india. very conservative women, say to the people in the organization you're really glad you're teaching our girls there so they can have the career we lacked. you see the kind of thing? and i'm not saying we can change the world as judges, but we can in fact have conversations that just occasionally, like all of us have, just occasionally, we're in the same boat. we sometimes have a little entree there, and we're in the same boat to try to have that moment when you feel, well, i've communicated something. or they maybe to us, they maybe to us, too. but that's why i say, that's one part of the changing world. overall it's not just the docket. it's the world that has changed. and the world -- you're not there because they're some liberal judges who have a view of things or because -- nothing to do with individuals. our docket, our opportunities, our judicial laws and soing for, are not a function of

individuals and they're not a function of one philosophy or another philosophy. they're a function of a worlds that has changed and that's the point i want to get across because those are the challenges i think in part we have to deal with. >> host: that is an inspiring note on which to end what you have told us is that all citizens, not only in america but around the world, really have an obligation to educate themselves about the constitution by listening to each other and to divergent points of view, and by bringing people together and respecting the argument on both sides you're suggesting they can learn from each other. that's what you're trying to do in this book, what we're trying to do at the national constitution center. out of your many great contributions to constitutional education, and in addition to your books, the fact you're at heart a teacher you were a teach are at harvard law school and

still are trying to inspire citizens in america and around the world to educate themselves about the constitution, this highest calling imaginable, please heed the justice's call and i'll give you some final homework. read his decision. pick a decision, he mentioned the death penalty decision, read the majority opinion, read his dissent and then make up your own mind where you find hi persuasive or more persuaded by the majority. justice breyer, thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations] ...

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> book tv continues with the discussion on the book "the wikileaks files:, a collection f the state department cables released by wikileaks in 2010 carried author and journalist is joined in discussion by julian assange from the ecuadorian embassy in london. >> i would like to invite all of

you here. this is the launch of the wikileaks files. i'm jacob stevens. we have been working on this project with julian assange and with wikileaks for about four years now. this is a culmination of a lot of collaborative editorial and political works that we are proud of and we are thrilled to be able to publish this with julian assange and with wikileaks. you should all get a copy if you haven't got one on your way in common and get one on your way out. is part of the tickets and you have in it an amazing roundtable discussing an analysis of what we can really learn from this huge huge leak of diplomatic cables and what we can learn about the operation of us empire and foreign-policy.

i'm extremely proud rigidities jervis cahill who will lead this conversation with julian assange. jeremy, i'm sure y'all know is one of the great journalists of our time, author of blackwater and 30 walls and of course the film dirty wars. [applause]. [applause]. >> so, i should add and is carried on the great works of wikileaks and edward snowden. thank you. >> it's really great to be here. i live in this neighborhood and never manage and that i would be amiss stage. i'm used to listening to people who are good singers and they asked if i wanted a music stand

and i thought there was a miscommunication. as the last thing you'd want to hear is me saying. i'm honored to be here to help launch this incredibly important book because we are gathered here at time when there is a war in this country, not only against journalists, but against journalism. there is a war against people of conscience within the united states government who dare to speak out without permission, who dare to uncover extrajudicial killing, extralegal activities by the government. unconstitutional activities done in our name and with us taxpayer dollars. there has been a criminalization of independent journalism in this country that has manifested not only in the form of surveilling journalists, but in prosecuting whistleblowers. as we know, this administration, the obama administration, which is headed by a constitutional lawyer by training has indicted more people to the espionage act

then all of his predecessors combined. the message that this administration has sent by going after journalists phonorecords, by presiding over trials of chelsea manning, who is now serving decades in prison and continuing to be harassed and abused while in government military custody. presided over the ruining of the lives of people like thomas drake, one of the original nsa whistleblowers. by throwing people in prison who had the audacity to speak out about torture while at the same time allowing people that created the torture program, dick cheney, donald rumsfeld to be on book two hours, to be accepted as legitimate members of society with a something to say on the elite talk shows on sunday. you can tell a lot about where our morals reside in this

country by licking out what war criminals aren't book to her and what whistleblowers are in prison. we can see a lot about who we are as a society. our special guest tonight is not able to be here with us in person because of a campaign similar to those and i said i have described as these whistleblowers. julian assange, and i know that there is a lot written about him in the press, there is a lot said about him in the press, his personal life is debated every day in a some publication across the world. julian assange is spearheaded a project that made it possible for a brave whistleblower, multiple occasion-- whistleblowers on multiple occasions to provide concrete primary source material on a secretive government programs, on extrajudicial murders of journalists and civilians and

provide the people of this country and the world with an incredible map into a secret bureaucracy that in the democracy all of us should have a chance when understand and debate. when i was reading julian's introduction to this book, i was struck that it feels like a piece of writing from a different era. it feels like a philosophical writing from the late 50s or early 60s because it takes account of history. is not written for the twitter or short attention span society. it delves into the history and refers to the history of the ming dynasty, of using messengers cross mountains in an effort to map out the geography of empire and what he says in his essay and i encourage all of you to read it, is that by looking at just individual cables and what they say about a particular country or a particular operation that the us

is involved in, we are casting aside the empire and just looking at the cables, the forest through the trees analogy and it's noting all of this that unfortunately, we have to welcome julian assange by video link instead of him sitting here on the stage, but please join me in welcoming wikileaks founder and publisher julian assange. [applause]. [applause]. >> thank you, jeremy for those kind words. >> the last time i saw you, we were sharing a whiskey in the confinement of the ecuadorian abbasid era london. >> about a year and got-- a year and half ago. >> i wanted to start off and not forget we are talking in a moment when chelsea manning, of

course, is still in the crosshairs of the government. edward snowden is a next aisle other whistleblowers that have not yet been taken by the government across the spectrum are quite possibly in our midst and facing persecution in the future, but i did want to ask you about the latest on your current situation. there has been speculation over the past month that you potentially will leave the embassy, that the statute of limitations had run out with the cases against you in sweden, but i wanted t give you a chance in your own words to address people here and i will have you know we have a packed crowd here in brooklyn, new york. let us know what's going on with you and lets the latest on your case and what your thoughts about what will happen in the coming months with you? >> it's going to be a fantastic -- fantastically boring and a bit technical. i am sick to death of the whole issue, as you can imagine, but i

have been detained now for five years without charge, in prison, house arrest and in this embassy. that's without any publicly revealed charge. there is a possibility-- my posse-- my washington lawyers say there could be a sealed indictment, otherwise no charges. we have about a dozen different legal cases around the world, half a dozen criminal cases, so sweden, criminal cases we have taken, offensive criminal cases denmark, sweden, germany. additional criminal cases against me in australia and saudi arabia. we have a lot going on and that does not include the civil cases that we have going in relation that is being constructed

