[00:00] okay I'm just gonna welcome to the stream mr. John Kiriakou and hi John can you hear me there he is hell why are you I am so happy to see you thank you so much for being here we're happy to do it oh absolutely fabulous we've had so many people so excited that you're gonna be here oh my pleasure John and we've just been doing a little bit of an intro over the last hour or so
[00:32] just explaining to people who's gonna be or who are gonna be on the stream but also what the understanding and founding purpose of this is for us which is that we have brought together people from right across the political sphere with completely different political opinions and affiliations because we are united in this one single purpose of advocating for the human rights the protection and restoration of the human rights of Julian Assange demanding his freedom
[01:03] that he'd be allowed to realize his asylum in Ecuador and also recognizing the the threat to Julian and WikiLeaks as a grave threat to press freedom so I'd really like you to talk to us about those issues tonight because you are a whistleblower and whistleblowers are dependent upon journalists to get their messages out is that correct oh it's absolutely correct you know especially in the intelligence community here in the United States we're taught when we're first hired that if you see
[01:35] evidence of waste fraud abuse or illegality that you go through the chain of command but time and time again it's been proven that that just simply doesn't work Tom Drake went through the chain of command he was rewarded with nine felony charges including seven counts of espionage bill bini Kirk Wiebe Diane Roark went through their chains of command and and they were arrested and harassed by the police I didn't go through my chain of command because my chain of command created the CIA's
[02:05] torture program I went to the press and so really for me the only thing to do is to go to the press would be whistleblowers email me call me call me all the time I get this all the time and people ask me who in the media should they go to well outlets like the New York Times The Washington Post the intercept have encryption keys on their websites I don't trust any of them frankly and I tell people every time I'm asked the
[02:37] only place to go is WikiLeaks because WikiLeaks is the only organization that has never blown a source it's the only organization you can trust to handle this kind of information and it that was true years ago with Chelsea Manning it's true today you absolutely an amazing point okay so then conversely John what is the three you know if we if we failed stand up for
[03:08] Gillian we Faust in a for WikiLeaks I mean what is the wider impact of that the wider impact is that there's literally nowhere for a whistleblower to go and so the information just doesn't get out I can't tell you how many times people have said to me that that they just assess that it's not worth going forward so they just keep their mouth shut and you know the the country is is lesser for it here in the United States especially with national security whistleblowers I believe very firmly
[03:41] that the American people own that information the information belongs to the people the citizens of the United States not to the people who classified it it's also illegal in the United States to classify something that is a crime it's illegal to classify something so that it doesn't see the light of day so that it can't go public well that still happens every day and the only reason we know about it is because of whistleblowers well if there's no outlet
[04:13] for a whistleblower to go to then the information never goes public and then we don't know what our government is doing in our name and we have a right it's and to me it's one of the most important rights that that an American can have the right to know what his government is doing in his name you sorry I think we're getting a lot of feedback from people that they're finding it really powerful that we are recognizing that this isn't a lift or a
[04:43] right issue but this is a human a human rights issue tar oh my goodness yes this is not at all an issue of left or right this is specific to human rights civil rights and civil liberties and and it's not specific to the United States certainly this is this is an international issue I think we're headed toward an international crisis if we turn our backs on Julian Assange I know what it's like to feel like you're standing alone to feel like the entire
[05:16] weight of the government is has fallen on your head that there's nowhere to turn there's nowhere to go I know exactly what the man is going through and it's terrible it's lonely and so it's up to us to remind him and to remind the world the broader audience out there that we're with him that we support him we support the organization and we support the issue and that we won't back down as so many people here in the US have been cowed by these
[05:47] ridiculous comments by senior US government officials that WikiLeaks is akin to a hostile foreign intelligence service well the reason that they've said that is because they're afraid of it and they're afraid of the work that WikiLeaks has done they're afraid because WikiLeaks has been effective let's compare WikiLeaks to the the intercept for example I'm biased against the intercept because two of the two of the journalists there were I'll just say it straight out they were responsible
[06:19] for putting me in prison for two years because they blew my identity to the government blatantly they did the same thing to reality winner they may have done the same thing to this FBI agent who came forward in Minneapolis Minnesota you can't trust a national security journalist if that national security journalist doesn't know how to protect his national security services I'm sorry sources but look at WikiLeaks WikiLeaks has never blown a
