Title: US vs. Reality Winner: Q&A w/ Reality Winner, Kiriakou
Show: Disruption Network Lab
Date: 2021-11-27
URL: https://youtu.be/kYm__RK8-9g
Duration: 102:00

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[01:15] Hello everybody. Here is Tatiana Bazzichelli, the director of the Disruption Network Club, and I'm very happy to welcome all of you in Berlin and also welcome the people that are following us online. This event is very important for us because it's our 25th conference and we are also launching our book, Whistleblowing for Change. The idea of these events was to collect

[01:48] contributes from 30 speakers of the past of the Disruption Network Club and try to reflect on the impact of whistleblowing on culture, politics, and society. And also thanks to the people that wrote in the book, we got to know new people that also decided to write for us on the book and the panel that I'm going to introduce now is actually a combination of some of our past speakers

[02:18] and also new, very important people that we got to know thanks to our network of trust. And so first I wanted to thank the audience here in Berlin and also the audience online and the reminder that we have a chat. So if they want to ask questions after and during our introduction and during the panel that they are welcome to do and after the conversation we will then get your questions

[02:51] so we can also bring them directly to the speakers. Just to give a bit of a context of what we are doing here, we just watched the German premiere of the film United States Versus Reality Winner. It's a film that was directed by Sonja Kennebeck that we also have on stage with us and it's a film about the NSA contractor Reality Winner who disclosed a document about Russian election interference to the media.

[03:24] Winner was arrested on June 3rd, 2017 and really this week she started a new phase at home and I have to say that we know that she is also not completely free because there are a lot of restrictions on her and we are going to learn also more about the situation during this panel. But first I really wanted to thank Reality Winner and Winner Davies for being with us this night

[03:56] and I have to say it's really, really an honor for us and I'm also so touched to see them at the distance of course would have been wonderful to have them with us but it's so great.

[04:46] And I have to say Reality and Billy you really deserve this big applause because here in Berlin everybody was really waiting for these moments for many years actually and I don't know, I'm so touched also personally that I'm getting a bit emotional because it's also really a big moment for the Disruption Network Club and so we just watched the film about your story and I'm sure that many people have questions. Also I also want to really deeply thanks Billy

[05:20] for the relationship we had in the past months to write the book Contribution that she also has on the book. So I really want to tell everybody read this because it's a wonderful story from the perspective of a mother that also is fighting for justice and the right of her daughter. So thank you Billy and also thank you Reality. I'm so happy to have you with us

[05:50] and also want to welcome our speakers and our moderator. First I start with John Kiriakou that then will be introduced probably by Anna but I want to say that John Kiriakou was already with us in 2017 and in that specific event we were also celebrating the release of Chelsea Manning. So actually today we were discussing now you are back with us and we are celebrating also the release of Reality Winner.

[06:23] So I mean these are very important moments and it's really wonderful to have you back with us and I already introduced before Sonia but Anna will do it again and I want to introduce Anna Myers that is going to moderate this panel. So Anna Myers is the Executive Director of the Whistleblowing International Network. She has worked in the field of whistleblowing for 20 years

[06:54] advising individual whistleblowers, employers of all sides and sector and national international policy makers. Anna is originally from Canada and was Deputy Director of Public Concern Network for nine years now is called Protect and has worked at Group of States Against Corruption and at the Government Accountability Project in Washington DC. So now I leave to you Anna, the conversation and also then let's remind to call in

[07:26] also the audience online. Thank you. Thank you so much Tassiana. Well, it's such an honor to be here with all of you and I think the one joy, well a private joy of mine of being moderator is I get to ask questions first and I'm so delighted to welcome Billy and Reality to this event. We're sitting in a really lovely room in the middle of Berlin and it's in a gorgeous building and we've got these kind of high ceilings

[07:57] so there's a kind of echo here. So the applause for you was quite astounding and was amplified very much though. I wanted to let the audience know and those who are just joining us that Reality has finished her prison term this week but she's still under some orders and so there will be some limits to what the questions are that people can ask her or that she's allowed to talk about. Both Billy and Reality will let us know when we've crossed those lines

[08:27] but she basically cannot talk at all about the classified information and really about the case but she can talk about her interests and she'll let us know what she feels like speaking if she would like to speak to us and I will introduce briefly our panelists because they can introduce themselves so much better than I can. We have Sonia, who's Kennebec who's the documentary director of this film. She has a long history of working in the doing documentaries

[08:57] and working in investigative journalism and it really struck me as I was watching the documentary and a question I would have is is it really a longer piece of investigative journalism or is it an entire different beast really? Because certainly what we all felt as we watched this documentary today or at least I can speak for myself is the layers that you were able to weave in of the personal stories, the context in which this case happened and also all the issues that were raised around justice

[09:28] and whistleblowers and how it works in practice so we really had a full picture and it raises I'm sure everybody has a lot of questions and Sonia has done this work for a long time and has really started to focus on whistleblowers I think in the last three documentary films that she's done in particular and I'd really like to understand a little bit more about why you started to become interested in this and why you chose reality after focusing on the drone program and the whistleblowers there with National Bird

[09:59] and with the hacking situation in the family with public enemy or enemy of the state so there's a lot to ask you there John it's great to meet you again and John you heard him in the film very articulate about both the issues that are raised by reality's case but obviously has lived through the experience himself as a former CIA employee he's an illustrious career as well and what really comes out from both his story

[10:29] and reality story is you were hard workers you did your jobs, you served your countries and you were very dedicated to what you did and then there was a point at which you felt you needed to speak up and there's a lot that happened after that Billy you are both a mother and now an activist an advocate you really were thrown into this by being in a family of people that were clearly dedicated and I'd really like to ask both Billy and reality if they'd like to start by perhaps making a statement

[11:02] about your thoughts and feelings now and what you've been dealing with recently to the audience and we'll let everyone have an opportunity to make that statement to the audience and then I'll ask a few questions and then we'll open it up so which one of you would like to start? Billy would you like to start or would reality like to say something? Sure I'll go ahead and start I want to say how grateful I am that you all included us in this event

[11:34] it was such an honor to be asked to contribute to the book I've never been asked to contribute to a book I've never been published and so that was a challenge and it was such an honor for me and then this event here this whistleblowing event I was also very happy to see that you guys were able to incorporate the documentary United States versus reality winner into your program and I'm happy that the audience there

[12:04] and the people who are online were able to actually see the documentary to see what's happened in reality's case to see the persecution of her by our government what happened to her just because she did the right thing she released information to the American people that she felt that we needed at a time when we desperately needed it and you know the reaction of the United States government against her

[12:36] is a story that really needs to be out there needs to be told I know as you said I was not an activist before this I still don't consider myself an activist I still consider myself a mother I consider myself a mother who will continue to fight until I see that justice is done for my daughter we continue to fight and ask for either clemency for her sentence to end

[13:08] or for a full pardon so that she can be completely and totally free at some point to tell her side of this story when I started this work as far as being her voice that's really what it was meant to be because our government locked her up and they silenced reality and somebody needed to be her voice somebody needed to tell her side and her story and that's you know what I set out to do

[13:38] I had so much help along the way Sonia was a huge help in doing the documentary there's also other people that helped me and supported me along the way and also supported reality through this and I'm so very grateful for every single person who has helped us and you know gave me the strength so that I didn't stop the standing ovation that we received when this started just kind of blew me away

