Part 2 (2/2)
The Guardian Guardian in London now saw the value in having its own sensitive doc.u.ments posted on WikiLeaks. Lawyers for Barclays Bank had woken up a judge one morning at 2am to force the takedown of the in London now saw the value in having its own sensitive doc.u.ments posted on WikiLeaks. Lawyers for Barclays Bank had woken up a judge one morning at 2am to force the takedown of the Guardian Guardian's leaked files detailing the bank's tax-avoidance schemes. But the files were promptly posted in full by a.s.sange, rendering the gag futile. (In an entertaining blend of old and new anti-censors.h.i.+p techniques, the Guardian Guardian and all other British media were also at first legally gagged from saying that the files were available on WikiLeaks. It took a Liberal Democrat member of the House of Lords, speaking under the ancient device of parliamentary privilege, to blow that nonsense away.) and all other British media were also at first legally gagged from saying that the files were available on WikiLeaks. It took a Liberal Democrat member of the House of Lords, speaking under the ancient device of parliamentary privilege, to blow that nonsense away.) Similarly, WikiLeaks functioned as an online back-up, along with Dutch Greenpeace and Norwegian state TV, in posting in full a d.a.m.ning report on toxic waste dumped by the oil traders Trafigura. Trafigura's lawyers had gagged the Guardian Guardian in the UK from running the leaked report: their draconian moves were thus proved to be a waste of time in a digitally globalised world. in the UK from running the leaked report: their draconian moves were thus proved to be a waste of time in a digitally globalised world.
Yet a.s.sange himself was still striving for a way to be more than a niche player. At the outset, in 2006, he had incurred the ire of John Young, of the parallel intelligence-material site Cryptome. Young deplored a.s.sange's approaches to billionaire George Soros, who funded a variety of mostly eastern European media projects, and he broke off relations angrily when a.s.sange talked of raising $5 million. ”Announcing a $5 million fund-raising goal by July [2007] will kill this effort,” he wrote. ”It makes WikiLeaks appear to be a Wall Street scam. This amount could not be needed so soon except for suspect purposes. Soros will kick you out of the office with such over-reaching. Foundations are flooded with big talkers making big requests flaunting famous names and promising spectacular results.”
Now, two years on from that false start, a.s.sange made another attempt to raise a substantial sum. He and his lieutenant, Domscheit-Berg, approached the Knight Foundation in the US, which was running ”a media innovation contest that aims to advance the future of news by funding new ways to digitally inform communities”. Domscheit-Berg asked for $532,000 to equip a network of regional newspapers with what were, in effect, ”WikiLeaks b.u.t.tons”. The idea, developed and elaborated by Domscheit-Berg, was that local leakers could make contact through these news sites, and thus generate a regular flow of doc.u.ments. A rival project, Doc.u.mentcloud, designed to set up a public database of the full doc.u.ments behind conventional news stories, was backed by staff at the New York Times New York Times and the nonprofit investigative journalism initiative ProPublica. They got $719,500. a.s.sange got nothing. As 2009 ended, WikiLeaks was still struggling to make a name for itself. and the nonprofit investigative journalism initiative ProPublica. They got $719,500. a.s.sange got nothing. As 2009 ended, WikiLeaks was still struggling to make a name for itself.
CHAPTER 5.
The Apache video
Quality Hotel, Tnsberg, Norway 3am, 21 March 2010
”It's their fault for bringing their kids into a battle”
US HELICOPTER PILOT HELICOPTER PILOT.
Even in March, there was still ice in the harbour, and snow lay on the Slottsfjellet hill where the old fortress stood. But down in the waterfront hotel ballroom, the Boogie Wonder Band were hard at it: they were pumping out sweaty dance rhythms for hundreds of Norwegian reporters celebrating the Jubileumsfest the 20th anniversary s.h.i.+ndig of SKUP, the lively a.s.sociation of investigative journalists. ”Bring nice clothes and good humour,” said the invitation; and although a.s.sange had not changed out of his regular brown leather jacket zipped up to the neck, he was certainly in a good mood. In fact, he was excited, and with good reason: he was about to take the first step towards becoming a world celebrity.
The billing for his lecture read, ”Some believe the WikiLeaks site has done more investigative journalism than the New York Times New York Times over the past 20 years.” But a.s.sange knew that the world had seen nothing yet, compared with what was about to come. After a night of reindeer steaks and repeated Viking-style toasts with raised gla.s.ses, he could contain himself no longer. ”Want to see something?” he asked David Leigh, the over the past 20 years.” But a.s.sange knew that the world had seen nothing yet, compared with what was about to come. After a night of reindeer steaks and repeated Viking-style toasts with raised gla.s.ses, he could contain himself no longer. ”Want to see something?” he asked David Leigh, the Guardian Guardian journalist who was also speaking at the conference. a.s.sange, with his lean frame and long silver hair, had a boyishly enticing grin that had already been having its effect on nearby women: his present invitation was also intriguing. journalist who was also speaking at the conference. a.s.sange, with his lean frame and long silver hair, had a boyishly enticing grin that had already been having its effect on nearby women: his present invitation was also intriguing.