[06:50] national-security source never and beyond protecting the sources identity they have protected the sources in the documents that they've released and that's why this process takes time because they're going through these documents to make sure that nobody gets in trouble that nobody's identity is compromised no no journalism outlet does anything like that that's specific to WikiLeaks that's such an important point and
[07:21] there's I mean and you have such with all that said you have such a unique perspective on on what is going on now on the Julian situation and the prosecution of him so um I was wondering what your perspective is right now on the current situation as its developed especially sit during the time between the first vigil and what we discussed then and now like what what do you see because you definitely have a very very unique lens on this I stay current on these issues day to day and I'll tell
[07:51] you the honest to goodness truth is I'm worried and I'm worried for a couple of reasons first of all when Julian had his internet access suspended and his visitors suspended I don't know why but I believe this to be a temporary situation I thought okay they're trying to make a point a week later though they'll loosen things up again and they haven't besides that and and this is what worries me even more I delivered a letter to the
[08:23] Ecuadorian ambassador to the United States a few months ago asking the ambassador to ask his government to to let Julian have internet access the very next day an article appeared in The Wall Street Journal and it was entitled Ecuador is open for business and it talked about how the Ecuadorian government had approached the Trump administration to try to improve and to enhance business ties that sent a chill up my spine because it made me think and
[08:56] fear that Julian may be used as a pawn so the Ecuadorian gun can make a little bit of money so that troubles me very deeply and that's not something I was worried about just a few short months ago definitely it's an absolutely terrifying prospect that he might be used as leverage in that way and that this suffering could be leveraged really really disturbing let me interrupt you too I want to talk about some rumors here in one absolutely the rumor is that
[09:27] either Julian has been indicted in the Eastern District of Virginia or that a grand jury has been impaneled in the Eastern District of Virginia the reason why this would be done in the Eastern District rather than in Washington DC or any in any other district in the country is that the Eastern District of Virginia is known as the espionage Court no national security defendant has ever won a case there ever I was tried their head Snowden was charged there Jeffrey sterling was
[09:59] charged there we've all had our cases in the Eastern District of Virginia there's one judge in particular judge Leonie brinkema who reserves all of these cases for herself so she's been the judge for all of us and we were all found guilty beyond that she made it literally impossible to mount a defense because every time we would motion the court to allow us to declassify information necessary to defend ourselves she denied the motion she denied seventy
[10:32] two of my motions and have proved zero we were walking out of the courtroom one day and I said to my attorney what just happened and my attorney said we just lost the case that's what happened well Julian is looking at the same kind of outcome if he's forced out of that Embassy and extradited to the United States he will not he cannot get a fair trial it's impossible because the deck is stacked and everybody knows what's going to happen if he comes back to the Eastern District of Virginia this is the
[11:03] same advice I gave that Snowden don't come home because you can't get a fair trial here Julian doesn't have the choice and that's what frightens me even more yeah not so important to here from you from your perspective on that I think that's a really important information for our audience to have about what it is exactly that he faces if he were to lose asylum or to walk out of the embassy this would not be a fair judicial process whatsoever so you know thank you for explaining that oh sure and we also have to remember that that
[11:34] the the Brits are essentially puppets of the United States in cases like this they they will do anything that the US intelligence community tells them to do and I think we can all assume should assume that the US has told the British that as soon as Julian walks out of that embassy that the US wants him yeah and I believe recently after the first vigil Cassandra actually tweeted an old leaked picture of the orders that the police guarding the embassy were given which
[12:05] was to immediately arrest him immediately put him into custody if he came out even if he was somehow in I believe the the document said that if he was in a diplomatic bag or something ridiculous like that but basically there this is not a normal you know process that he's going through and it would not be a normal result if he would leave so no certainly not and his hands are tied you know up until now I think all of us believe that we could count on the Ecuadorians I hope that we still can I
[12:37] know that I know that President Correa has expect for mer President Correa has expressed disappointment in in lynnie Moreno's policy toward Julian I still hope that this policy is temporary I know we all do definitely I hope so as well I hope that with voices like yours and all of the other voices that are being raised whether it's you know Roger Waters you know with this concert all of these efforts I hope that that will make a real difference for Moreno and his
[13:09] decision on this do to John that point that you just brought up before about how the last time we got together for the first virtual event you were confident or you felt sure that Julian's communications will be restored I think I felt exactly the same way and the reason that we actually designed unity for Jay is in a new mass movement and not just a continuation of how I connect Julian is because we actually thought to ourselves oh yeah he'll be reconnected any day now but the larger issues that we need to