[14:09] because that was something I really wasn't expecting I really am grateful to everyone there for that Well, much, much deserved and we're delighted you could be here Reality, is there anything you'd like to say at this point? I'm sure there will be answers about my actual status later on going forward in the restrictions but for right now I just wanna say thank you it's a surprise if I even find people in my own country

[14:40] that care about my story let alone all you find people in Berlin so feeling the love from across the Atlantic is really, really nice it's really appreciated and hi, Sonia So for those of you who may have just joined us online we've just watched this incredible documentary about a young woman who was arrested and then charged under the Espionage Act in the US

[15:12] she was charged with releasing to the media a single document that actually showed and was about Russian interference in the 2016 elections this was at a time as all of us will recall doesn't seem very long ago at all where we were from afar watching the elections in the US and Donald Trump was elected and one of the things that really comes out in the documentary is the context in which the prosecution was taking place

[15:46] and the fact that and there's lots of issues around how she was treated by those who were arresting her and her rights and then of course the courtroom setting and the Espionage Act is something I hope John will give us a little run through on but it's a very draconian law and it is not fit for what it's being used for and it gives people no chance for a defense and it's one of the ones that is really where the whistle-blowing issue is starkly in play

[16:17] because you're talking about classification, national security, the state and you're talking about the public's right to know in the public interest and we have this discussion that or actually I would say a kind of argument that often ensues where people are called traitors or heroes and most of us need to think in a much more nuanced way about this and the question that I tend to ask myself is did I want to know and if it's a yes I did well then why didn't other people tell us

[16:48] and if we need whistle-blowers why do we need them it's a big question and we should be celebrating them if we can't get the information any other way. Sonja, you've been going down this road now for a while and I know that you worked in Berlin for many years and your roots are international but German and now you're in New York as well. It was a question I had. You know, is there a big difference in making a documentary than doing an investigative reporter? Is it longer investigations and would you like to explain how you got

[17:20] what made you choose this story and how you got here? So, you know, because we as a team we've been focusing on whistle-blower stories it's really wonderful to have the German Premier at the whistle-blowering for a change conference. With an audience that understands what whistle-blowering means and people, many of you I know

[17:50] who are advocating for a wider public to understand what whistle-blowering means which is exposing ways fraud, abuse, government misconduct in the public interest and I think more people have to know that and I think everyone here has been doing incredible educational work. It is very emotional for me to see this film with an audience but also, you know, in the film we are documenting the four years

[18:22] that reality was spending imprisoned and to see reality next to Billy free right now in the house or almost, you know, hopefully, hopefully someday really free but closer to freedom is really, really wonderful and I can actually see it in the eyes of my team members who are here right now, Torsten Lapp, the director of photography and Maxine Gurdike, the editor

[18:56] that, you know, they are really moved as well and yeah, I actually want to start by thanking reality. Reality, thank you for your courage but also your trust in us when you were in a really vulnerable position and probably, you know, everyone would have understood if you didn't have any trust in journalists or filmmakers at that point and you gave us access and trust to document and tell your story

[19:27] together with Billy Winner-Davis and Gary Davis and your sister, Brittany Winner-Davis and yeah, we are very, very thankful for that and I really think that people take away from this film not to be more scared but to be inspired by the courage of reality and her family as well and really, you know, push back against government suppression

[19:58] so thank you very much, reality and Billy and yeah, and I also, because, you know, filmmaking is teamwork and especially when you do independent documentaries it's incredibly hard. It's really, you were just asking the question about, you know, the difference between an investigative report and a documentary and the difference is really that an investigative documentary

[20:29] has all these layers, you know, you have to do the fundraising to, yeah, to, you know, cover the travel expenses and really be able to document a development like this over years and we felt so, you know, we felt it was incredibly important after I first, you know, went to one of the first pre-trial hearings to start filming and documenting because there was so little media coverage.

[21:00] I expected there would be, you know, just camera crews outside and national reporters and that, you know, everyone would cover this case because not only was it, you know, a national security whistleblower and NSA whistleblower after Edward Snowden, you know, disclose this information about, you know, mass surveillance and data collection but it was about election interference and there was so much, you know,

[21:31] it was such a contentious issue at that time so I just expected that there would be such broad coverage and when that didn't happen, I, you know, I spoke to my producing partner, you know, the day after I was at the pre-trial hearing Ines Hofmann-Kena and I said to her, you know, I thought there were many more journalists here and it's not the case and we just decided on the spot that we have to witness it. We have to pay witness, we have to document because this was a historic case.

[22:03] So Ines Hofmann-Kena, my producing partner, she has, you know, produced all of my independent films then the shoots that we did, the first one and all the subsequent shoots were with Torsten Lapp, who's over there, can, you know, could you stand up for me for a moment, director of photography, person Lapp? Torsten Lapp? Torsten is, you know, we've worked together

[22:34] for a very long time, over 15 years. We started ARD's Panorama and we filmed all of the independent documentaries long and short together and Torsten is someone who's never intimidated. He is never deterred. He, when you see these few rare images of reality, you know, where she was, where they were just, you know, taking her into the van and the car, he was the one running behind the car and the van,

[23:08] you know, just trying to capture an image of her because they just, you know, they locked her away and it was important for us to show who she is and then we were sitting for two days in a 100 degree seat in the car trying to capture these rare images of reality in the jail and yeah, Torsten is really someone who has a lot of courage but also respect and compassion and then Maxine Goetheke, the editor of this film

[23:41] and all of my other independent films. Maxine, could you please stand up as well? So you might have seen this film is a film that really shows the art and the craft of an editor and Maxine is an amazing storyteller. She is a fantastic researcher who went through all of the social media and, you know, really found

[24:15] what I hope captures sort of the essence of reality's humor and, you know, courage and outspokenness and yeah, and also, you know, throughout this journey really has so much compassion and respect for the lead characters, the protagonist whom she often meets, you know, after the film is edited and laughs in Christ with them

[24:47] and yeah, and really is so, you know, has this, I don't know, the humanity to bring across such a beautiful story that really goes through the heart, I think, hopefully for all of you and then in Zarudo of the composer who also wrote the credit song which is inspired by a reality winners poem and then, you know, I also want to mention Marin Poitras,

[25:18] not related to Laura Poitras who was an associate producer and who was also the actress in our recreations so this was our very small independent team who put together this film and I couldn't do my work without them, so thank you. Well, well done, you, all of you, thank you and it does strike me that there's a number of women involved in these projects and there's, you know, looking at reality and her mom seeing that as a dream team as well.

[25:51] There's a lot of women talking about these issues and working in the field of whistleblowing and it strikes me that there is a real moment of needing to consider how power is operating and how it's working and women do sometimes take the time to do that and that may be part of what's going on, John. I can just let you speak but I do want you to, well, I'm really interested in, you said, well, we were listening to this, just how many layers there are

[26:21] and this is some of the nuancing that just gets lost in whistleblower stories, especially with this narrative of hero or traitor and you just go down that road. These are real people and they have real lives and they are silly and funny and get on with things and make mistakes just the same as the rest of us and blowing the whistle where you do get into hot water with whether it's your employer directly or the courts or the media affects the whole family.