against my visa, mastercard, bank of america western using, discover, jcb. with defeated-- coming up the present moments, the status in the united states is there is a pending prosecution for espionage, conspiracy to commit espionage, computer fraud and abuse, which the computer fraud and abuse contained in many espionage act, conversion, which is stealing government property and general computer-- searcy. that is a charge spectrum and we don't know how may charges of each type, we just know the type. that information cannot because the us government has been sending warrants to a variety of

service providers including google who managed to get number of gag orders on google and some have been overturned. as a result, we have the warrants for about six other people, six of our journalists that the us have served that i'm. interestingly, there was a case in us federal court in the seat earlier this, in march. a judgment in the case related to us and we, together with epic, the electronic-- we are trying to understand whether the us government has been illegally surveilling our quarters in the united states. freedom of information requests were not filed in relation to that. the doj and fbi have been battling this out for about two years to read the judgment found that the wikileaks case, the

case against me is effectively a state secret in the united states. that is, the us government argues that even revealing a single line, a word out of the 100,000 something pages that the doj and fbi would be to harm that pending prosecution and to harm us national security. as a result, that series of freedom of information act request is restricted, but further around another 500 freedom of information act filed by our lawyers, by other journalists in the united states and other civil rights groups are held back, so there's-- it's like a hoover damn blocking off a torrent of documents, all under the excuse that there is a pending prosecution of me. it leads to-- we might have shot

ourselves in the foot of it politically as far as if the cases dropped in the us, then suddenly this dam breaks open in the something like 100,000 documents. so, politically they have to keep the case going. >> host: what would-- what issuer logic for not just exiting the embassy and saying i will challenge all of this, both from the united states and other things and the swedish end of things and i realize those two things have different legal repercussions in answering this, but you have never been shy about challenging the empire, challenging the us government. you had prominent us politicians saying you should be assassinated in a drone strike and were prepaid as a threat to us national security by very powerful current officials. what is stopping you from

stepping outside of the embassy and saying i'm going to face all of this head-on and if you want to be beyond trial in the united states led the trial of the century because i will have the best lawyers and you are wrong and i'm right and i have justice on my site? what is to stop you from doing that? >> guest: i have thought about it and presently the uk, sweden refuses not to exile me to the united states and also refuses to say whether they have received a us execution order or not. well, we have thought about it. is perhaps something to do at the right political time, if we can be convinced that there would be a fair presence in the united states. just like with noted it cannot be a fair presence of the united states and i'll explain why. a us government has been running , admits to have run the

grand jury against us now, for five years. alexandria, virginia. alexandria, virginia is a hotbed of the national security state. it is in the area for the jury pool of cia, pentagon, that part of homeland security and so on. it is the largest single concentration of us government to workers. not by coincidence. in fact, the us government tried to make sure that all cases involving national secured claims held in alexandria, virginia, which they called the rocket docket has pushed its case very fast and you have a jury pool where you have significant problems in finding -- there is also special rule that says you cannot get rid of jury members because of--

>> one of the things that amazes me about your reality is that whenever people start to write off wikileaks as irrelevant you somehow seem to get your hand over documents. for instance, the bounty you put recently on the tpt and the fact that you guys were able to affect the debate while the founder of the organization is stuck in a handful of small rooms inside of a room in london and without divulging any members or sources, how do you see the ongoing relevancy or relevance of wikileaks in the current era? what is it you hope to achieve even though you are stuck talking with us on a video screen and limited in your movements? what do you hope to achieve and how are you able to study documents? >> guest: there is a frown on my face because jeremy, it sounds like you are being digitized and

placed underwater on mars if that is at all possible. >> dick cheney is in the room, that's why. [laughter] >> host: can you hear me clearly >> host: we hear you perfect. >> guest: while they tried to picture audio, it didn't understand the gist of that question. >> host: the short of it-- can you hear me, julian? >> guest: it's super, super bad. i just want to say i can make a dedication while we are waiting for that to get fixed. i would like to dedicate this book-- here it is and its us launch to michael ratner, the president emeritus of constitutional rights. michael is a very dear friend of mine and chief of the wikileaks legal team in the united states. to some degree, this book not be

written without him. in the sense that he has provided me with legal cover, which has given me enough time to be able and security with a difficult situation and security to be able to write the book. he is a bear. michael, we wish you were here. i'm sure that is also felt by number of other people in the audience. >> host: julian, so you know i went to share with people here if you don't know michael ratner is one of the greatest freedom fighters in the modern history of this country. litigated the first challenges to the guantánamo prison, not just post 911, but actually when thousands and thousands of haitians were taken to guantánamo, in the 1990s and being systematically said-- stigmatized as dangerous to

america because of the potential for hiv, aids and michael has been just a incredible fighter for freedom around the world. he is at present in a battle for his life and i saw him the other day and his spirits are very high. he definitely wanted to be here tonight, and i think it will mean the world to him to know that people thought of him here and brought his name into this room, so keep him in your thoughts and in your hearts because michael ratner is important to so many causes around the world. julian, can you hear me now? >> guest: loud and clear. >> host: basically, what i was asking before is how you have managed to stay relevant despite the fact that you are stuck in a few rooms. east of the documents and have the bounty on the tpt that produce results. you managed to shift that debate and impact that debate and it

seems like when people are trying to say, well, wikileaks was just a-- iraq and afghanistan, somehow you always managed to pop up with new document and i don't want you to divulge any sources or methods, but how is it you are able to do that given you are where you are right now? >> guest: well, i can divulge the source of the message easily. sheer bloody mindedness on the one hand and on the other hand having a pretty good team. at people in my organization. i mean,, with legal support and a bunch of donors in the community and sources still believe in us. it is interesting to try and pull it off. is quite hard work. i should say right around the sympathy right now, there's

around-- about seven uniformed police and about the same number of covert police in the covert actions team that operates around this building. interestingly, it's not a deal with heralds, a very famous department store here and they own most of the surrounding buildings around the embassy and there's a deal to place their surveillance teams in those buildings play for hours a day. managed to get a hold of those documents. the budget spent just by the police surveillance alone, not including gc hq, not including-- it's $20 million so far surveilling the in the embassy that operates at about $15000 a

day. is the one area we are able to gain political traction here in the uk because so much money is being spent harassing someone who hasn't even been charged. >> host: read them or how was when i came in to see you. there are police on the steps there and they just barely give your visitors enough space to get by them. it's almost like they want someone to bump the bare shoulder, but then there is this cartoonish surveillance van that is right outside one of the windows. is that an actual real thing or is it just sort of like a prop to kind of like mess with you? >> guest: well, different parts of the surveillance and some is more visible to people going past and maybe actually about two thirds is not visible to the public. then there are very public components with large conspicuous surveillance vans

parked in front of the abbasid. there's a uniformed police presence as well. something that is done for public relations purpose when there is negative press on how much it's costing, for example, that retreats. then they park in the side alleys and then once that wears off they are back again. varied visible component designed to be visible. >> host: it seems like it's meant to send a message. there have been some reports in the media recently about your position with the ecuadorian government. i'm wondering if you still are confident in your relationship with the presence and the foreign minister of ecuador. i don't know the veracity of some of the reports, but the reported-- >>