[13:40] free him from the embassy and we also we just took it for granted that because previously had been disconnected and then reconnected that it was just a matter of time but looking at you know the geopolitical situation and seeing as you're just talking about Ecuador in the the developments with linen merino it seems that we might have I think there's a it's a human tendency actually you know we look at someone like Julian who goes through so much who faces such vast incredible forces and he seems to just
[14:13] you know weather weather every storm and take almost take it on the chin but we know in reality is not in reality he is suffering severely his serious medical conditions there's the his situation is far more dire than you would know by reading the mainstream media you know and I'm thinking like how dangerous it is that we would just take for granted that he'd be reconnected and and that seems like a huge danger to me yeah this is a list of urgency we need to there is
[14:45] an emergency that's right this is a lesson that we we shouldn't take anything for granted at this point and you raised a very important point too this is a human rights issue relative to his health and this is something that really is not reported anywhere but the man's health cannot be very good closed up in that embassy 24 hours a day seven days a week he needs sunlight he needs exercise he needs nutritious food and we have no
[15:16] idea if he's getting any of that you well fortunately we do know that he said that they're feeding him but there was probably the most alarming statement I've ever heard was out of one of his legal team a few weeks ago who's actually said there you know he faces not even being able to see down the hallway because his eyesight is degrading so severely from only having
[15:46] this tiny limited space he's he's actually suffering organ damage and I know from studying his medical reports that his doctors have said that he's a mortal risk it's no joke he is literally at mortal growth risk so how do we how do we convince people of this how do we humanize him John you know I think we have to keep doing what we're doing and we have to keep reminding everybody that this is a human rights issue you know the the mainstream media tends to not
[16:17] cover Julian's story there might be an update of a few sentences every once in a while saying Julian Assange is still in the Ecuadorian Embassy we need to make sure that it's out there all the time even if that's just in the mainstream media for the time being I have a I have a small radio show in in Washington and we talk about Julian all the time we interview people like Danny burrito and and Randy credito for example people who know Julian and have seen him and have spoken to him because
[16:48] we need that first-hand accounting of his health and his spirits and any news that he may have for us anything that he has heard perhaps from the Ecuadorians perhaps from his attorneys we need to make sure that the information is out there and people are reminded every day that this is a very important issue and it's very dangerous for Julian Assange absolutely we did we did recently see a series of pieces come out of the
[17:18] Guardian it was the typical smear pieces but at this time it was an entire series of them and interestingly they were based on anonymous sources but those anonymous sources were leaking information about intelligence agency activities and there had been actually in defense of Julian providing security to the embassy what's your take on that John where it seems that leaking information to the press is fine if you're doing it to attack a whistleblower rather than to be a
[17:49] whistleblower Oh welcome to my life you know the the biggest leakers in Washington are the White House the CIA and the FBI that's been a fact of life since the creation of those organizations because this is what they do they do it to control the story they do it to control the debate they do it to influence public opinion it's it's only a leak if it's something that they don't like if it's something that they like it's authorized we see the same
[18:20] thing with the Guardian and I have to add to I've been very disappointed in the Guardian you know the Guardian was one of the recipients of of Julian's largesse of information directly from from WikiLeaks and to turn on him like they have and what's supposed to be a progressive paper is really very very disappointing I completely agree and that that uh escalation of those six you know articles on him was really shocking to
[18:52] see I mean it was really seemed like they were just piling on and accusing him of stuff that was absolutely ludicrous and I thought it was great we saw WikiLeaks actually well yeah like say that they were going to file a suit for libel because it was so ridiculous sorry agreed and what do you think that that signifies that we see those pylons like that do you think that that's because you know from their perspective they had to you know undo some of the successful backlash this this gagging of
[19:22] him which has as I said it's become a backlash in terms of increasing support for him do you think that was the main the main goal with that or was it more to yes we also have to remember that intelligence services all around the world are are well schooled in psychological warfare and I think that this is this is a concerted attempt a formal attempt to to weaken Julian mentally emotionally maybe even physically and to to make him give up in
[19:56] the end I think that's really the goal you know they they can plant stories and whatever media they want they put these false narratives out there and people are gullible they'll believe anything they read in the press with the ultimate result being Julian's weakening yeah I think we can truly blame intelligence services for this and be right John I'd like you to game theory a little bit for me um I think you can take the this