[26:52] So one of the things that comes through in this film is it's a family project but it also can have, it just does and I know that that's a burden for many of the people who have done these actions and they feel it so I would love you to also mention a little bit about that. Thanks for that. There's so much to say. I almost don't know where to begin. I think I will begin by saying that the relationship between Billy and reality is such a beautiful

[27:25] and powerful thing and it's also very unusual. You'd be surprised how often the government will approach the spouse of a whistleblower and say you're either with us or you're with them because oftentimes we work in the same agencies, right? Tonight is about reality but I wanna tell one very short story. My marriage didn't survive my whistleblowing and I found myself involved in a custody dispute

[27:58] which is not unusual and so I was in court recently and my attorney asked me on the stand was she a good wife? And I said she was an amazing wife. When I blew the whistle on the CIA's torture program she went with me to the interview and sat just off camera and when I finished I said how did I do? She said you did great. I said I didn't say anything classified, right? And she said no, you did great. And then her attorney called her up to the stand

[28:29] and said is it true that you went with him when he blew the whistle on the CIA's torture program? And she said yes. And her attorney said why did you do that? And she said because the CIA's Office of Security instructed me to go with him and then to report back to them on his activities. So to see these two together and to see the love and the connection and the support that's exactly the way that it's supposed to be. That wasn't my experience.

[29:01] Yeah, it was theirs. I'm sorry to say that Tom Drake and we're all such great friends and in this very small whistleblower community it's like we have a club. We have dinner together and one time I dragged FBI surveillance to a dinner with Tom Drake and he dragged FBI surveillance to the dinner with me. And so we went out to go to our cars together

[29:32] and he said which one is with you? I said I think this one's with me. I don't know this one, he must be with you. And then they followed us home. But anyway, that's the way the relationship is supposed to be. You know, we're all there for one another. We're all there to support one another. We're there to learn from previous whistleblowers and the experiences that they had. One of the things that I'm proudest of in my life

[30:04] is that Ed Snowden told the New York Times that Tom Drake and I inspired him to go public with his revelations. The same thing is gonna be said of reality winner. One of the things that Ed said in the film is so true and so powerful, it bears repeating. Reality's sentence isn't gonna deter anybody. No sentence is gonna deter anybody. There was a wonderful study done by an Israeli journalist named Al Press

[30:38] about four whistleblowers in modern world history, 20th century whistleblowers. And one of the things that he found, one of the threads that he found that ran through all of these cases was that whistleblowers have an unusually highly defined sense of right and wrong. Much more highly defined than the general public. And he also found that there is no such thing as a deterrent. You get a year, two years, five, 10 years in prison.

[31:09] It doesn't matter because a whistleblower can't sleep at night recognizing that there's an injustice out there about which he or she could do something. I think reality would agree with me when I say that on my very first day at the CIA, I put my right hand in the air and I promised to protect the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. I hate to think that of the 300 people in the room that day,

[31:42] I was the only one who actually meant it. I know that reality meant it, Tom Drake meant it, Ed Snowden meant it. So whistleblowers are out there and it's up to us to encourage them, to help to protect them, and God forbid that they're arrested to support them. This film, frankly, was a giant leap in that direction.

[32:16] Thank you, John, and we'll come back to you. Billy, one of the things that I did want to ask you and that sort of comes up a few times in your chapter as well, which I did get a chance to read and as you were talking in the documentary film, there wasn't a lot of public support. There wasn't a lot of media attention to get that public support, but we also heard elected officials and people in Congress saying they wouldn't have known it

[32:46] if they hadn't had the information and that the substance of it was clearly important. And at the same time, at the time that they were relying on this information, they were making it a point to say, but we condemn whoever leaked it and we don't agree with leaks. And I'll come to John in a minute again, but I just wanted to ask you a little bit more about what was going on and what are your theory's opinions about that, about the lack of interest publicly

[33:17] and then this need to say out loud at the same time, thank God we know this. Well, we shouldn't have known it this way, but condemning the leaker. Yeah, so I mean, that was one of the hardest things throughout the last four years or so was just trying to get support and at least get support from any of our congressional leaders. And we still to this day, do not have the support of not one congressional leader.

[33:49] And Sonya I know included in the film, the piece where I think it was Claire McCaskill said that she condemns the whistleblower, but yet at the same time, they were using the very information that my daughter released to do their jobs and they wouldn't have had access to it had it not been released. We had other reports where the states that had been jeopardized did not even know because nobody told them until they found out about it through this leak.

[34:20] And to me, I mean, that is just very telling about the problems that we have with our government in the United States. When the government has gotten too big and too powerful and they are keeping information from the American people and you see it through reality's case where the information when it gets out there is so vital and so important and so useful to all of these groups who are investigating this, yet nobody will come to the defense

[34:52] or support the person who actually gave them the information because nobody wants to support. I think that probably the charge of the Espionage Act is something that played into that because nobody wants to come to the defense of somebody who's being accused of espionage. And I think also in our country that's something that needs to be worked on is reform to get away from allowing our country

[35:23] to use the Espionage Act against the people who release the truth when we need it and people who blow the whistle because that is something that I saw that kept a lot of the support away from reality because of that severe charge against her. Do you think also the timing because it was at the time that Trump had just been elected do you think that there was some awareness in terms of, I don't know, in the air

[35:55] that if you were gonna say something and be critical and agree that this information should have been out there you wanted to sort of say out loud, just in case, a little bit like I do believe in God that I do condemn leakers just so that that wasn't gonna be brought up against them. Do you think there was something about the context at the time that would be different now or not? I don't think it's any different right now because we're still not seeing any kind of support

[36:27] for reality or other whistleblowers. I was hopeful through Trump's administration when leakers were just like a daily thing and people were actually celebrating whistleblowers and celebrating leakers but yet that didn't stop our government from persecuting them. We saw other people who were charged and who went to prison during this time and again, no one in our Congress

[37:01] will come to the aid or the support of a whistleblower and actually support them. John, you had Senator John McCain stand up on the floor and say that the public owed you a debt of gratitude. I was very fortunate. Yeah, what's, where's the difference or was it, yeah, if you wouldn't mind commenting. I was, I don't wanna say I was fortunate because that's really what it came down to.

[37:38] After I blew the whistle and before I was arrested I went to work for John Kerry on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff and Kerry's office in the Russell Senate Office building was next door to McCain's office. And so every time we would run into McCain in the hall he would make a point, he would go out of his way to come and shake my hand and say good morning, good afternoon. And I'd say good morning, Senator, nice to see you. Finally, Kerry said to me, why don't you two get a room or something?

[38:08] And I said, no, it's the torture thing. He's genuine. He's really, he had reputation for being the meanest man in Washington. He was always nice to me, very nice. And then when I got arrested, like Billy says, official Washington goes completely silent. Well, except for John McCain. And when the Senate Torture Report finally came out six weeks before I was released from prison and proved that everything I said had been true,

[38:41] McCain went to the floor of the Senate and gave a speech and said that the country owed me a debt of gratitude because if I hadn't gone public, they would never, the American people would never have known what their country was doing in their name. And then he said privately that he was gonna help me get my pension back. Part of my sentence was that I lost my federal pension and I had worked for 20 years in the federal government. I had saved $770,000 in that pension.

[39:14] I'm gonna have to work till the day I die. I can't afford to ever retire. And just weeks after he said, I'm gonna help you get that pension back, he got brain cancer and then died. And that was it. Nobody else on Capitol Hill has ever said so much as good morning to me. It's tough finding official support, tough to impossible. I wanted to come back to you, Sonia.