>> guest: not high. >> host: i don't know if people saw this, but it got a lot of traffic and i think you should have the opportunity to address this. the short of it was they were a number of news reports that basically portrayed a scene where the internal staff of the embassy was in conflict with you and that you are there because of the great of the presidents and that a lot of others don't want you in that embassy. can you address some of these reports that are based reportedly on leaked government document ecuador? >> guest: it's not simply a matter of political will. obviously a government needs political will to enforce its law. it's a matter of law. ecuador is a party to a 951 convection amongst other conventions and it has activated those conventions in this process and i won my asylum case with ecuador. as such, it has national

league-- legally binding operation to make good on the silent. that's a matter of law and also a matter of national concern. ecuador would be seen to be remiss in terms of its asylum obligations if it broke that halfway through. does that mean that there are factions in ecuador outside the government and from inside the government to have a different position? yes, it does, so we do have to keep an eye on what the domestic politics are:

>> host: fair enough. >> guest: a very interesting situation where in science we can comment about the weather, for example, and the weather doesn't change. but in politics and human society, you can comment on some feature of it and then it changes because of your comment. >> host: okay, fair enough, mr. potential ambassador. wikileaks put out a

statement trying to clarify some oevents that occurred when edward snowden was in transition, moving from hong kong ultimately ending up in moscow, and of course we know from your own account, also from the film "citizen 4" that how toyear involved in strategizing that and helping a facilitate edward snowden getting on a plane with some form of documentation. two questions but the first i want to ask you so we don't muddy the waters here. we all remember when the reports emerged that the president of bolivia, who has been a very fierce critic of the united states throughout his time in office and before, his airplane, while it was traveling through european air space, was forced to land on direct orders from the united states. can you explain, given you were dictly involved at the time, with that reality open the ground with edward snowden, what

your understanding is what what happened with the plane and the firefighter. they thought edward snowden may be on the plane. that is what was reported. >> guest: so, look, we saw edward snowden was in a difficult position in hong kong, and how were we able to see that? well, because i've been detained without charge for five years and i also have seen chelsea manning and jeremy hammond go through their cases in the united states, and watched and observed closely, and come to know far too much about the espionage act and also how the 1951 refugee convention works and so on. so, i read the hong kong extradition act and the hong kong bail act, and contacted some very good sources that we

had developed in hong kong, and also in china in relation to the rule of the china politburo. china has control over foreign affairs function of hong kong. domestically, it doesn't have a formal control of hong kong but in terms of the foreign affairs functions, it does have, if you like, veto power. hong kong's relationship to china is very much like, say, bermuda's relationship to the united kingdom. so, the chinese politburo did not have the will to intervene on the edward snowden case. and step in to protect him. the hong kong government, our sources inform us, were going to conduct things very strictly by

the book. they weren't going to give edward snowden any breaks and neither were they going to act in relation to the ute. what strictly by the book means in hong kong as terms of extradition area requests of the used, the person going through the extradition process is imprisoned during the whole process. so that's point number one. point number two, relation to asylum application, hong kong has a very poor record in relation to the percentage of people who apply for asylum that it grants asylum, about one percent. furthermore in the path few years we studied it had never done it for someone from the west. therefore, we thought that edward snowden should leave and go somewhere that he was more likely to receive asylum, and we

engaged in a variety of negotiations. -- with our diplomatic sources, and i secured him inside the office from venezuela, from ecuador, from nicaragua, and publicly bolivia was making some good noises as well. now, then there was -- we routed him in a safe path to latin america, doesn't go through hawai'i so you have to go over the top and that means going through russia. we also secured in russia that russia would not extradite him into the ute before we had even put him on the plane to make sure he had a secure route the whole way. and we put him on a russian

carrier, aeroflot, in case there was any interference with the pilot. now, once he was in russia, the u.s. government canceled his passport. one of the great goals of the state department, of this century, is to cancel snowden's passport while he was in russia. i guess some more conspiracy tokerally midnighted might suggt it was intentional in relation to the p.r. damage it might inflict on edward snowed ton be in russia but i think it was mostly they started the bury cattic process of canceling is passport because they wanted to entrap him in hong kong and just got their timing wrong and ended up canceling while he was in moscow. so he is in moscow.

then we looked for, how can we get him out of moscow with a passport. inertial airlines won't take him. noticed there was an oil conference in moscow, and president madeira was going to be there, amongst other presidents, and one of those other presidents was president morales. now, we then reached out our feelers to madeira, who has already given his informal or maybe by that stage public offer of asylum to snowden, but we decided because it was so much surveillance, that in this communications, our code word for madeira would be more rag -- morales, and we had lawyers involved and nontechnical people

who couldn't communicate. and then he made a joke where he was in russia at this oil conference, morales joked that at the end of the interview he was off to meet snowden now. it was just a joke. these things seemed to have combined. this joke by morales and the u.s. intelligence services put two and two together and made 22, and decided that they then had to expend vast amount of political capital, ringing up the countries in western europe and trying to close their air space to a presidential jet flight from morales. which they did, and spain, france, and portugal closed their air space, incredibly, to a presidential jet flight because the u.s. intelligence asked them to, and had done so without any legal or

administrative process, and then the morales flight took off, and tried to go into -- over the flying path, to refuel in the anywherery islands to go to bolivia. they couldn't do so because the air space ha been closed and was forced to land in vienna, and then there was a 12-hour process where president morales was stuck in the airport waiting lounge of vienna because he couldn't get the clearance. now, a presidential jet is protected under the vienna convention. that's the convention that in fact protects me in this embassy. it's around diplomatic territory, and presidential jets are listed as diplomatic territory. so a violation, enormous violation of the vienna convention in vienna. this really sealed edward snowden's successful asylum

application when eventually it was too dangerous to take any other option, in russia. what do coo be the russian response to this downing of president morales' flight? the only response they could give to seem like a credible country is that if he asked -- snowden asked for asylum, they would accept the asylum request and that's what ended up happening. so, this incredible diplomatic end goal led to this buoying of western europe, which provided the ultimate proof of edward snowden was being politically percent -- persecuted, which i what ended up giving him asylum. >> host: i love the vienna convention being violated in vienna. you should use that one more, julian. i am a gluton for punishment so i read a lot of right-wing,