[20:29] collaboration of intelligence services with the Guardian and smearing Julian Assange you could take it two ways one is that the u.s. is now really on top of the situation and they're like this far away from getting their hands on Julian and they're winning the media war that there could be true or it could be and this is what I suspect that they are trying to depict that that is the case and that they are hoping that by depicting them as being in this position of incredible strength and ecuador is collaborating
[21:00] with them that they will be able to you know manifest the future that they that they want to realize rather than their actually being the situation what does he take on that what is the the second scenario is entirely plausible and the the reason why I believe that it could be the case that you never hear any any complaints really about WikiLeaks coming out of the White House you remember during the campaign Donald Trump said I love WikiLeaks remember that I mean he
[21:30] was he was grandstanding of course but slowly definitely yeah well so we're not seeing leaks coming from the Justice Department we're not seeing leaks coming from the White House the only things that we're seeing are coming from the FBI and the CIA and then we're seeing actually public statements from former CIA director Mike Pompeo so there may be a policies lid here that this is this is a tier one target or operation for the CIA but it's really not very important
[22:02] for the White House so your second scenario may very well be the case but again either way regardless of whether it's the first scenario or the second one of the goals is to weaken Julian and to isolate Julian and that's what we really have to push back on and we really don't have much in the way of ammunition except papal power exactly because we know that international law is on Julian side we know the president
[22:33] is on Julian side he has one time and time again in his legal battles against the government's and I kind of say agencies that really governments there that are persecuting him and that arbitrarily detaining him I think what is going to have to happen is he's going to have to be a mass movement an international movement a la free Nelson Mandela movement of the 80s to push it you know to turn the tide to put enough pressure on these governments that they
[23:03] will have to abide by international law and that they will have to free him John I'd like to take you back in time a little bit actually like you to take us back in time a little bit from my perspective you are a hero you're a celebrated whistleblower your whistle blowing was of historic proportions as I was saying earlier and when I was discussing the fact you'd be on stream your revelations made a US president have to stand up and answer to what was being done and there are very few people on this planet that can say
[23:34] that they've had that type of impact on global affairs he said that you just just a moment ago though you were talking about feeling isolated and feeling like the world was against you and so I wondered can you take us back in time to explain to us tell us the story of that transition how did you get from point a of being all by yourself on your lonesome against the most fearsome Intelligence Agency in the world arguably to being a household name and
[24:06] celebrated as a hero and having your whistleblowing recognized at the level that it has been well on the on the day that the FBI told me that they were going to arrest me they actually intended to arrest me that day and the only thing that saved me was I said I want to speak to my lawyer and I want to speak to him right now that was on a Thursday the FBI likes to arrest people on Thursdays because the courts don't arraign new prisoners on Fridays and so you have to spend
[24:37] Thursday night Friday night Saturday night and Sunday night in jail and frankly they hope that you have a rough time maybe you get beaten up it softens you up a little bit and then you're more willing to take a deal I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that every whistleblower who's facing prison considers suicide it's just a natural thing I've spoken to 50 different whistleblowers and to a man and woman every one of them considered committing suicide in the very beginning it's that
[25:09] terrible it's that difficult you really feel that isolated but there were two things that kind of changed my perspective one was my wife she told me a couple of days after my arraignment on the following Monday they have consistently underestimated your strength you can you can take them she said you have to fight them and she was right I had to fight and I decided that I would she also said that I had to own
[25:42] my whistle blowing that I had done nothing to be ashamed of I had done something instead to be proud of and that if I kept talking about it eventually my side of the story would become the side of record and the government's story would disappear after a while because they would move on to their next victim who happened to be Ed Snowden and so I did keep talking about it now when I first went to prison I was just you know prisoner number 7 9 6 8 3 o 8 3 I wasn't anybody and then I wrote
[26:18] a letter an open letter to my attorneys six weeks after I got to prison just to tell them what the experience was like up to that point I didn't even realize that I was blowing the whistle on on corruption inside the prison the prison guards corruption it led to an inspector general investigation in the Department of Justice and my attorney sent it to Arianna Huffington she put it on the Huffington Post and it got more than a million hits which was a real surprise