[39:44] Yeah, there's a lot to take in. You really did put it so succinctly at the beginning of your talk that you were in that courtroom and there weren't other people there that needed to be there to start reporting on this. And do you have some theories about that having then been with reality and Billy for a long time after that? I've been thinking about this a lot. Why is there so little reporting on whistleblower stories?

[40:16] I think in reality, winners case, one of the reasons was also that it was not in the Washington DC area where you have a lot of national media and especially national security reporters and it is a little bit easier to get to. I think that most of publications or networks in the US really look at their bottom line and the travel expenses and especially in a pre-trial hearing like this,

[40:51] you can't take cameras into the courtroom. You don't get access to reality herself and I think they might have thought that they were not getting enough, just standing outside the courtroom and not having access, of course, limits what people can report about and I think they do that on purpose and I also think they really worked very, very hard to keep reality behind bars.

[41:23] I actually never expected that I would have to do another film with an absent character, an absent lead character protagonist because I just thought at the beginning, oh, she's going to be let out on bail and we can have a conversation and reality winner is going to tell her own story and this just never happened but I did not want to make this a reason to not make a film because it was even more important,

[41:53] I failed to get her story out when she wasn't able to speak for herself and yeah, I think the other reason is too that there is sort of this fear of some major media organizations to lose access to official press conferences. I think there is pressure from the government to not report on these type of national security whistleblower stories because they don't want to, they might think and maybe you know more about it

[42:26] but I could imagine that the government is all about deterrence, they don't want to incentivize anything so they just don't want to have reporting about it and yeah, so the corporate media, afraid of losing access and I think there's also an element of self-censorship which I find extremely dangerous where the general public but also reporters are getting increasingly more scared and worried about touching these type of stories

[42:57] because they think, oh, maybe I can become a target, maybe I shouldn't be asking this type of question, I actually have heard, even when I have been giving interviews, I've heard journalists say to me before, oh, after they asked me a question, oh, maybe I shouldn't be asking this type of question, I'm like, you're just asking a question. Don't start self-censoring and I think that is probably the most dangerous. Yeah, it is affecting reporting around the world

[43:28] and certainly some of what we were mentioning just at the end of the documentary, we're sitting beside each other about some of the fact that the sentences are getting higher. Before I move, I do want to come back to the Espionage Act but I just wanted to ask reality, if she might want to comment because I know, I understand that you may not have seen the documentary which is fine, you've had a lot to deal with and just to return to be with your family. You were, I think, released to home confinement in June,

[44:02] is that right? Have you been back with your mom since June or have you only been back with her and Gary since this week? I've actually been on home confinement since June 9th with an ankle monitor and constant phone calls and threats of escape. I ventured too far into my living room one day and they told me I was escape status. Just absolutely nerve-wracking

[44:33] the way they could levy these threats but they never documented. So we had actually no accountability or ways to address how we could prevent the constant trauma from reoccurring because then I would speak to the director of the halfway house or my case manager and they'd say, well, they never heard about it. Meanwhile, I've had two panic attacks and I'm physically ill from the stress because they told me I would be charged with escape

[45:04] the night before. So yes, I have been home but I haven't really been home. It's been a constant sort of pressure on my family. We've had back to back to back drug tests every other week for five months but I haven't had any approval to drive. So that means, you know, mom or dad has to take me to go get my drug test and it's 100 miles round trip.

[45:35] So it is a huge inconvenience and you would think, okay, well, the feds wanna test me and they wanna do it effectively. Come to my house. Come get a urine sample at my house. It should be on them, but instead it fell to me and the ankle monitor buzzed constantly regardless of where I was, it never really worked. I went grocery shopping twice in five months because every time I got approval

[46:07] they would suddenly pull approval because for some reason if we were on home confinement and they felt like COVID was getting bad we were no longer allowed to go to restaurants or go grocery shopping. So I actually only went out to eat, I believe two or three times in five months. It just so happened COVID would tend to get bad whenever we had family down for the weekend and so they would belatedly tell me that's why my social passes were disapproved the day of.

[46:41] It was just a lot of coincidences like that. So on Tuesday, this past Tuesday I had my ankle monitor cut off and I was released to go meet with my probation officer and he tells me for the next three years courtesy of my district in Georgia that sentenced me. I have a 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew, 365 days a year for the next three years. That means no overnight trips no matter what. No late night movies, nothing.

[47:15] It also means I have to have special permission to leave work earlier than 6 a.m. I cannot leave the Southern District of Texas but even if I could I would have to keep it within a five hour drive so I can make it back in time for that 10 p.m. curfew. So they have without saying so directly have effectively disabled me from any type of meaningful travel.

[47:45] That was a really crushing blow. You know, I have a godson in Wisconsin that I would like to go see. My sister lives in North Carolina and I just thought that maybe for the first time in four and a half years I could bear some of the burden for my family and go see them. But now it's just being confined to this local area for the next three years makes it really hard to feel how how is this a step forward?

[48:17] We have been using these same two clauses from my plea agreement to sort of guide the way to how I can speak to the media and speak out on my own behalf and finally advocate for myself and start over. And on Tuesday somehow this probation officer's interpretation even though the word interview is not stated not one time in my court restrictions

[48:47] for probation he just kept saying well as long as you don't do interviews it'll be fine. So I don't know what to do moving forward. I don't know what the ramifications of even a discussion like this will be. So I'm happy to be here, I'm happy to be heard but it just seemed like damn if I do, damn if I don't. If I stay silent the abuse will continue and if I speak out the abuse will continue.

[49:20] Yeah, it's a really tough position to be in and maybe I could ask John a bit about this espionage act and how it operates but this seems a new twist. That's unusually harsh and I wonder if it's because it's Texas instead of one of the districts in the DC area. I don't know when I first got out of prison reality I had a job offer at one of the oldest progressive

[49:52] think tanks in Washington, the Institute for Policy Studies. And they wanted me to think the big thoughts and write papers and talk about prison reform and sentencing reform and things like that and I accepted the position. I sent it to my whatever they called themselves case officers, whatever and they rejected it. And I said, wait a minute, you told me that if I don't get a job I'm gonna go back to prison.

[50:25] So I got a job and you say I can't do it. Why can't I do it? And they said that it would be inappropriate for me to comment on sentencing reform. And I said, that's a violation of my constitutional right to free speech. I'm gonna accept the job and if you wanna send me back to prison I'm sure CNN and others would love to ask you plenty of questions, why?

[50:57] And they backed off. My experience with reporting to the halfway house is the same as yours. My halfway house was only seven miles away as the crow flies but I wasn't allowed to drive just like you. So I had to walk a half an hour to the subway, take the subway to Capitol Hill and then get a bus that took another hour to get to the halfway house which was in the worst block in the worst neighborhood in Washington.

[51:28] When I got off the bus one time a guy directly across the street shot and killed another guy and I jumped back onto the bus to protect myself, the killer ran away and then I walked to the halfway house to check in. So I got a call one day saying get to the halfway house immediately. I said it's gonna take me two hours to get there like it always does. So I started the trek. Two hours later I get to the halfway house and they took me into the conference room.

[51:58] It was the director of the halfway house, the bureau of prisons representative had driven in from Baltimore. It was all this whole cast of characters. And they said that they had decided that they were gonna violate me and send me back to prison because I hadn't signed up for any of the mandatory classes and I had already been home for two weeks. And I said your mandatory classes are how to balance a checkbook, which I know how to balance a checkbook.