former intel people on twitter, and i wanted to -- because i think it's important to have you address this head on. i want to paint a picture of what these people say about your and your relationship to edward snowden and have you address it once and for all so the that there is a response. they seem to think they have stumbled upon some dark secret by stringing together innocuous parts of sentences you and snowden have both said to create a very fantastical conspiracy theirry. it goes like this, you are an asset of russia's fsb, and the russian intelligence services. and that through your connections to the russian fs and other intelligence services, you are able to facilitate a situation for edward snowden where he would be given safe passage by putin and the fsb and

the kgb, where he would then become an fsb asset as you already are, once he was safely in an fsb safe house somewhere in moscow and that snowden had just been giving the russians all of the america's deepest secrets he accessed while he was at the cia, the nsa, et cetera. what is your response to all of this, probable probably a funny joke you'll make. i'd like too hear a serious response to that. >> guest: i have no choice. it deserves a serious response. you're talking about a conspiracy theory pushed by the nsa dick pick guy, right? this. >> host: schlinder's dick? is. >> guest: a guy, john schlinder, he will be ore gas mick that his name is --

>> host: i can't believe you're giving him the satisfaction. >> guest: who brags about having worked for the nsa for ten years, and and was a professor at the naval war college in the u.s., and he ran something called -- his blog, and he posits these conspiracy theories. what is interesting about them -- shy explain the joke. i won't explain the joke directly because it's a bit tawdry. the reason he is called the dick pick guy, you can just search for -- gawker, or john schlinder and gawker -- >> host: i don't recommend doing this if you want to keep your din are down. >> guest: you have to seen an unseen button on your eyes. okay. that not actually very interesting at all. what is interesting is --

because plenty on twitter -- what is interesting is the people who pick it up. and one of those just recently was one of the governors of the broadcasting board of governors, the bbg, and the bbg is the u.s. government's official propaganda funding organ. so it funds voice of america, radio free asia and so on, to the tune of a billion dollars per year. the governor has been spreading that around the place, and it made me think, well, i know what the broadcasting board of governors does more or less but maybe we should look in our cables to see if there's anything more of it. and i came across fantastic

cables from the congo, from the u.s. ambassador there, written in 2008 and 2009, calling for a cy on intervention in the congress go. that one of the most interesting things that come us out of this constellation analysis of the cables, the role of u.s. embassy. you think the role of u.s. embassies is more or less to -- of course, diplomatic calls, maybe occasionally to provide cover, diplomatic cover, for some cia agents. but to negotiate trade deals and so on. you think that's basically what they're about. that's not at all true. the state department and u.s. embassies play a unique role out of all the bureaucracies in the united states. maybe only the treasury is -- can be equated in a similar way.

the treasury divides money for -- provided money for all the other government institutions in the united states. the state department provides physical housing, lobbying for all the major elements of u.s. national power. in fact more than 27 different agencies are housed in u.s. embassies and the largest u.s. corporations also get access to u.s. embassy meeting room and special adviser towsack as political advisers and trade negotiators. so, for example, u.s. embassies must -- nearly all of the larger ones have national security agency monitoring equipment. many of them have to have -- >> host: hold on a second.

>> guest: -- military -- >> host: it's saying the connection is unstable. the last thing we heard how you were describing the nsa surveillance gear that is placed often times on the top of embassies. >> guest: yes. so u.s. embassies are like a rotary club. some might say an evil rotary club, and in that clubhouse is not simply the state department, the clubhouse is run by the state department but is the other major element of u.s. national power, including the marines and army and air force and the cia and the department of homeland security and so on. and the largest u.s. corporations. although they rarely have a permanent station there they are given access to meeting rooms and political guys and assistance making deals, and the largest ones, in fact the u.s. embassy goes out of it way pro-actively, specially on contracts.

so that's something very interesting that you get from a constellation analysis of the cable wes have published, more than 2.7 million cables now, more than 2 billion words. in fact, it was being publishing even this year 500,000 diplomatic cables. okay. so, going back to congo. the u.s. ambassador to the congo put in a request for a cy op intervention which he constructed a plan of the congo to beef up support for the government so that included cia should come in and be broadcasting board of governors should come in as part of the psychological operations intervention to boost up the fortunes of the government of the congo against the opposition. >> host: how does that relate to the issue of the -- the question

i asked about fsb. i don't want to leave the door open on this -- not just john schlinder. he is -- >> guest: it's -- i am not sure what more one can say about this. you can look at how they put together their conspiracy theory. the conspiracy theory is that because i said that i advised ward snowden to take the russian offer of asylum because it was in my opinion, -- he was much safer in russia physically, and over several year period, i don't believe that he dish thought the risks were too high in latin america that he would be kidnapped or possibly even killed in the process of attempting to kidnap him. a variety of reasons for that. the weakness of latin american

intelligence services, nature of the land borders and they have democratic governments that shift wildfully character between one election cycle and the next. but he was absolutely focused on the rhetorical counterattack to nsa mast surveillance, and didn't want there to be any accusation he was russian spy, which he thought would be used to rhetorically undermine his critique, so despite the risks he was intent on going to latin america, and so i said, okay, fine, we'll try and arrange that if that what you want. my advice is that is a significant risk but we'll try to do it anyway. >> host: i should say, just for the record, i think that those allegations are ludicrous. i permanently have spoken with -- personally have spoken

with snowden about this and this views and what he has done in russia are completely antithetical to the conclusions drawn by those people but i'm so sick of seeing that line i wanted to raise it here -- >> guest: the simple fact of the point which shy also mention, the national security agency should give us a massive bonus. we made sure whenned a ward snowden entered on to that plane -- edward snowden entered on the plane he was not carrying any laptop. we mate sure of that because we knew he was passing through russia. and we didn't want him to get stuck in russia on his way somewhere else. didn't want to create any attractive bait that might compromise that situation. >> host: don't let facts get in the way of the conspiracy theories. we'll get to audience questions in a moment. i wanted to ask about your

introductory essay of the book. i found to it be a different style of presentation and it's actually a remarkable piece of writing, and maybe you can walk people through this sort of geography of empire that you describe as being told through not one or two documents or a selection of them but as a body of documents and sort of why you think this book is so important to understanding the impact of what chelsea manning did or that we understand that she did from her own words in revealing these cables and other cables you have published at wikileaks. >> guest: i had a great frustration with the meet ya reportage of the early cables we published. the alleged chelsea manning cables. we had a -- dealt with over 110 media organizations, that were able to look at the different