[26:48] to me I I was I was getting interview requests from everywhere from CNN and Fox and and MSNBC and Time magazine The Washington Post the New York Times it was crazy about six weeks after that Ed Snowden went public with his revelations and I wrote an open letter to him and I followed it up with a private letter that I sent through him you to a friend the open letter received many millions of hits and I realized then so it took
[27:20] me a good six months I realized then that I wasn't alone that there were a lot of like-minded people out there I just didn't realize it and people started writing to me and I made a decision on my very first day in prison that if somebody was going to take time out of their day to sit with a pen and paper and write me a letter I was going to answer that letter and I ended up answering more than 7,000 letters in the 23 months that I was in prison and again every letter that I
[27:50] received was a reminder that I was not alone that we were in this together and you know we had a chance at success because this was a real movement that is absolutely incredible and I think it's really really helpful for the audience to hear that they've made such a difference to receive those letters yeah I think that that is really important for people to understand and apply the same to Julianne in this situation right now I agree write those letters it only takes a few minutes just a few minutes you can imagine how much that'll bright
[28:23] is brighten his day when he receives it and knows that he's not alone absolutely because yeah he wasn't he's not just confined now to the embassy as we know he's obviously in actually a solitary confinement style situation so yeah you know what because that's exactly what this is this is solitary confinement you know the United Nations has declared solitary confinement as a form of torture absolutely solitary confinement just because he happens to have a television doesn't
[28:53] make it any less confining so this is something that we need to to remember the solitary confinement in part is meant to break you mentally and I don't care how tough you are or how strong you are everybody is going to break eventually so our letters are gonna help keep him steady and sane and focused it's up to us to make sure that he's not forgotten the human the human link there is so so incredibly important and I it's
[29:24] interesting that Suzy was mentioning that this has to be a movement for that similar to the Nelson Mandela movement in the 80s in fact the UN's our regulations and rules on solitary confinement are named for Nelson Mandela they're called the Nelson Mandela rules and I mean we know that Assange is going into his third month in in this situation and the limit the limit beyond which it's considered torture it's 15 days so he is more than quadrupled that and in addition that yeah the medical records that Susie mentioned earlier also showed
[29:55] that he was already exhibiting effects of solitary confinement medically in 2015 years before this new isolation was implemented so I mean I couldn't agree with you more about this whole the whole issue of solitary confinement and the importance of the connection remaining there in some way agreed this is this is potentially grave we all need to be worried about this I think that sometimes I think in in American culture and in the public space we think of torture and we think of something active
[30:26] and physical happening to somebody you know that's this graphic and terrible and that that's true but we don't we underestimate how incredibly painful and how concretely isolation affects people physically and biologically and you said just as you said um everyone will break at some point that is so true and that's backed up in medical literature it shows that isolation absolutely causes brain changes it causes all sorts of medical issues so this situation as you've said cannot be underestimated at the CIA they
[30:57] called it learned helplessness and that's exactly what it is you just accept the fact that you're helpless and there's nothing that you can do that's going to help you you can't help yourself and so you just fall apart and I think that's what they're counting on absolutely and I think that you know as you said I think people sometimes hesitate to write letters because they think oh what can I say of importance or they think well will this even get through and I think that if you have that type of hesitation please just
[31:28] write it anyway even if they're all thrown out if you are writing those letters you are making an act that you are enacting you know something that will really truly help really and survive this you know as john saying where his lifeline right now so don't underestimate your own actions there were so many people who wrote to me just about their day you know how their day was one woman you know visited her daughter one woman wrote to me and explained this new car game that she had learned a woman would
[31:59] take pictures of birds that landed in her backyard and send me the pictures I can't tell you how wonderful that was because you know for even just a few minutes you forget that you're in a cage and that you're being held under armed guard it's surrounded by barbed wire fences and guard towers it's liberating even just for a few minutes so don't worry about about trying to think up something profound just just say hello and tell him how your day is that's
[32:31] incredible to hear I think that's really important for people to hear because I know that a lot of people as Suzy was saying earlier they don't see us on jazz as a human being like the rest of us they see it as somebody who's kind of up on a pedestal almost and we really have to understand that he is a human being and he needs connection to other human beings in order to survive because we all do so that's right definitely so I'm gonna check chat really fast and see if we have any questions for you that are in the in that chat one moment why look if you guys have questions for John please let us know and we will pass those on immediately I'm really