Up in Leigh's hotel bedroom, with the door locked and the chain on, a.s.sange produced one of his little netbooks from the backpack he never let out of his sight. He punched in a series of what seemed like lengthy pa.s.swords, and after a while a black-and-white video began to run. It was one of the most shocking things Leigh had ever seen.
The money shot, later played again and again on YouTube from China to Brazil, was a view from the air: it showed clouds of dust erupting among a scattering group of men, as they were knocked down and killed by the cannon-sh.e.l.ls of a helicopter guns.h.i.+p. One man, wounded, was trying to crawl away from the carnage off to the right of the screen. Later a driver can be seen trying to drag the wounded man into a van, which is shot up by more cannon-fire. Told on the radio traffic that children were hurt, a pilot transmits, defensively: ”Well, it's their fault for bringing their kids into a battle.”
The pictures had been taken by an AH-64 Apache's military camera as it hovered over a Baghdad suburb, firing its 30mm gun while virtually invisible to those on the ground. The helicopter was a kilometre up in the sky. Leigh watched, stunned, as the uncut video of these killings ran on the little laptop for nearly 39 minutes.
The video was, explained a.s.sange, the cla.s.sified record of a scandal. In July 2007, US army pilots, in a pair of circling helicopters, had managed to kill two innocent employees of the Reuters news agency: Saeed Chmagh and Namir Noor-Eldeen. Noor-Eldeen was a 22-year-old war photographer. Chmagh was a 40-year-old Reuters driver and a.s.sistant, who had been wounded and attempted to crawl away. Altogether 12 people died in that single encounter. The van driver's two young children were wounded, but survived.
a.s.sange didn't say where the raw video had come from, other than that he had got hold of a cache of material from ”military sources”. But he did tell the Guardian Guardian journalist what he planned to do next. He was going to travel to Iceland, where he would arrange for this sensational leak to be verified and edited up into a properly captioned version. Then he would reveal it to the world. journalist what he planned to do next. He was going to travel to Iceland, where he would arrange for this sensational leak to be verified and edited up into a properly captioned version. Then he would reveal it to the world.
Iceland, in the far north Atlantic, was not so weird a destination for a.s.sange as might be thought. The nomadic WikiLeaks founder had recently become popular there, since agreeing to post a leaked secret doc.u.ment listing major Icelandic bank loans which had been made to bankers' cronies, and the bank's own large shareholders. Iceland's financial meltdown had left an angry and resentful populace behind, and they seemed to appreciate a.s.sange's brand of transparency.
Kristinn Hrafnsson was one of many Icelanders impressed by a.s.sange. He was so inspired that he subsequently became his close lieutenant. Hrafnsson, who was to travel to Baghdad with a cameraman to check out the Apache helicopter story on a.s.sange's behalf, says: ”The first I heard of WikiLeaks was at the beginning of August 2009. I was working as a reporter for state television when I got a tip this website had important doc.u.ments just posted online. It was the loan book for the failed Kaupthing Bank ... They [the bank] got a gag order on the state TV the first and only one in its history.”
The scandal brought an invitation to Reykjavik for a.s.sange and his colleague Daniel Domscheit-Berg, and the two campaigners found themselves urging the small country to promote its own free speech laws. a.s.sange sat on the TV studio sofa and declared: ”Why doesn't Iceland become the centre for publis.h.i.+ng in the world?” Domscheit-Berg recalls: ”Julian and I were just throwing that idea out, declaring on national TV that we thought this would be the next business model for Iceland. That felt pretty weird ... realising the next day that everyone wanted to talk about it.”
a.s.sange was like a pied piper, gathering followers around him in region after region. Another Iceland-based WikiLeaks enthusiast, programmer Smari McCarthy, told Swedish TV, ”We had failed as a country because we had not been sharing the information that we needed. We were in an information famine ... WikiLeaks gave us the nudge that we needed. We had this idea but didn't know what to do with it. Then they came and told us, and that is an incredibly valuable thing. They are information activists first and foremost, who believe in the power of knowledge, the power of information.”