[52:28] How to write a resume, thank you very much, but I don't need your help to write my resume. And preventing suicide in prison. I said isn't that like closing the barn door after the animals already leave? You should give the anti-suicide class before people go to prison, not when they get home and they're happy that they're home. So I said, did you ever see that episode of The Simpsons?

[53:01] When Homer Simpson is sentenced to take a class on parenting and he walks into the class a little bit late and the teacher is saying, put a garbage can lid on the garbage can people. I can't stress that enough. I said, is that what you're gonna teach me in your class? To put a garbage can lid on the garbage can? I said, I'm not taking your class. And he says, step outside please.

[53:32] And I said, and I want permission to drive. I'm not gonna spend two hours getting here and two hours getting back every single Tuesday to take a stupid drug test. You tell me I have to have a job and then you take four hours out of my day. I'm not doing this anymore. I said, send me back to prison, I don't care. I only have two months to go anyway. So I went outside 45 minutes later, they came out and they said, all right, you don't have to take the classes and you can drive. And I said, that's more like it.

[54:03] And I left. But I knew that they would back down. In your case, I'm gonna email you when I get back to the States on Sunday. I have some ideas. It sounds to me like they're picking on you because they think they can get away with it. And that's just wrong. It's wrong, it's unfair. And it's counterproductive, frankly. Espionage Act. Yep. Yeah. I have, as you might imagine, I have a thing about the Espionage Act.

[54:35] So the Espionage Act was written in 1917 to combat German saboteurs in World War I. It was updated once in 1950 after the Rosenbergs had been executed. This is the gravest crime with which an American can be charged. And it sometimes carries with it the death penalty, right? Do you deserve the death penalty when you expose waste, fraud, abuse,

[55:06] illegality or threats to the public health or public safety to the media? Come on. A precedent was set in the case of Tom Drake in the district of Maryland where the judge said that the government had to prove that Tom Drake had criminal intent that he intended to break the law when he made his revelations. He didn't have criminal intent and the case utterly fell apart.

[55:38] So when I went into court, my lawyer said to the judge, Your Honor, as per Judge Bennett in the Tom Drake case, criminal intent, Mr. Kiriakou had no criminal intent, and the judge interrupted and she says, I've chosen to not respect the precedent that was set in the Tom Drake case. And my lawyer said, Your Honor, are you saying that a person can accidentally commit espionage? And she said, that's exactly what I'm saying. And then she looked at me and she said,

[56:09] Mr. Kiriakou, you either did it or you didn't do it, and you did it, I knew I was finished. And that was, I had only been arrested a day or two earlier, three days earlier. I was finished. But this is the problem with the Espionage Act and Ed Snowden will tell you exactly the same thing. Ed Snowden has repeatedly volunteered to return to the United States and has told the Justice Department repeatedly over the years that he is willing to go to prison

[56:41] if he can stand up in court and explain why he did what he did. And they said, forget it. You aren't gonna say anything in court. And that's why he stuck where he is, because they just will not let him provide an affirmative defense, or not even really an affirmative defense, but an explanation that he did what he did for the American people. Now one thing about the prosecution that's actually admirable if that's your bent,

[57:15] is that they learn from each of our cases, and they use that knowledge against the next whistleblower. In the case of Daniel Hale, the drone whistleblower, they raised reality's name in sentencing. They raised my name. I was there in the courtroom with Tom Drake, and they said that in my case, my sentence was far too short. They realized after the fact that they had agreed to a sentence that was far too short, I had 30 months and I should have had 120 months.

[57:50] And then because my sentence was so short, then Jeffrey Sterling's was accidentally too short, and then reality's was too short. And the judge said, no, no, no, no, you don't. That's not the way sentencing works. And besides, reality winner was in Georgia. We're talking about the Eastern District of Virginia, and Daniel Hale ended up getting 45 months, which is 45 months too long. So there's a real problem with this SB&Age Act,

[58:21] and the bigger problem is a political one, Anna. Can you imagine somebody running for Congress and saying, if elected, I'm going to make it harder to charge people with SB&Age. What district are you running in? Nobody's gonna vote for that. What you need is somebody with the courage to say, look, this is the right thing to do. This law's being abused. It's being abused by the Justice Department. The Justice Department needs to be reined in,

[58:52] and we need to thank whistleblowers who are willing to risk everything they have to report on fraud, abuse, illegality, et cetera, et cetera. The situation is flipped right now. Yeah, yeah. I know that we've covered a lot of ground. I do wanna ask Sonya again, and maybe this is something that reality you would like to comment on, because it is about you, and you mentioned it in talking about the editing and the creativeness of reality.

[59:22] And it comes out in reality, your voice came out through your mom and through the documentary and through yourself, but as people talked about who you were, I got a real sense of dedication, incredible talent and intelligence like your sister, my God, the three of you are quite the power, three females of that family, and I could see where you got some of this from your mom, because although she doesn't call herself maybe an activist,

[59:54] she's an advocate, and she's had to play a really strange role of being a totally caring mom, but angry as hell on your behalf, has learned an awful lot about how to advocate, who to talk to, how to work with media, how to work with groups, and Sonya was there watching her transformation, maybe being a little bit a part of it, and I wanted to talk about this side of reality and maybe ask you reality first about your interest now, and that side of you that is artistic.

[1:00:25] I know you are very active and yoga and run at marathons and weightlifting, God, you lifted a weight in there that scared the hell out of me, but creativity really hits home, and it hit home with the poem and the music at the end. Is this something that just flows out of you naturally? Is it something that you really think about or it just is there? I guess it's just there.

[1:00:55] I kind of have these ADHD tendencies, like lately I've been going out into the scrap wood piles in the back and trapping random things in resin, that's kind of been my outlet, lots of breaking glass with hammers, just all the random stuff that you find yourself doing when you're stuck at home, but a lot of creating, using bits and pieces from things I had created in prison

[1:01:26] to kind of frame them in certain ways to find some closure from all of that experience and create pieces that express how I'm feeling now. That sounds like an artist to me, because just even thinking about resin, I mean, when you said that I was like, of course, I would never think of doing that, but once you mentioned it, it makes so much sense

[1:01:58] because there's beauty in that. What did you, how did you find out about this side of reality and how did you work to get this as part of the documentary? Because it's so strong. Yeah, it is a big part and we realized, Maxine and I, when we didn't get access to reality and we knew this might not be the case that we really wanted to make this film about her and include her humor and her art and her words and poetry.