[33:04] interested to know how how are you yourself because you're also in that same kind of position where you lord it as a hero by so so many people they look up to you so much what you've done but at the end of the day you know that you I yourself you're a normal guy who got a family you got a normal life you deal with the everyday today struggles of you know every person on the planet how do you have you felt that disconnect between the way that you depicted the image of you versus your reality oh yeah
[33:36] most definitely I'm just a guy I'm just a normal guy there's nothing special about me in any way you know and I'm subject to the same kind of pressures that everybody else has maybe more because with my conviction for example I lost my federal pension and so I'm gonna have to work until the day I die that's just a reality Daniel Ellsberg told me one thing one time that one thing that all whistleblowers have in common is that they die broke that they're never able
[34:07] to make a financial comeback after there was blowing I I'm determined that that won't be me but you know as the years begin to tick by since I first went public I'm realizing that that may be me so yeah I don't see myself as anything special frankly I tried to not blow the whistle I kept waiting for someone else to come forward and nobody did so I finally said something Wow you know who said that
[34:39] word for word Snowden that's very true that's a very very very true yeah and the cost is very very high you know it's not just financial but personal to my wife finally had enough and and she walked and I can't blame her this dress is terrible the pressure is unbearable sometimes so yeah there's the
[35:11] counterbalance to that like on one on one side we have the price of the risk so that we take the price that we pay the horrific price that we pay but on the other side of that as Snowden says you can look yourself in the mirror I say that every day I'll tell you four days before I left for prison Jose Rodriguez the the the godfather of the CIA's torture program the deputy director of the CIA tweeted at me and he
[35:41] said don't drop the soap [ __ ] and I gave myself an hour to cool off and then I tweeted back at him and I said Jose I'm on the right side of history and you are not and I left it at that and I know all these years later that I was right I was right and he was wrong I know I can sleep at night so it was worth it that is so important to recognize and
[36:11] it's really horrific how those types of people that are so high up in the intelligence community will take these really like personal and ad hominem attacks at not just yourself and not just whistleblowers like Chelsea Manning but also of course Julian Assange and WikiLeaks it's really it's really it really reveals their true nature I think when we see it it really does there are a lot of sociopaths walking around yeah definitely I think that it's interesting
[36:41] cuz I was just contemplating this today actually about a certain CIA ex-cia now state official who I won't mention but I was actually contemplating this very effective which is that in their day to day life they have all other cushy perks of having sold this all to the devil they have the nice suits they have the big pay Packers they have the safety of knowing that they're not going to be stalked and spied on and targeted and smeared but when they go home at night and they have to look themselves in the mirror on some level I believe that they are
[37:13] conscious that their power is derived from the this apparatus that oppresses and that destroys our planet it's not they don't have any personal power the only power they have in their life comes from has been given them to them or granted from them selling out to the system they're selling them solar system we're as whistleblowers and some
[37:43] journalists are the opposite of that in their day to day lives they don't have the power other than that they can derive from their own speech and their own self-worth they don't have the trappings of power they don't that you know they have to face the smears and the hardships and as you say like the financial ruin but then at night time they can look themselves in the mirror and they know that they didn't sell out to the system they didn't they are not participating in the destruction of the planet that and I was very much
[38:16] contemplating that today because we think these and people as these big scary figures the CIA you know top CIA officials and whatnot but it's the system that holds the power it's not those people as individuals if anything those people as individuals have sold out their ability to have any personal power to become an agent and Agent Smith of the state and am i under some of your laughing John so I must be onto something you're really onto something that's that's quite true a senior CIA
[38:48] former senior CIA official told me just last week he's been retired for I don't know a year a year and a half he told me that he had to go on an antidepressant medication because on Friday he was one of the most important people in America and on Monday he was a nobody because he had retired and he can't handle being a nobody and so he's been struggling with such profound depression that he has to be medicated Wow that's a theme at the CIA they all think
[39:21] that they're the most important people in America because they they have they have sort of self-appointed jurisdiction over life and death for so many people and then they trick themselves into thinking that they're irreplaceable and in fact they're very replaceable absolutely yeah the the groupthink that goes on in the intelligence agencies that can be so intense i i've read you know in different different press reports that it's so intense that it actually damages their ability to
[39:53] function and in some instances is that something that you have seen or absolutely in fact one of my attorneys bruce fine and i have been talking about writing a book exactly about that because if you look at it at the the major international developments over the last 70 years since the creation of the CIA the CIA has been wrong about just about every one of them and it's it's because of that groupthink you know they throw around these these these