An Icelandic MP, Birgitta Jonsdottir, was at the forefront of subsequent moves to draw up a proposal the campaigners called MMI, the Modern Media Initiative, which was endorsed unanimously by the Icelandic parliament. The proposal was st.i.tched together by a.s.sange, his Dutch hacker-businessman friend Rop Gonggrijp, and three Icelanders: Jonsdottir, McCarthy and Herbert Snorrason. They called for laws to enshrine source protection, free speech and freedom of information. Jonsdottir, 43, is an anti-capitalist activist, poet and artist an unexpectedly romantic figure to find in the Reykjavik legislature. ”They were presenting this idea they called the 'Switzerland of bytes',” she explains, ”which was basically to take the tax haven model and transform it into the transparency haven model.”
a.s.sange decided to publish some Icelandic tidbits from his newly acquired secret cache of military material to coincide with the MMI campaign: one was a very recent cable from the US emba.s.sy in Reykjavik, dated 13 January 2010, describing Icelandic officials' views about the banking crisis. The deputy chief of mission at the emba.s.sy, Sam Watson, had reported that those he met ”painted a very gloomy picture for Iceland's future”. a.s.sange followed this up with leaked profiles of the Icelandic amba.s.sador to Was.h.i.+ngton (”p.r.i.c.kly but pragmatic ... enjoys the music of Robert Plant, formerly of Led Zeppelin”), the foreign minister (”fond of the US”), and the prime minister, Johanna Sigurardottir (”although her s.e.xual orientation has been highlighted by the international press, it has barely been noted by the Icelandic public”).
The US authorities took no visible action about these leaks. There was nothing apparently to connect Reykjavik, where this stuff was coming out, with an obscure military base in the Mesopotamian desert, thousands of miles away.
So at the end of March, a.s.sange returned to Iceland from his triumphant conference appearance in Norway, and, bankrolled by an advance of 10,000 ($13,000) from Gonggrijp, set about renting a house and editing his Apache helicopter film. Leigh, back in London, tried hard to get back into contact to propose a deal under which the Guardian Guardian would publicise the helicopter video. a.s.sange said he would get back to him, but never did. It was only later that it seemed a.s.sange might have struck a more attractive journalistic deal with the would publicise the helicopter video. a.s.sange said he would get back to him, but never did. It was only later that it seemed a.s.sange might have struck a more attractive journalistic deal with the New Yorker New Yorker, whose writer Raffi Khatchadourian was following a.s.sange about for a major profile. (It appeared in June under the t.i.tle ”No Secrets: Julian a.s.sange's mission for total transparency”. a.s.sange a.s.sured friends later that it was ”too flattering”.) Khatchadourian was present to record Jonsdottir, the feisty feminist MP for Reykjavik South, rather unwillingly tr.i.m.m.i.n.g a.s.sange's hair while he sat hunched over his laptop, engaged in important messaging. The profile writer was also taking notes when the message came back from Baghdad: The journalists who had gone to Baghdad ... had found the two children in the van. The children had lived a block from the location of the attack, and were being driven to school by their father that morning. ”They remember the bombardment, felt great pain, they said, and lost consciousness,” one of the journalists wrote ...Jonsdottir turned to Gonggrijp, whose eyes had welled up. ”Are you crying?” she asked.”I am,” he said. ”OK, OK, it is just the kids. It hurts.” Gonggrijp gathered himself. ”f.u.c.k!” he said ... Jonsdottir was now in tears, too, and wiping her nose.
a.s.sange premiered the Apache helicopter video at the National Press Club in Was.h.i.+ngton on 5 April. He chose to t.i.tle it ”Collateral Murder”. Although the video caused a stir, something went wrong. It did not generate the universal outrage and pressure for reform of, say, Seymour Hersh's earlier expose of leaked photos in the New Yorker New Yorker showing Iraqi prisoners being humiliated and tortured in Abu Ghraib prison. showing Iraqi prisoners being humiliated and tortured in Abu Ghraib prison.
One of the reasons why the video caused less of a storm than he had hoped was that Reuters, whose own employees had been killed, chose not to go on the attack over the leaked information. They had, it transpired, been shown privately a partial clip of the two men's deaths, within days of it happening, although subsequent freedom of information requests for the actual video had been repeatedly blocked. Reuters' editor-in-chief, David Schlesinger, wrote a muted, more-in-sorrow column for the Guardian Guardian: ”Reuters editors were shown only one portion of the video. We immediately changed our operating procedures. The first portion of the video made clear that anyone walking with a group of armed people could be considered a target. We immediately made it a rule that our journalists could not even walk near armed groups. However, we were not shown the second part of the video, where the helicopter fired on a van trying to evacuate the wounded. Had we seen it, we could have adjusted our procedures further.”
Another reason for the limited response was the tendentious t.i.tle: ”Collateral Murder”. Readers and viewers often hate the feeling they are being bulldozed into a particular point of view. What went on in the video could be interpreted as a much more nuanced event, to eyes not entirely blinded by rage or sorrow.
For the soldiers had clearly made a mistake. Some of the group they fired on were indeed armed, and the Reuters cameraman's long lens did look like a weapon pointed furtively at ”our brothers on the ground” as one of the pilots put it. The cruel decision to treat the Baghdad streets as a battle-s.p.a.ce on which all were fair game was made not by individual s.a.d.i.s.ts or war criminals, but by the US military at a much higher level. The pilots were doing the murderous things they had been trained to do as some soldiers in the ground unit concerned were later to publicly say. Clearly there was far more to be debated than could be encompa.s.sed in the crude legend ”Collateral Murder”.