biases and different regions and across different organizations and sometimes even with different editors and lots of cables were sent either through selection or directly. "the new york times" scandal obviously censored one of our cables about nuclear weapons in iran, down to one paragraph. so 26 words from 62 pages, which were the only 26 words which went along with the line of the thesis of the story they're trying to push which was that iran could whack europe soon enough with a nuclear weapon. the rest of the cable spoke in a different -- almost completely different direction to that. okay. so, i was irritated with the reportage. for that reason and because of the shallowness of it, that a

russia between journalists and not to criticize them too much but they're news journalists so they do things quickly, search for some famous name and find some scandalous comment or hypocrisy and write a store. the habit was developed amongst cable journalist of doing that. so, they needed to be something deeper, and i fully expected that deeper approach, looking at the relationships between countries and how the state department worked, as an organism, and how the u.s. works in its modern form, was it a modern empire, but like the roman empire or the british empire but a modern empire, and if so what kind of modern empire was it? i expected academics would that because we have produced the single most important repository

of international relations, primary source repository, covering 40 years, 2 billion -- easily searchable, well indexed and so on. the natural thing to go for, the first thing to go for. many investigative journalists, even just many political journalists, one of the things they look for when they see a name they've haven't come across before in international politics. what does the cable say about them? but it didn't happen. english speaking academia in the united states seemed extremely shy, suspiciously shy, about how it was engaging with this incredible archive, this 30,000 volume archive of how the most

significant international organ that the united states has actually operates in practice to have missed the parts of the world where it has influence. contrasted with other journals in other parts of the world, concentrating on international relations in asian languages, spanish languages, slavic languages, german, french, where there is decent coverage, and in the court. so the cia kidnapping case, six of those cables were cited in the judgment. al-masri, completely innocent, even the cia -- completely innocent german citizen was snatched off the streets and detained and tortured and then dumped on a street in albania. anyway, eventually his case came

before the -- cable became evidence. people are being freed from pakistani prisons based on the cables. re-litigation of some of the cia interventions in spain as a result of the cables. about 30,000 citations of the cables in various papers, including to get out of the field of academic relations, journals inside the united states, by u.s. authors. for example, in epidemiology, epidemiology of war, in computer -- in computational linguistics, how you look at language and there's so many words in this 2 billion word corpus, a great thing for people interested in language to study. lots of these being done, anyone

the united states, even in u.s. journals, even with u.s. authors. so it clearly wasn't simply the legal risk, and u.s. journalism organizations use cables about once a day. there's something published in the u.s. press derived from that massive cable set. what is the largest organization in the united states that deals with international relations at the academic level? the international studies association. that association is used by the state department, by the white house, as actually relatively left leaning, but it controls five big academic relations journals, the number one of which is internationals studies quarterly, and there's one citation in the past five years to information derived from the

cables in that journal. the editor was asked about this, just in december last year, by an academic who was studying what the hell is going on with u.s. academic journals not citing wikileaks cables. the editor responded that the editors are in an untenable position because there's a rule which there ought to be no citation, and that's because of -- supposedly because of legal fears and the policy will not change until the isa, this overarching organization in the united states, changes its policy. so i thought, okay, that's the answer. english speaking academia is not going to study these properly because it is scared. scared for legal risks and as it turned out, much more scared, the participants, of not gaining

security classification or not gaining contracts with the state department, with the u.s. government, if their name -- so we had to do it ourselves, and that's what we have done. now, i hope that people will -- we have 17 authors, a lot of very skilled authors in the book, specialists in their field, but in particular, chapter 4 is a discussion of how we did it, and how to search the cables and how to understand this incredibly rich repository of state history relatively recent history, how to do that and write these books and articles yourself. >> host: it's interesting to note -- i'll say to people there's a microphone here. unfortunately only one so if people are interested in asking julian a question, you can line

up here. we do ask it be a question because it's very late, julian's time, and we're on somewhat of a limited time frame here, but the microphone is here if people want to ask questions. it's interesting note, julian, that "the new york "new york tih published a lot of material base owned the bravery of a whistleblower, and sold a lot papers and gained a lot of notoriety as a result of being one of your original publishing partners on multiple projects in fact, had to beshamed into covering chelsea manning's trial, arguably one of the most important trials in modern american history, by bryant and other independent journalists who were there every day reporting on it. we joined a lawsuit along with you at wikileaks and other news organizations to challenge the secrecy of the proceedings, and to cry to gain the right -- try to gain the right to just

have a transcript of the proceedings, and what that ended in is the government saying, okay you can have schwin transcribe it but you have to pay for it. there was a deafening silence on the back end of all of this when someone actually was -- did have their livelihood this, freedom, their liberty, put into the cross-hairs of the most powerful state in the world. so maybe you can comment -- i know you have hat battles with the guardian publicly, with "the new york times" about how they treated you or how they treated wikileaks. make you, address the disconnect between how they cover your case, chelsea's case and the way they use the documents. >> guest: i've been philosophical about it. i was very tiffed off at one stage. we had contracts, for example in

"guardian." -- [inaudible] >> host: you're breaking up a little built. let's wait for the -- hold on. we lost you there. the last thing to you said that we could understand was that you had contracts with these entities, "the guardian," "the new york times." >> guest: we had contracts "guardian o'broke every includes. the editor moved on now who was responsible then. awful editor of "the new york times," bill keller, quite interesting to trace his history in cables. he is awful even 30 years back. he has moved on. and marge get sullivan, very good public editor at the "new york times," also drew attention to the problems with "the times coach, chelsea manning case. you have to understand large institutes like that have the

only interests, no allies. just like states, and they're very careful at dealing with each and dealing with states. they're armed to the teeth with giant libel cannons so when they get into a fight and have the ability to fire these cannons and be very damaging to the reap pew addition of a state organization -- reputation of a state organization or individual so they circle around each other and act in quite a diplomatic way with each other when they're dealing with large institutions. now, "the new york times," in relation to our collaboration, -- once the heat started in response to the cable publications. you can say me maybe it's too close -- [inaudible] -- has become too close to the organization that is meant to be

scrutinizing. but i think it was mostly fear. they saw this very intense reaction coming and they decided they didn't want to have it hit them and, therefore, someone needed to be the fall guy. so they didn't hold the journalistic line. they simple police directed that incoming fire on to us. and in fact on to me personally, and actually wrote against us, and tried to make life very difficult for me and for our publication by attacking us, and that is why distancing themselves and saving your own skin. it was quite clear, they were horrified about being called a partner explicitly in the publication, they explicitly