[1:02:31] And it just, this is a selection in the film of all these letters she was writing to her family and supporters and people were just collecting them and posting them on social media. And then you go back and you see the diary entries that are similar and also, so one of the reasons was to really insert reality into the film. But the second reason was because, was that her social media, her diary entries,

[1:03:03] but also her communication with her sister became such a big part of the pre-trial hearings and they were cherry picking all this information that for me is one of the most important parts of the film that I think should also resonate with the wide public, honestly across the world because that is what can happen when you have mass data, number one surveillance,

[1:03:36] but also mass data collection and storage, it's all there, the Facebook message conversation that predates reality's arrest. And I could tell in this audience that this audience did understand reality's humor better than the prosecutor. But I remember in the courtroom or even when you saw some of these TV clips that we were using that people were taking it so seriously and out of context

[1:04:10] and the prosecutor quoting one sentence or one part of a diary entry. And is this really the world we want to live in where we have to censor our personal conversations in a pandemic that's all digital with our friends and families and loved ones or even our diary entries that we think about what to put in our diary and like in our diaries. So this is where for me, reality's case

[1:04:44] expands so much beyond whistleblowing but also really is a case study on where things, not are just headed but actually are at right now where all this data is available and it doesn't have to be, it doesn't have to be you but it can also be the people who you love, your family members who all of a sudden do something that speak out against something

[1:05:16] that your government doesn't like and then all your private conversations are part of in this case a court case. I'd like to turn to the audience and see if we have some questions here and I gather somebody's watching if there's questions online and I have no idea how helpful I did about them but are there any questions that people have from the audience? Because I know I can keep going

[1:05:47] but I'd love to give you a chance. Yes. Is there a microphone running around? My question's for reality winner and I just wanna say thank you very much for everything you've done for everybody in the world and I find you extremely moving and I'm born in 1985 so also on behalf of our generation I say thank you very much and those who are coming next and also I would like to pre-curse my question

[1:06:17] by saying I talk a lot in my private messages with friends about murdering people which I think I will now stop doing but I have no intention to murder any of them. Yes, yeah, just also to be clear but I'm wondering my question isn't maybe not it's not so much about the film but I'd like to know about your pets and what your pet status is now. Did you hear that already? So yes, I heard it, yes.

[1:06:48] When it comes to animals our Facebook status is it's complicated, we have four dogs, three cats and a horse but the horse identifies as a dog. That's why it's complicated. He will run up on you, he barks at you, we got him a nice bala hay and he has destroyed it in less than a week but the dogs are also extremely high maintenance. They need certain dogs like to fight pretty bad

[1:07:18] so they need to be kept separate except when they're super sleepy and then they wanna cuddle. So you just never know, it's completely bipolar. Now that I have a job in the local community I am actually having like mom fears about leaving them home alone though I have like these contingency plans of who goes where and if the weather is bad who stays outside but who stays inside and maybe we can rotate. So yes, the four dogs are Domino, Daisy, Babyface

[1:07:52] and Dobby, the house self. The horse's name is Trouble because he's nothing but Trouble and then the cats are just irrelevant. They pretty much self maintain unless Fiona the princess likes to scream at us. That is quite a crew you have at your house, Billy. Are there other questions? Say again. I said the spiders are actually another situation. There will be giant ones like borderline tarantulas in the mailbox

[1:08:25] but I'm not allowed to remove them because my parents like to foster them. Okay. So that is the situation here as well. Oh, it's snakes. Yeah, I come from Canada. I'm used to snakes. Do you have snakes? Yes, actually Sonya got to see our pet snake and she was here visiting one time. But these aren't pets. These are animals that live around you. Yeah, and sometimes come in and say hello. Okay, great, great. Are there other questions?

[1:08:57] Yes. First of all, thank you, reality for your great courage here in Berlin. The whole audience was frantic, impressed, moved and I think also thank you, Billy for encouraging your daughter really super power mom.

[1:09:27] And I think there was a big enthusiasm at the end of the movie and after hearing how you're treated now, reality, I think we are all sobered. And I think the atmosphere, I had this impression changed a little bit and we wish you all the best. And so as I said, after having watched this impressive documentary, we had the impression that it's maybe over but obviously we are naive and I'm just trying to process

[1:10:01] as we all, the irony. And I think the irony goes around terms like patriotism and shame and angst. And I think there would be a whole world to study about the reactions of the US government right now, actually under a Biden government, which we maybe here in Berlin, we would be so naive to think that it would be all reverted to another angle.

[1:10:33] And if you allow me to say from my background, I don't know if it's of importance, but I just cannot not mention it. Next to art history, I studied Russian literature and I was a lot busy with the Soviet Union's oppressive system and following and shame and patriotism and being patronized and the whole psychosis

[1:11:03] over condemned people, not only in the 1920s century, but maybe even currently. So I think it's an irony of patriotism. So I think there's a comparison possible to do in this point, which is the biggest irony when we look at the case, when it's about Russia or the US. So maybe there is a bigger theme going on

[1:11:33] thinking about how a nation could defend patriotism or should speak up. So maybe at the end, maybe Sonya, I would like after beyond thanking you very much for this outstanding documentary, would you plan to cover in the future the story and help providing information? And sorry, I spoke too long, but I just wanted to get this out and thank you so much, everyone. Thank you. Would you like to comment at all?

[1:12:04] I'm not sure. Like if I want to continue covering the story or... Yeah, I guess that's good. I'm definitely still following it. And for independent filmmakers, I think films do not end. At least for me, they don't. I'm actually still very close also to the lead characters, the whistleblowers of National Bird, the drone war documentary. And I know we talked about Daniel Hale briefly earlier,

[1:12:36] but he is still in prison. And he did get a shorter sentence, but he had also prior to the sentence had many, many years of the sort of Damocles over him. And that's the issue with the Espionage Act that they were able to indict him so many years after his raid. And he didn't know when or if it would end.

[1:13:08] And then the other thing why I'm so passionate about bringing this information out about the Espionage Act is that I have seen when I was investigating other cases of not just whistleblowers, but also leakers, is that they are not all treated the same under the law. And that is what I as a journalist can really comment on very strongly. It's been applied very arbitrarily and people like General Petraeus have gotten away with a slap on the wrist and many others.

[1:13:41] And that's what I know Billy feels very passionately about as well, is that people are treated very differently and there are different types of laws, mishandling of classified information, misuse of a government computer that you could use instead of the Espionage Act, but they do use the Espionage Act particularly against national security whistleblowers. I think that came out a lot in just some of your voice

[1:14:13] in the documentary about this unknown that you had to live with, the unknowns. And even once you had had your plea deal arranged, you were looking at, as you said, no strings attached. I'm not sure if that felt better to know sort of what the parameters were or if it still felt like an unknown to you. Is that sort of what you find the hardest is just living with things that you don't really have control over? That is absolutely what this is,

[1:14:45] is the parameters of my plea deal are actually incredibly vague and they don't actually list what the repercussions are legally for even coming close to this line that's like a mile thick. You know, it's almost, like I said, my probation officer is looking at the same conditions that I've had legal scholars looking at for the past year to prepare for this time

[1:15:16] that I'm no longer in the department or the Bureau of Prisons. And somehow he reads all these lines and his summation is no interviews. Does that mean I can't do an interview about CrossFit? I'm a CrossFit coach. Why can't I talk about CrossFit? Why can't I be a public spokesperson for rescue horses? He doesn't seem to understand that. But the ball is in his court

[1:15:49] because there's no restrictions on what he can do to me if he can remand me and to custody it at any point. And because we can't seem to get my own country to pay attention to what's happening to me. Who knows how long it'll be before I can get released. There's not gonna be any public support or public pressure like in high profile cases. Nobody's coming to help me out. There's not gonna be any justice. It'll just be being silenced all over again and being alone and being in conditions

[1:16:22] where I can't manage my mental illness anymore. That's what I face every day because they change the rules every day. Billy, this sort of leads back to what you said I think at the very beginning. And it was something I think that seemed to hit you that you needed to be your daughter's voice. The first interviews that you were having, Gary spoke and you spoke and you went inside. You were trying not to be the main part of it. You were upset and you wanted to talk about it.

