a society where not only every progressive group had the entire hefty packet of the Pentagon Papers within a couple three days of their being rapidly leaked by Ellsberg, but where news services and media outlets around the globe already felt confident enough to run with story,, and where even the always cowardly U.S. MSM were finally getting on top of thing within another couple of days. Not that there weren't some inaccuracies cropping up in the earliest reporting, of course, but by the end of a month it was damned clear to anyone who hadn't been burying his head in the sand what the ten or twelve major findings of the Pentagon Papers were, -- and most all of them had been known on the left for years -- and that they were clearly true, since no civilian could possible write such terrible prose, or even credibly fake it!!
#5 Posted by mi-17 Corrected copy follows. How do I deleted the first one with typos and spelling errors?, CJR on Sun 13 Jun 2010 at 05:50 PM