requested that they not be called that. >> host: why is that? >> guest: well, because one man's partnership is the dojs -- department of justice's conspiracy. the flow of collaboration and the flow of information back and forth looks very similar to a flow of conspiracy back and forth. and you "the new york times" was petrified of that, but instead of having -- i don't know -- enough institutional strength to resist that, it felt it had to create a fall guy for it, and so it pushed all that incoming firepower directly on to us, and to keep that distance, it decided to not cover the chelsea manning trial. >> host: you broke up a little there. your saying they decided not to cover the chelsea manning trial. we lost you there for the last part. >> guest: they decided to not only cover the chelsea manning trial until they were beaten up

about it, but the chelsea manning trial -- forget loyalties, to an also source. the chelsea manning trial was the single most important journalism related trial, free speech related trial, in the last 20 years, without a doubt. also, it was the largest ever u.s. military try. the largest ever. took the longest time, largest in size and that is at least since the civil war. so, that is a statement not by me but by the prosecutor in that trial afterwards about june this year. in. >> host: it's a damning metaphor for the whole thing that you had the most powerful media institutions in the country, whether intentionally or unintentionally, colluding with the government to shroud the

entire thing in utter secrecy and only because of -- again i keep reiterating this -- a handful of independent journalists who were not working for money or huge publications, just refused to let silence win at the end, and it shows the power of independent voices, of independent journalism and independent journalists who ondo work harder than their corporate counterparts. >> host: that's. >> guest: that's correct. bryant was very dogged throughout to the whole process. >> host: she deserves a lot of credit. we have some people here that are going to ask questions. i know your time is limited so we'll move through quickly. maybe ask people to be succinct and if you can cut to chase the most important parts of your answer, then we can get through as plane people as possible, thank you. >> thank you for speaking with us today. as all of this points out, even

though the journalism was crated as a way -- created as a way to check government this the u.s. government is incredibly powerful and so in an ideal world what should be the role of the u.s. government in the international order, the role of the statement department and the role of the u.s. embassies? >> guest: well, with all the human beings in the world, never be a perfect world. let look at where things done adjusted. i'm under no illusion that if russia had the same expanse in 1400 military bases and more than 120 countries, that would be a nicer empire or the chinese. chinese, given what is happening in their culture, probably less militarized and maybe more conservative in other respects. the problem isn't the united states. the problem is simply that its

empire has grown too big and that means there is a defective bargaining power by other states in the whole -- in many different areas of the world. very, very few that can play off support for -- by china and a little bit of support by russia. very few states are able to do that. also there's no accountability. it was my fundamental believe that institutions, organizations, even families and marriages are kept honest by people -- by the people and organizations involved having bargaining power. they can go somewhere else. now, the structure of the u.s. empire is such that can't happen in various places and had a very co rosesive effect within the united states because it has led to an extremely large military and intelligence sector to state

want it state which i'm sure germany could tell you more about. more than 5.1 million active security clearances now, and probably about another 20 million to 30 million people on the periphery. that has a distorting effect within the united states. you can see that in a very simple way, a simple, easily imaginable way, when you look at ferguson, look at the fruits of occupation and the methods of occupation in afghanistan and iraq, being brought back home literally in the form of humvees and body armor and infusion centers and so on. so, my answer is, smaller empires. you have to have a balance. just -- i would say actually,

within a country, the only thing that keeps it honest, you have a balance between the commercial sector, the government sector, the church, civil society, and the media. it means that people have places to go. that what keeps a country honest. it is not electoral democracy. it's the ability to transfer allegiances and survive -- when you factor out. >> host: the very last part before -- we lost you on there, the first clause in the sentence. we know something was fucked around. >> guest: what keeps societies decent, regardless of their form, whether they're monarchies, whether dictatorship, whether it's authoritarianism, capital him or some form of democracy, is the ability to transfer support and allegiance from one power group to another, when you get fucked

around. >> host: now we understand. i. >> guest: that's what keeps a society -- >> next question. >> i'm a history teach in new york and this question is from by tenth grade students and it's similar to one just answered. a little more -- less idealist, more really isicment thaw want to know your ideal form of government and we look at low voter turnout in in democracy and the way voters vote and would like to know what you have to say about that. >> guest: well, it could be a good thing. why there is low voter turnout? because voting doesn't make any difference. right? more or less. doesn't make much difference compared to what you might otherwise do with the time you spent voting.

i was involved in an election in australia, not my open but supporting someone else's, and as i manned a polling booth, that does make a difference. actually the time you spend voting doesn't make the difference. very, very rarely -- [inaudible] >> host: breaking up a little bit there. you were trying to dissuade all young people from voting. >> guest: very few exception is wouldn't bother. don't become disengaged but spend the time doing something else. you can -- most people can do something that is more productive in relationship to society than spending the time voting. >> host: going to be an interesting debate in somebody's history class tomorrow. >> high up julian.

you messengered advise edward snowden against going to latin america instead of russia. when countries offer asylum what are your criteria for choosing which country gets the refugee? in other words which countries are your best friends? >> guest: well, it just depends on the person. what their can conflict is. i founded a foundation, together with a journalism professor here, called the courage foundation. i runs edward snowden's defense fund and runs a number of people's defense funds, and we were involved in getting someone else out embassy in baku. wife actually work for the u.s. military, pro u.s. guy in relation to toe azerbaijan, so that he ended up being

transported on the swiss foreign minister's jet. so we kind of -- something like what we had hoped would happen with -- [inaudible] from venezuela, edward snowden -- >> sorry, you -- tech technical problems you were just saying something about that case versus the snowden days and your hopes. sorry. >> guest: okay. there are other people in trapped in embassies around the world. there's some ethopian senior political people trapped for more than 20 years in the italian embassy in ethiopia, and -- and azerbaijani media

activist, more or less on the pro u.s. side, his wife is a service million hi was trapped until very recently in the swiss. embassy ins a jerry buy january. he eventually came out on a flight during the opening ceremony of the european games. he came out on a flying on the swiss foreign minister's jet into switzerland, and the swiss government have put up. so it just depends on the political situation as to who is willing to stand up for someone's asylum in a legal and political sense, how much that country is invested in the 1951 convention for refugees and what the physical threats are to the person and can they be physically protected in that country. so, that basically is the -- the answer is, once you have applied all those constraints, there's

usually very few countries left. you try and -- it's not a situation usually where you can pick from five different countries. that's very, very rare. >> host: thanks. go ahead. >> hi, julian. you have acknowledged a lot of the victories that have come from a lot of the documents you have gotten. you're exposing different corruption and different kinds of activity, but have you ever been contacted or have acknowledged some of the negative repercussions coming from the exposure in terms of people who have died, whether they be military assets or intelligence assets, and how you acknowledge that in the grand scheme of considering what you're doing a positive versus where some people see it as a very big life-threatening negative. >> guest: well, i'm glad you brought up that question because it's complete bullshit.

it has been admitted under oath, under oath, by the u.s. government, in the chelsea manning trial, that they could not find a single person who had come to physical harm as a result of any of the alleged chelsea manning-related publications. and it hasn't been alleged as far as i'm aware in relation to any of our other publications either. now, it's just a very old, rhetorical technique by governments to try and divert attention away from a scandalous news story. if it's a scandalous news story that involved proof of the u.s. government involved in death -- [inaudible] >> we're losing you again there.