[1:16:53] But after a while, I think it was dawning on you that you needed to be the person talking to the media. And it brings me to that idea of your advocacy and the public narrative. Do you wanna talk a little bit about how you go about changing that public narrative or what's the value of it is in cases like realities? Well, the value of what I've done these last four years as far as being the spokesperson and speaking out

[1:17:24] is to make sure that the system knows that there are people out there who care so that they can't abuse reality further. My goal was to always make sure that there were eyes on her, that there were eyes on the case and the situation. And so that because if the system thinks that nobody's watching, that's when the system will abuse people. You see it time and time again.

[1:17:55] And so nothing, I know the Washington Post there, big mantra is nothing good happens in silence or darkness. And so that's kind of what I wanted to do was make sure that there was not this darkness around my daughter's case, there was not this silence. And that since they did a really good job of silencing her and also everyone involved in the legal case, there was this protective order, which in effect is a gag order. Nobody could talk about it.

[1:18:26] Somebody had to keep this case alive out there on social media and in the media. Somebody had to keep talking about it. And that was what I felt like my role was with the small group of supporters that I had was to keep this alive. Yeah, and Sonia, did you want to comment on that? Because you by your seeing what needed to be done, I think you've helped that go forward. And I hope this is the beginning again,

[1:18:56] a new beginning of keeping the light shone on this case and on reality in Billy's lives. Yeah, I just really hope anyone, the audience here who felt moved by the film and reality winners case especially the people who might have not heard about reality winner before, just spread the word. This is an independent film and production and we really rely on word of mouth to get it out there and share it as much as you can

[1:19:30] with your networks because I do think that people have to know about reality's story and also Billy's story. I think that's a great time to stop, but I would... Oh, there's a question from Tatiana. We still have time, but yes, sorry. Yes, I wanted to ask either to Billy or reality also, who can and won't speak about the role of the intercept

[1:20:04] because I think that was a really big point in the film and also a big point in the story of reality. Then in a sense, they burn the story before it actually even came to the public. And I think that this is a responsibility of the media to protect the sources and also to make possible that there is a story to speak about them that then the press can refer to and in the sense the person can be protected

[1:20:36] because this become public opinion. And for example, in the book, I'm doing an interview with Laura Poitras and she really speaks about that and also the responsibility of the intercept in actually burning the story before it came to the public. And so I also wanted to know if you can comment on that because I think we have also to openly discuss about this kind of failure because there was also a failure of the press.

[1:21:09] And so I think it's really important that at the moment to reflect on how the press can help you and not really silence your case even further. Do either of you reality or Billy want to make a comment? Because I know John would have a lot to say. I'll comment if you don't want to, but go ahead. I would like to say that there's a very disturbing trend and I know that journalists are aware of it but in any sort of corporate media enterprise,

[1:21:43] it becomes kind of corrupting in a way negative headline cell. Negative headline cell, no matter what the facts are, having a negative spin on it, more so than a positive spin is far more lucrative. And when a story isn't lucrative enough, they find a way to make it more negative. So in my case, it was a calculated move. It wasn't a mistake. They needed a martyr because it was more lucrative

[1:22:14] and that's why they've repeatedly burned sources because it's easier to champion someone in a story that's overwhelmingly negative, even if it's a manufactured sort of incident. So they needed someone to have the fall to make that information more lucrative as a journalistic enterprise and corporate media. And I paid the price.

[1:22:45] And I wondered just as I was watching if the fact that the story that the source hadn't been protected also made the media not really want to delve much into the story because it was a story about a media failure if they really were looking closely enough. I can add a couple of things to intercept too. Matthew Cole and Richard Esposito, two of the journalists that were responsible

[1:23:17] for essentially outing reality, also outed me. I got an email one time from Matthew Cole and it contained a dozen names. And he said, hey, I'm writing a book about this rendition. Can you introduce me to any of these 12 people? And I responded, I don't know who these people are. Kidnappings weren't my thing at the CIA. I can't help you. And he sent me a second email with another 12 names. And I said, you clearly know this issue better than I do.

[1:23:50] I don't know who any of these people are. And he said in a third email, what about the guy that you mentioned on page 100 and something of your book, I think his name is John. And I said, oh, you mean John Doe. I said, I don't know whatever happened to him. He's probably retired and living in Virginia somewhere. I shouldn't have said the name. I confirmed the last name that I'm calling Doe right now.

[1:24:25] Well, Matthew Cole wasn't working for, he wasn't doing this as a book. There was no book. It was a cover story. It was a lie. He was secretly working for the Guantanamo defense attorneys. So he had collected these 24 names. I had confirmed the 25th and he sent all these names to Guantanamo. The attorneys there put the names into a classified motion and asked the judge to demand that they be interviewed.

[1:24:58] The judge realized that these names were all classified. So he gave the names to the FBI. The FBI went to the defense attorneys and they said, where did you get the names? They said from John Shipton, an investigator for Human Rights Watch. So they went to Shipton. Where did you get the names? From Matthew Cole. So they went to Cole. Where did you get the names? Now, this is a journalist, mind you. He said, I got him from John Kiriakou. Then they convened a grand jury and they called Matthew Cole.

[1:25:30] Where did you get the names? John Kiriakou gave me the name. So they charged me with five felonies, including three counts of espionage, 45 years in prison, because Matthew Cole either was afraid, feared for his own liability, or he was working for the FBI, which I've also come to believe is true. Because it wasn't just me. It wasn't just me and reality.

[1:26:01] He did the same thing to an FBI whistleblower, Terry Albury. He outed Terry Albury to the FBI and Terry Albury did three and a half years in prison. You know, and they've done the same thing to Daniel Hale. Blower. Daniel Hale provided his information. You know, the FBI's raiding his house and he's getting four. My brain can't process the notion

[1:26:35] they are so stupid or such bad journalists that they keep making the same mistake over and over and over. I think reality's right. They do it for the headlines, but I'm more cynical and I think they're working for the FBI. I really do. That's not a good, sorry. There's a microphone issue. If I could add something to that. Sorry, Billy, did you want to jump in there?

[1:27:08] I just also wanted to add throughout this, I've always looked back at when the intercept published the document that reality released. They published it after her arrest. They published it after her court hearing. They had an agreement with the government to hold off on the story until after her arrest. When is it that a reputable journalist

[1:27:40] or media source actually has an agreement with the government on things like this? Yeah, no, that sounds, there is a problem. And I do think one of the things it raises, whether there's a specific problem with specific journalists and a specific organization, there is a problem with, I think, the self-censorship, the not wanting to touch the stories,

[1:28:11] the issue of actually doing what you can. Obviously, it is an arms race between investigative media and some of these independent media and the NSA and the whistleblowers. And a lot of the power is we know where it sits. And a lot of the idea that you're going to engage in that battle and win is not easy. So you need to, but the issue of journalism

[1:28:43] and doing it well and doing it properly has to be at the basis of whistleblowers going to journalists. And we can see that there are plenty of organizations being set up outside of, and Intercept was one of them, outside of the traditional media to address some of these issues. And right now, obviously, we also have the Espionage Act being used against Julian Assange, a publisher, and used transatlantically.

[1:29:14] And the impact and the idea of how the Espionage is going to, Espionage Act is going to continue to affect journalists doing their jobs well and properly in the public interest is obviously not going to go away. Sonia or John, would you? May I add one thing to that? There's a fantastic journalist and a friend of whistleblowers by the name of, it's going to come to me in a second. He's at BuzzFeed, Jason Leopold at BuzzFeed.

