Daniel Ellsbergs Dying Wish: Free Julian Assange, Encourage Whistleblowers & Reveal the Truth

2019 I spoke to Daniel Ellsberg a day after the justice department charged WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange with 17 counts of violating the Espionage Act for publishing U.S military and diplomatic documents exposing U.S war crimes Assange who's locked up at the belmarsh prison London faces up to 175 years in prison if extradited to the U.S and convicted here yesterday is a day that will be live in

the history of Journalism of law in this country and of civil liberties in this country because it was a direct attack on the First Amendment an unprecedented when there hasn't actually been such a significant attack on the freedom of the press the First Amendment which is the Bedrock of our Republic really our form of government since my case in 1971 48 years ago but this is

I was indicted as a source and I warned newsmen then that that would not be the last indictment of a source if I were convicted well I wasn't convicted the the Chargers were dropped on governmental misconduct and it was another 10 years before anybody else faced that charge under the Espionage Act again Samuel Loring Morrison and it was not until President Obama that nine cases were

brought as I'd been warning for so long but my warning really was that it wasn't going to stop there almost inevitably there would be a stronger attack directly on the foundations of Journalism against editors Publishers and journalists themselves and we've now seen that as of yesterday that's a new front in president's uh Trump's war on the Free Press which he regards as the enemy of the

people [Music] sure is not a journalist that's why he's not protected by the First Amendment in the face of this new indictment uh which and let me correct something that's been uh said just a little wrong uh by everybody so far he doesn't just face 170 years that's for the 70 uh 17 counts on the Espionage Act each worth 10 plus he's still facing the five-year

conspiracy charge that he started out with a few weeks ago I was sure that the administration did not want to keep Julian Assange in jail just for five years so I've been expecting these Espionage Act charges I really expected them later after he was extradited because adding them now makes it a little more complicated for Britain to execrate him now as I understand it they're not

supposed to extradite for political offenses or for political motives and this is obviously for both political motives and political offenses so from Julian Sandra's point of view it makes extradition a little more difficult why then did they bring it right now well coming back to the uh to the case by the way that I faced I faced only 11 felony act charges each worth 10 years

in prison plus a conspiracy charge worth five so I was facing exactly 115 years in prison he's facing exactly 175. now that's not a difference it makes any difference in both cases it's a question of a life since I think that the reason they brought these charges so soon because they had until June 12th was to lay out the necessity to lay out for a tradition

all the charges they planned to bring and I don't assume these are the last ones they've got a couple weeks left to string up some new charges they started out with a charge that made Julian look something other than a normal journalist the help to hacking a password sounded like something that even in the digital age perhaps most journalists wouldn't do and that would hope to

that and that's by every member of the responsible press that I dealt with the times the post AP uh you name it that's journalism so what they have done is recognizable I think this time to all journalists that they are in the crosshairs of this one they may not have known enough about digital uh performance to help us Source conceal her identity by using new passwords

as Julian was charger they may not be able to do that but every one of them has eagerly received classified information and solicited it we end our show with Daniel Ellsberg in his own words May 18 2018 when I spoke to him at a right livelihood Laureate gathering at University California Santa Cruz I asked him what message he had for government insiders who are considering becoming

whistleblowers my message to them is don't do what I did don't wait till the bombs are actually falling or thousands more have died before you do what I wish I'd done years earlier in 64 or even 61 on the nuclear issue and that is reveal the truth that you know the dangerous truths that are being withheld by the government at whatever cost to yourself whatever risk

that may take consider doing that because a water's worth of lives may be at stake or in the case of the two existential crises I'm talking about the future of humanity is at stake so many graduating classes I think have been taught have been told year after year for half a century that they face a Crossroads or that much depends on what they do that's no

exaggeration right now it's this generation not the next one that the people living right now that have to change these problems fast and I think truth-telling is crucial to mobilize that Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg died Friday at the age of 92 just months after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer our deepest condolences to his family his wife Patricia his children Robert Mary and Michael his grandchildren

and his great-granddaughter that does it for our show I'm Amy Goodman thank you for joining us