ITHAKA: The Julian Assange Documentary by Kurt Opsahl

Transcript

Hello everybody. Uh my name is Kurt Opsall. I am the associate general counsel for CI cyber security and civil liberties policy with the Filecoin Foundation and I've spent the last 20 years working for your rights online fighting for civil liberties. And I'm here to introduce Ithaca. This is a film, a documentary you're about to watch that will tell you a lot about uh the story of Julian Assange and his arrest, his imprisonment and his fight against extradition. Uh the film will show you a lot about the human side of the story uh that the you know struggles that were necessary and ongoing for the last several years since uh it was taken into custody out of the Ecuadorian embassy in 2019. I'm here to talk to you about a very important aspect the larger context of this story uh a key aspect

which is the prosecution of Assange threatens freedom of speech, freedom of expression, threatens journalism. The larger story, the story begins actually 100 years ago uh with the Espionage Act. The Espionage Act was passed in 1917 and it was Congress's attempt to deal with uh some of the opposition to the what was then known as the Great War. Now we call it the First World War. Uh and they wanted to censor and stop people from uh protesting against it. And they also wanted to have big concerns about uh espionage from the uh central powers. Uh some of those aspects of the law have been modified since then, but it still stands on the books 100 years later uh

for most of it and it is the primary law that the government uses to go after spies. But uh uh key part of the important part is that before the prosecution of Julian Assange, this law had not been used to go after journalists. It hadn't been used to go after people who are receiving government informations from a source or reporting on those documents. and the information inside them in the media. And now the century old tradition has been broken because Assange is being prosecuted for basic journalistic tasks, being openly available to receiving leaked information, expressing interest in publishing that information about secret operations of the government and

then disseminating that information to the public. Now, whether or not to prosecute someone under this act is a matter of prosecution. There's nothing in the language of the law that says it cannot be used about journalists. But nevertheless, it has been unofficially accepted for a century as something that is not to be used against journalism. So why shouldn't it apply to journalists? One is that leaks are a vital part of the free flow of information upon which the information that we receive as citizens to understand our our democracy depends. And they uh the US Supreme Court 20 years ago addressed a very similar issue case called Barn Nikki

where a radio host received some information that had been illegally recorded. They recorded in violation of wiretap laws by a third party and then just deposited on the radio station's door. They didn't know exactly where it came from. Uh and then they published this they they they took this this recording put it on air uh and uh this case went up to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court decided that that was lawful that that uh you know publishing truthful information about a matter of public concern is something that journalists can and should do is protected by the first amendment even if that information was obtained unlawfully. And so going after someone who is acting as a journalist who is receiving sometimes classified

definitely secret information and publishing it is what journalists use and it makes it a challenge to the fundamental principles of freedom of speech. And now why does this matter? Because what Assange what Wikileaks was doing is what the press does. the press stands in place of the public as a way to find out information about the government and hold the government accountable. So the charges sound a lot like what journalists do that they journalists will often signal that they are available for classified informations that that's part of simply doing their jobs that uh and if they by bringing the indictment and bringing

these charges it is signaling to journalists that they are at risk if they receive classifiation. they do something which is going to annoy or or you know piss off the government then they might be charged with a rather hefty criminal statute and encouraging sources and knowingly receive it. You see this every day if you look through the major national newspapers uh national uh television media they are constantly referring to information that they have received from classified sources that are not explained. they're leaked to them and it is important for our understanding of the world and indeed the DOJ charges uh for some of the acts here revealing information

about state department cables and uh significant activity reports or s of the Iraq war were also published in major media outlets. So the same thing that was brought in the indictment could have been brought against uh was it Dar Spiegel, The Guardian, New York Times, Al Jazzer and Lamont all published similar information and some of the the exact same information. Now the Department of Justice tries to explain this away by saying well Assange is not a journalist but this is problematic for for a number of reasons. It is not the DOJ's role to determine who a journalist is.

And courts have consistently found what makes a journalist a journalist is doing journalism, disseminating information to the public. It is the acts of journalism, not the title or label of journalism that makes you a journalist. The question is whether a journalist or whether someone who wants to be treated as a journalist wants to use material sought, gathered or received to disseminate information to the public. That is the same for whether you're a traditional journalist or whether you're running a website that puts out classified information to inform the public. And the government label is not necessary.

So before we we get to the film, I'm going to close by looking back at one of the more important cases about leaked information. uh in US history. This was a Pentagon Papers case. The Pentagon Papers were a set of uh leaked materials that were providing a lot of information about the Vietnam War that uh a uh an analyst leaked to the press and I went to was published in the New York Times in the Washington Post. The government tried to shut down that publication. This was highly uh classified material at the time. The leaguer was not known, but we now know he is Daniel Ellsberg, and you'll actually see him uh in the film coming up shortly. But the Supreme Court said, "No, you couldn't do that. You couldn't

stop the publication of this material, even though it was classified information about the Vietnam War." And I'm going to close with a with a quote from Justice Hugo Black in that case that uh I think gives you context to think about when you're seeing the the the film ahead. And he wrote, "In the first amendment, the founding fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The press was protected so they could bear the secrets of governments and form the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the

duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the public uh and to the public and sending them off to distant lands to die in foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell. So this was was the the purpose of the first amendment as explained by Higo Black and it fit very well with the Pentagon papers which were about people being sent off to war and it fits very well with some of the information that was leaked by Wikileaks about the Iraq war. So with that context in mind and now turn to you enjoy the film Itha.

Thank you. Hello everyone. I'm Daryl Fannon the CEO and co-founder of Kino. We're hosting this screening. Uh, if you could do me a favor uh and pull out your cell phone uh and you can take a quick photo of me, but scan this uh QR code, you can get a free NFT um just for the screening here at ETH Denver. And if you want to, we have a table in the back with swag and instructions. So, if you uh have any troubles or whatever, I don't know if you guys can wave, but uh back there we're going to begin. So, we'll leave this up for about another 60 seconds and then the screening of Ithaca will begin.

Thank you so much.