[40:24] slogans and and business buzzwords about thinking outside the box and establishing a red team or a your team and it's all nonsense they don't know what they're doing in fact they end up sitting around a conference room table and just agreeing with one another that's incredible that's amazing to hear like it's from somebody who's really experienced it that's really really interesting thank you for sure just just just back to the psyche issues thing it just reminds me of the WikiLeaks group and
[40:55] I'm sure that this is going to be one of the reasons the CIA really has it in for them WikiLeaks publishing the leaked Brennan emails from his mount or comet race and in there was sure enough was his psych reports from his he'd actually been seeing a psychologist to deal with the emotional fallout of being a tyrannical CIA director so funny isn't it you know CIA psychiatrist once told me that the CIA and I say this is my
[41:26] speeches all the time the CIA actively seeks to hire people who have sociopathic tendencies they try not to hire sociopaths because sociopaths have no conscience and with no conscience they easily pass a polygraph exam but they're impossible to control because they don't feel guilt people who have sociopathic tendencies do have a conscience and do feel guilt but are happy to work in moral ethical and legal gray areas the problem is that
[41:57] because sociopaths are sociopaths they're gonna slip through the cracks anyway and like in any corporate environment it's the sociopaths who work their way to the top and they work their way to the top because they're all so happy to just climb over the backs of their colleagues and co-workers to make it to the top and that's how you end up with a John Brennan or a Jose Rodriguez or a George Tenet because they actually are sociopaths well that makes it much
[42:30] sense go Ahead's easy but then even these sociopaths there that are involved in so much selecting so much pain and on this entire planet as well as people on it they still seem to have at some level this deeps illogical fallout and I find that quite fascinating because it tells me that even though they condition to exhibiting this psychopathic behavior at some level I truly think that deep down in a little box somewhere that they keep it hidden then is this tiny scrap of conscience
[43:02] well I personally disagree with that completely but that's just my personal take on that I think there are people that are biologically different than other people in that way but Oh step out of that I hope Suzie's right I don't know to tell you the truth but it seems to me that that any normal person I mean you can only kill so many people or be responsible for the deaths of so many people before something gets to you I
[43:33] mean you've got to end up with with PTSD or some kind of psychological malady you can't just unless you're a true sociopath and then you can just kill with impunity and and go right to sleep at night this is just I'm just bringing this back to Julianna's maybe this discussion is making me reflect on the fact that the CIA derives its power from its ability to inflict violence and to
[44:04] control people and Julian Assange has derived his power from his ability to save people for his ability to provide them with the truth the CIA derives power from lies from their false Flags and their fate color revolutions and their everything else Julian and WikiLeaks have derived power from truth-telling and that's why there are such a threat because if there's one
[44:35] thing that the CIA cannot abide that is transparency there it makes so much sense this that's the house of cards right mm-hmm exactly it can bring down the house of cards amazing that also reminds me while we're getting into like theory of stuff it reminds me of a diagram that I saw it was a counterinsurgency doctrine and it said
[45:05] it's like the three pillars of society and when was the financial one was the police and one was the government and these three pillars in a house formation and on the bottom the foundation of the house is information and information was the only factor that had the capacity to bring down all three pillars and they said that each pillar on its own could fall and the structure could remain so you could have a total financial crash
[45:36] but the police state the security stayed in military and the government combined would keep the house up you could have you know lose your military force but still the financial and the government is enough to like rebuild that as we've seen in many states that have had to rebuild their security forces we could have a you lose the Prime Minister the Prime Minister has to sit down the government is dissolved but you still have the police of military security state and you still have the financial role that the house stays up but the information pool at the bottom when you
[46:07] threaten that information pool you place all three pillars in jeopardy and that was the counterinsurgency doctrine oh I believe every word of that I think that's exactly right and years and years of thought have gone into that doctrine they know exactly what they're talking about but again we have this leg in yang where the CIA would use that doctrine to destabilize a country they would use information warfare to destabilize those
[46:39] three pillars that are holding their society together WikiLeaks is using information to destabilize those who would destabilize the society if that makes sense here it's like they they are almost like the inoculating force WikiLeaks is like the inoculating force to the virus absolutely right and that's why we need WikiLeaks because because there are no journalistic outlets that have that of power you know it only WikiLeaks does