>> guest: -- and maiming of more than 200,000 people in -- outside. we produced evidence showing on a person-by-person basis the u.s. government's involvement in the deaths or maiming in iraq and afghanistan of 200,000 people. 200,000 deaths or maiming records. now, what that publication shows is the pentagon, an and ultimately the u.s. political cause that backed the invasion of iraq and afghanistan, covered in blood, covered in blood, and in some instances involved in war crimes and involved in torture. the response to that is simply to make a diversion along similar lines. what about the risk?

could someone get hurt. just documented 200,000 people getting hurt or killed. so it's to try and -- people are very sensitive to hypocrisy so you try -- if there's a credit instinct one area, then the -- back in the same direction. but something is being used rhetorically with great effect by governments for at least 50 years i'm aware of, but i don't know of a single case -- there may be one but i don't know of a single case across our publications that everyone's publications of information leading to direct reprisals. there's presencey of events where the bbc, for example, publishes a scandalous report and there's a riot and somebody died. that's happened many times but no in relation to intelligence

information or diplomatic records. >> host: it's interesting. at the intercept we have procedures in place where we get i give the government a chance to responsible to stories we're going publish, particularly in the case when we'll be publishing classified documents, and i sort of started to advocate a position we shouldn't ask them because they never actually answer a question, and they always push for more time, and they always give you the identical tin can statements. we having a an internal debate about that at our own media outlet but in a rent conversation with a represent tonight a spy organization, this person was essentially saying if you published it you're going to have blood on your hands. it was ridiculous notion because it was a very benign piece of information but it's their default to say you'll have blood on your hand. i finally said, your handers

already drenched in glad, and our editor kicked me under the table. [applause] >> but it's remarkable. it's often printed without any substantiation that wikileaks caused people to die, and i think anyone who asks that question should be required to present an actual case because the u.s. government hasn't done soment it often comes up. we'll now take the next question. >> hello, thank you and jeremy both for your time, your voices and your relentless courage. what can acknowledge average tech savvy person do beyond by the book, bev you the valuable retweet you love. what can someone do to help encourage adversary area journalism lining you do and help encourage the next whistle -- whistleblower to come forward. actually do to encourage and support.

>> guest: well, it's very boring but the number one is give money. -- [inaudible] -- >> the government is hearing - scrambling your financial appeal. >> guest: fuck those guys. applause >> guest: it's give money. if you have a comparative advantage that makes money, say, you're a plastic surgeon, it's very extreme case, then -- frankly resources to others who -- where their comparative advantage is doing the job because they do it the most

efficiently. that's the technical and rather boring answer. otherwise, defending the rights of people two do this is quite important, so speak naught a frank and robust way, not spreading paranoia. just -- this is simply an expectation in a reasonable society, this sort of work is done. keeping your eyes and ears open in relation to sources opportunities for organizations like us and jeremy are jeremy's. if you hear something, say something. but say it to us. if you fine something, get something, give it to us. and encourage others along the same direction. >> host: i'm assuming you don't want people report suspicious bags on the new york subway to wikileaks. i remember when these companies were starting to shut off

wikileaks' access to donations, and then targeting activists who were involved with campaigns to oppose that, including paypal, which pierre is the funder of the intercept and is a founder of ebay and never publicly commented on that and he should comment on paypal and comment on this kind of discussion that we're having now, and i'm going to directly ask him about it the next time i see him because i think people do deserve to have an answer to that question from pierre and other people who are executives at the time. but i recall that a lot of tech people ran to the defense of wikileaks in helping to mire roar the site, figure out ways to circumvent the financial censorship of wikileaks and there's a lot of opportunity for free lance tech savvy people too use their own innovation when they see whistle-blowers or

whistle blowing sites under attack, and many times we have seen people on their own initiative step up and do some things far more creative than we would have thought about, even thee we have journalistic resources to do it. obviously donate money to causes you believe in if you have the money but there's a unique role that tech savvy people can play in an era where some of our best freedom fighters are sitting at their computer aural day long, and i just encourage people to cape your eyes over the way to bolster, amplify, support organizations that are taking risks or dealing with sources taking risks. next question. >> my name is cody doyleson, a student at the new school. i was just wondering, with the begin offering the u.s. eflex 2016 and the public potential on whistle-blowers, liked a ward snowden, how you see in the future the war against who isle blowers, do you see it advancing or digressing?

>> guest: in the context of the election? very interesting question. we're watching it closely. the bookmakers across -- 11 different bookmakers, you can't -- for most of them you can't even bet on hillary clinton anymore. not because she is possibly could lose but because the marginal costs or more than the payup. what that means this bikemakers think hillary is lety close to a dead certain to win and that assumes a lot over the last 12 amongst, but anything can happen in politics. maybe hillary will have a stroke. who knows. but hillary is very likely to one. much more hawkish figure than barack obama, but on the barack obama, we have seen more people prosecuted under espionage act

than all previous presidents couple biked. more than twice as enemy. it's up to three times as many now. [inaudible] >> the reason we're having a technical problem. we're holding on hillary clinton -- [laughter] >> there was a -- saginaw there have been some news reportage that i'm going to be hillary's worst nightmare and always hillary e-mails being released. actually, i'm somewhat sympathetic to hillary, although we have had our disputes in the the past -- over the e-mail scandal because it's a ridiculous overclassification, and it's not surprising to me that she has been swept up in

the absurd overclassification scandal and hillary can say so herself but of course in the correct defense she guess the classification stuff i bull shit. might have been an occasion where the president was about to land somewhere and details of what hotel eh is in should be classified for a limited period to prevent assassination, but that's fine. but we're talking about e-mails that are now several years old. so it's very interesting to think. what could still be classified, genuinely classified in those e-mails? there's nothing. there's nothing that could be genuinely classified in those e-mails. >> host: i tell you what i believe is classified top secret in the e-mails, disgraceful efforts by the united states to subvert libya, to subvert syria,

to overthrow those governments, which has led to the rise of the islamic state, involvement with saudi, and qatar, and turkey in doing that, which would be diplomatic have i very embarrassing if it was released. ...