[1:29:44] He's the king of the Freedom of Information Act. In fact, a senior defense department official called him a FOIA terrorist because he's uncovered so much information about government wrongdoing through the Freedom of Information Act that they fear him now. But anyway, he sent a Freedom of Information Act request to the CIA about two years ago just on a lark. And he asked for all communication between all journalists and the CIA's Office of Public Affairs.

[1:30:17] And they sent him thousands and thousands of pages of just boring, useless, oh, I have a question. What's the CIA director's birthday and silly stuff like that? But then he found a golden nugget. Ken Delanian, the senior intelligence reporter for NBC News and MSNBC, had been sending his articles to the CIA for clearance before he sent them

[1:30:49] to his own editors. Why? Why would he do something like that if he's not putting CIA planted stories in the news? It's because when you're a national security journalist in Washington, it's a big deal to get invited to the CIA Christmas party, right? You get to shake the director's hand, they'll let you go into the little souvenir store and buy a CIA tie.

[1:31:20] I'm serious. And if you say something in your publication or on your network that the CIA doesn't like, you're not invited to the Christmas party next year. And they're not gonna give you the little leak, the little information that they want to plant in the media. And they're not gonna call you with a tip anymore. They'll do all of those things if you do exactly as they tell you to do. And so that's what Ken Delanian was doing. He was cowtowing to the CIA

[1:31:54] to be on their good guys list. Now part of the problem is that most publications and networks in the United States no longer have a budget for investigative journalism. And so what they do is they take the CIA press releases or they take the cleared paragraphs that the CIA will send and they'll gist it and they'll add a paragraph that they pull off Wikipedia or wherever they find it. And that becomes a news story. But that's not news, that's propaganda.

[1:32:28] We used to have a law in the United States that forbade the propagandization of the American people. What most Americans don't know is that that law was revoked in 2011 as part of the National Defense Authorization Act. And so our news outlets now are legally permitted to publish CIA and FBI propaganda. There's nothing wrong with that anymore.

[1:32:59] And either Americans don't know or they don't care. I was just gonna throw a, you know, oh, that's what called balance, right? That's the giving each side there, say. Would you, yeah, yes. Would you like to comment on this issue? Oh, yeah. It's really very personal to me. I mean, yeah, the funding, of course, of investigative journalism is a problem because it's expensive, it takes time. You know, you saw at the beginning of the film

[1:33:29] we are opening with a text card that says that we were able to get the FBI interrogation audio through a lawsuit, but against the FBI, that was, you know, that started with a Freedom of Information Act request. Then after, you know, we have to give the FBI quite a lot of time for them to react because they put you on these like extremely long paths. And then when nothing happened

[1:33:59] and you know, we have to follow up and they rejected it. Then we went to the Department of Justice and made our argument why we thought we should get access to this material. And then their DOJ quite surprisingly actually sided with us. It was sent back to the FBI and they still didn't move. And at some point, you know, about one half years in we went to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and they provided pro bono support because as an independent team, you know,

[1:34:30] we cannot afford these type of legal expenses. So they represented us and we sued the FBI and it took almost two years, but we won. And we actually had fortunately a judge who sided with us when the FBI, I think I was calculating, they said it would take them 13 years or something to release the data because they wanted to chop up the audio into multiple smaller files and release them every month, which, you know, I know it takes a lot more time

[1:35:02] than just releasing the file to us. It already had been redacted. So yeah, we got that, but it really, it takes a lot of time and knowledge, but I wish that big media organizations, public media would really invest in this type of investigative research and not just, you know, a PR person, a press person of an agency, that's not a source. You know, if they give you information, that is not, that's like a placing information.

[1:35:33] That is not a source. But I think you can actually find a lot of information, like you mentioned with Jason Leopold, through, you know, reading court records, congressional budget reports. I was reading through so many congressional budget reports during the production of National Bird and found a lot of information about, you know, the drone program in these reports and court records and so on. And, but yes, it's dry work. It doesn't, it's not as flashy as having that, you know, new leak

[1:36:06] that you have of classified materials. So it's, you know, it really takes more time, but I do, I really hope that the funding will be provided, maybe by more foundations. I mean, I saw here, this is supported by every Van David Logan Foundation, which actually has been a big sponsor of my work as well and has made it able, possible for us to do this long-term research. But yeah, we need support. We probably need more, you know, public support.

[1:36:38] Maybe we have to go more to get funding from the people, but it's important because there's a lot of information hidden that is in the public interest. And I think Reality Winner's Case is one of the prime examples. What could be more important to the public than the security of our elections? Thank you, Sonia. I think that nicely brings us full circle

[1:37:10] because I was thinking about Billy writing about We the People and how your own belief in the American system has been tested beyond, beyond what you could live with, really, and that it's been destroyed. But it does bring us back to We the People because this event and everybody that's been involved in publishing the book, putting this all together, Reality, you taking that step to send that report.

[1:37:40] And, you know, we thank you for that. It does show where our accountability mechanisms are failing. You were trying to call that to account. It's up to us to take on the rest of it with you, but not leaving you to do it on your own or Billy on her own. So thank you so, so much for joining us today. It really is an honor for us. I don't know if you realize how much it has been and it is, despite, I realize a difficult period and it will take time and you will get more confident

[1:38:12] about what's going on with your probation officer and you'll hear from John. But it is really important to know that you're not alone and that we're out here trying to make this work better for all of us. So We the People, thank you. Thank all of you. Thank you.

[1:38:54] I also wanted to thank really deeply Reality and Billy for being with us this night. I hope you are also going to follow us tomorrow if you have time and you want to see how we go on here in Berlin. And I want to thank all the people in the panel, John, Sonia and Anna. This was really an important conversation. And really, I would say,

[1:39:24] we will keep thinking about your reality and also I hope that this event will also help in raising more interest and support for your case. So we are with you and we stand with you. I also then wanted to conclude the night of today to remind you to come back tomorrow. And briefly, I wanted to announce what is happening. So we start at four with the book launch.

[1:39:58] We're still blowing for change. So I will be here together with Elena Velenoska to speak more in depth about the work we did together with other sort of people that wrote in the book. And by the way, the book is here available if you want and also online on EPUB and PDF for free if you want to get it. And then after that, we will have a panel Crowdsourced Civic Action, subverting vigilance

[1:40:30] and powering whistleblowers. And together with me, there will be Barrett Brown, Naomi Colvin, Lori Love and Mustafa Al Bassem. And then we will have a second panel, challenging discrimination and polarization, whistleblowing the post-truth era, together with Darryl Davies and Imashon Robert Trafford of forensic architecture and is moderated by Peter Matiasic.

[1:41:01] I also want to remember that there are two workshops on Sunday that still have places if you want to attend. One is building secure whistleblowing platform with GlobalLeaks free software, with Rimas Gair of GlobalLeaks. And the other is two play or B-plades, the gamification workshop with Agnese Trocchi and Jacobo Anderlini. The two workshop will be offline

[1:41:31] and because of course it's also a matter of security and small participation. So I just remember again that you can just go online and get your ticket there. So this is it for today and I really want to thank you again for being with us and for this really important panel. Thank you and goodbye to reality and Billy, see you, bye.