Nevertheless, it was a debate that might never have been held at all, had not one young US soldier somewhere decided the video ought to be seen, and had not a.s.sange boldly put it on public display. From now on, the civilian death that American soldiers so often rained down from the sky would be treated a little less casually by the US public. This was surely what free speech was meant to be all about. In many people's eyes, a.s.sange deserved to be seen as a hero.
CHAPTER 6.
The Lamo dialogues
Contingency Operating Station Hammer, Iraq 21 May 2010
”I can't believe what I'm telling you”
BRADa.s.s87.
At his sweltering army base in the Iraqi desert, specialist Bradley Manning showed signs of considerable stress in the weeks following a.s.sange's release of the Apache helicopter video. In web chats, he confided that he had had ”about three breakdowns” as a result of his emotional insecurity, and was ”self-medicating like crazy”. He added: ”I've been isolated for so long ... I've totally lost my mind ... I'm a wreck.” On 5 May, Manning posted on Facebook that he was ”left with the sinking feeling that he doesn't have anything left”.
Part of this emotional turmoil was probably related to the break-up of Manning's relations.h.i.+p with Tyler Watkins back in Boston, which took place around the same time. But he was also feeling scared about the possible fall-out from his ”hacktivist” activities, as he described them, with WikiLeaks. At one point he boasted that ”No one suspected a thing ... Odds are, they never will.” But at others he contemplated going to prison for the rest of his life, or even the death penalty.
”I've made a huge mess ... I think I'm in more potential heat than you ever were,” he would confide online to Adrian Lamo, a hacker in the US who himself had been sentenced to two years' probation for having hacked into computers in a range of enterprises including the New York Times New York Times. The combination of losing Watkins and feeling under threat of discovery by the authorities had clearly left Manning feeling rattled. Days before he began unburdening to Lamo over the internet, he was demoted from the rank of specialist to that of private first cla.s.s, after he punched another soldier in the face.
Julian a.s.sange had recently publicised, in rapid succession, four leaked cla.s.sified files he had laid his hands on, all of different types, but all accessible to a member of the US army in Manning's position. At some point between mid-January and mid-February, a.s.sange received a copy of the cable from the Reykjavik emba.s.sy, which he published to good effect during his Iceland media campaign. Posted on 18 February, it was later described by Manning as a ”test”.
On 15 March, a.s.sange next posted a lengthy report about WikiLeaks itself, written by an army ”cyber counter-intelligence a.n.a.lyst” and headlined by a.s.sange ”US intelligence planned to destroy WikiLeaks”. The ”special report” dated from 2008 and its author was exercised about lists of military equipment WikiLeaks had managed to obtain. Despite its 32 pages, the report was really a statement of the obvious: that a good way to deter WikiLeaks would be to track down and punish the leakers. But a.s.sange's bold headline was a sound journalistic method of advertising and attracting donations.
Two weeks later, on 29 March, a.s.sange caused more turbulence in Iceland by posting the series of US state department profiles of top local politicians: they appeared to have been taken from a separate biographical intelligence folder, rather than from a cabled dispatch. Icelandic officials called in the US charge d'affaires, Sam Watson, to make a complaint.
Just one week on, a.s.sange flew from Reykjavik to Was.h.i.+ngton to publicise the Apache video. It appeared from what Manning said subsequently that he had done detective work on the video and leaked it in February after finding it in a legal dossier, a Judge-Advocate-General (JAG) file, presumably because the Reuters employees' deaths led to a formal investigation at the time.
These four leaks were, of course, only hors d'oeuvres. a.s.sange had also acquired a whole banquet of data: a file on Guantanamo inmates; a huge batch of US army ”significant activities” reports detailing the ongoing Afghan war; a similar set of logs from the occupation of Iraq; and most sensational of all following the successful ”test” with the Reykjavik cable leak, Manning had, it was later alleged, managed to supply a.s.sange with a second entire trove of all 250,000 cables to be found in the ”Net-Centric Diplomacy” database to which his security clearance gave the young soldier access.
Although the precautions practised by Manning and a.s.sange had apparently worked well to date, it was perhaps no wonder that Manning felt exposed.
The process in which he first reached out to, and gained confidence in, a.s.sange had been slow and painstaking, according to the later published extracts from what were said to be his chat logs. Neither he nor his lawyers have disputed their authenticity. The geeky young soldier seems to have first contacted the ”crazy white-haired dude” in late November 2009, but tentatively so. He needed to be certain that WikiLeaks could be trusted to receive dynamite material without his own ident.i.ty becoming known.
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