a poll cold and little pieces of it, but we don't, we are not even scratching the iceberg, the tip of the iceberg and what is happening behind the scenes that that's why this book is so important. not just a ghost of what it revealed but how the government works. but also shows the potential for what could happen if we actually had transparency that was encouraged rather than criminalized, that we would have a more round debate in our societies about what the moral stance of the country should become about what national security actually means, about what is the definition of a terrorist, how to get on the kill list, how do you get off a two list short of being killed in a drone strikes quacks we have multiple administrations,

democrat, republican who all have embraced this idea that the executive branch is effectively a dictatorship within the united states when it comes to dictating the lives and dies around the world at any given day. we only have about five minutes left and i'm sensitive to the fact web for people in line. what i want to do is ask their cooperation and just quickly ask a question of julia and one in a row and will give julian a chance to wrap up for a few moments. -- julianna. >> the light of what jeremy was saying, what do you see the role of wikileaks a functioning democracy and in relation to that do you see a manner which the general populace can't engage with wikileaks without the locker of a journalist? >> thanks in advance or as an. basically wanted to ask basically wikileaks in which a writing with all these whistleblowers coming forward and the culture and intimidation suppression against everybody

now how that works in american history what does reflect on society? you had woodward and bernstein whistleblower on watergate and osha demand for transparency. now what you've seen is no outcry, what you've seen is the media almost cannibalized itself in attacking journalists who do try to instill transparency. >> we got you. that was very fast. >> thank you for everything you've done. and want to know, julian, and all the cables you've read, and published them what defined the most surprising? >> at our last question before julian answers. >> i want to also thank both of you. it seems like a major name challenging power in one way or another so want to echo some of the questions about your ideal since apart relations. i got the impression you're a big supporter of the revolution in iceland that kicked out of

creditors, stopped the creditors from bankruptcy in iceland iceland is a scandinavian social love state where there's a strong egalitarian ethos and social democracy. is that something you would support as a bulwark against power in general in society? >> there's a lot there but i trust you can whip through it succinctly. >> okay, trying the last one first. of course, you can't teleport icelandic society. iceland has a population 320,000. you can't transport that to a country with a population 100 times the size, the united states or even a thousand -- you can't transport that to the united states. there's a scaling problem. but you can certainly grab some ideas. in relation to wikileaks and it's come if we're talking about taking action, bankers talked a

lot about work has been on the financial industry. some of our earliest, biggest cases, biggest attacks on us were from banks. relation to wikileaks and its role with the journalism more broadly, people, and we encourage it, can interact with this directly. in fact, the majority come here's something very interesting. the majority, not the majority. the largest segment of our readers comes from india. the largest type of readers we have is not people looking at news. it's not academics, although there are some, journalist, although there's some every day. it is people searching for who their sister is proposed to marry. they want to check out of the groom, see if he is corruptible.

people who are wanting to see, who they're going to be engaged with business, or it's the many foreign service departments, the diplomatic departments and government departments outside the united states i want to check out -- want to check out what people independent have thought about one actor or another, one ambassador or another. so we take a few that the stories that we released our advertising for something that is much deeper and more important, which is historical archive, a grand the library about states actually work. o. k. -- >> the remaining question was about in all of the cables that you have read, what surprised you -- >> the most important one. okay, generalli always answer this question, the most surprising thing is not a cable.

that's precisely what this book is about. the most surprising thing is the grand sweep of it all. you know, the big structures. that's the surprising thing. how it all mixed together -- knits together. but if you want little vignettes, well, i'll give you two. one in relation to my present circumstances right now. i'm in the united kingdom. there's a conservative government in power, reelected just this year, and the principal figures in that conservative government our william hague, whose the foreign minister during the conflict i have here. david cameron whose the prime minister, and george osborne, who is the treasurer. so here are the cable back from the american embassy in london back to d.c.

william hague, the foreign minister, has come into the embassy and here's the report. haig said david cameron and george osborne were children and staunch atlanticist. william hague said whoever enters 10 downing street, that's the british equivalent to the white house, as prime minister then learned of the essential nature of the relationship with america. he added, we want a pro-american regime. we need it. the world needs it. so the current government that i am dealing with, which is deployed 100 full-time equivalent surveillance passport around the embassy are the most disgusting from the most boulder, the most embarrassing u.s. sucks imaginable. there's a secondary question as to whether hague was being

genuine or not, or whether he was trying to many collect the u.s. ambassador. but either way it's quite bad. these -- if it's genuine or it's a machiavellian type of panhandling that the principal leader of the british government have done. the of the cable which i think is the richest of any one single table concerns, it just is so much, you know, it is so rich, it concerned censorship, the kurds, turkey, violation of the separation of powers, and the false status of the scandinavian states as liberal democracies, and had the head of nato at his job. that's all in one cable. and barack obama in on it as well. so there's the kurds.

they exist as an ethnic group of about 20, 30 million people in the border regions of turkey, iraq and syria. big news at the moment because of what is happening in syria and iraq with the islamic state. they have a tv station, or rather they had a tv station, the largest kurdish language broadcaster. that tv station was destroyed as part of a plot. who was in on the plot? barack obama, the turks and the head of nato. ahead of nato, until just recently, rasmussen, he was the former prime minister of denmark and he wanted his plum job as being ahead of nato. he's in awful reactionary transit plan to -- [inaudible] >> okay. now denmark is just hacked your

connection. [inaudible] denmark wanted to become head of data. that's rasmussen. you would have seen in the past year trying to foster increasing tension between the united states and russia. okay, rasmussen. he wanted to become head of nato. the u.s. and obama also want him to be head of nato. the turks perfectly happy with him being head of nato, but the way nato works is that each country has veto power. the turks wanted to destroy the kurdish language tv station, although j., the largest -- largest language. it beams up, beams down into the kurdish region. turkey have been going after the

synsinking of right of way. the cartilage is connected to the pkk. they try to let you display too much violence and foster terrorism. it took thos those cases domesty in denmark and all failed which does be perfectly normal tv channel with no connection to the pkk. but in the cable, the prosecutor, the equivalent to the danish attorney general and a senior member of the danish intelligence service, the equivalent of the cia up dimarco into the us embassy to have a chat about how they're going to mess up roj tv. because of the deal needs it. at the u.s. embassy and the danes are going well. the problem is we haven't been able to find any of these connections to the pkk. so let's go after it on tax ground. let's go after it looking at the

content. let's see if we can come up with creative solutions, and that is precisely what happened. they went after it on content grants. they said that this kurdish language broadcaster was talking about being too much from the kurdish perspective, that it wasn't balanced enough in its reporting about what was happening in the kurdish speaking regions of turkey. and to the danish court walked it as result of this conspiracy it was developed. the case is now before the european court of human rights. the star exhibit in that case, the kurds have taken the danes to court, are these two cables. one in particular. anyway, it says that barack obama has sealed his deal, he's all happy with that. tv station was wiped out, censorship not nearly one tv