[47:10] the Washington Post isn't going to take down the CIA whether the New York Times or The Guardian or the intercept only WikiLeaks has that kind of authority and leverage that's why we need a strong WikiLeaks and that's why we need a free Julian Assange exactly they're the integrity that nobody else has nobody at all so from your perspective how do people what is some of the what are some of the ways and I mean you know I know we've hashed this up before but from your unique perspective how can people
[47:40] that are listening and watching you know actively help you know help support WikiLeaks and Julian Assange you know in addition to the letter writing to keep him you know connected to humanity what are some of the things people can really tangibly do to help that you that you think of from what he done through I was speaking to a member of Congress about a week ago and the topic of WikiLeaks came up and this guy is a very conservative Republican he's a member of the tea party caucus here in the States which is
[48:11] the it's a group of the most conservative members of the House of Representatives and he said that he had sort of a knee-jerk reaction against WikiLeaks for a long time until constituents began to write to him and to ask arresting for WikiLeaks and so he said he never really gave it much thought until people began to write and you know these guys really are responsive to their constituents they really are I've worked on both the house side and the Senate side and I can tell
[48:42] you that when people write letters to their elected representatives they listen and so he actually reevaluated and reinstate reassessed his entire position on WikiLeaks I'm not sure that he's willing to say that publicly yet but you know one at a time and over time we can actually win this thing I think that's a really really valuable piece of information for people to have because I know that when I give that answer to
[49:12] people well you can write letters to your representatives you can write letters to so-and-so you know there's kind of that sense of like well that's not enough and people have to understand how a real impact that makes it's a big deal truly absolutely so is there anything else you want to talk to us about about your experience with Julian Assange or WikiLeaks or anything else related to this whole issue I just want to let people understand oh go right ahead nor my audio just cut out for a second I thought it was hers and then I realized
[49:43] it was mine I'm sorry girlfriend right I just wanted to say that I'm genuinely worried about Julian you know I before they cut off his communication his access to the outside world I wasn't really worried about him and I thought well you know eventually this thing is going to play out and he's gonna end up being fine and something's gonna happen they're gonna drop the charges and they're not gonna charge him in the first place or the Brits are gonna walk away or whatever I'm worried now I'm worried because I really believed for a
[50:16] long time that we could count on the Ecuadorians and I'm not sure that's the case anymore so I feel like there's a sense of urgency or immediacy and we need to we need to pull together and be active now more than we ever have in the past I completely agree I think it's so important to hear that I hear I understand that message definitely I'm from your perspective what was the most significant I mean WikiLeaks has got
[50:47] dozens of significant publications but what was the only thing that if he you was deeply personally significant yeah you know in in the Snowden revelations the the notion that that the American government was spying on its own citizens I think most people don't understand the full significance of that information the NSA and CIA are forbidden by law from spying on Americans NSA's Charter actually
[51:20] prohibits it from spying on Americans but that's exactly what they were doing using 9/11 as an excuse using the Patriot Act as a justification it was only because of Snowden's revelations that a the American people became aware of what was happening and be members of Congress began realizing that this thing is starting to spin out of control and so it's just now in the last year-and-a-half that Congress has begun
[51:52] to reject certain provisions of the Patriot Act they've just begun to weaken parts of it so we're not we can't call it a victory yet but we're headed in that direction and that's only because of Ed Snowden and WikiLeaks I find it fascinating what you were just saying that members of Congress actually are responsive because I remember when courage Foundation was urging supporters
[52:23] of law read loved to reach out to members of UK Parliament and I actually thought to myself quite cynically you know nothing gets the effort but I thought to myself I will any of these politicians even care you know what's the chance of them like reading the leaders and then sure enough courage was able to drum up like some phenomenal amount of impes wasn't it like 60 or 70 even some huge amount of politicians and actually managed to get them to advocate for Laurie and I think it very much was
[52:54] a deciding factor in that case and the successful outcome of Laurie's case you know a dozen House members and two senators wrote to the Bureau of Prisons inquiring about my well-being and threatening them to not put me in what was called diesel therapy which was to transfer me to different prisons around the country to silence me and it was only because people were writing letters to their congressmen these congressmen really are receptive they really are reactive to it
[53:25] that's amazing yeah go ahead well how do we leverage that how do we would leverage that for Jillian you know um there's something to be said for a good old-fashioned letter-writing campaign they're they're important especially especially if you're writing to people who actually represent you for example I live in Virginia if I write to a senator from South Dakota he's not gonna care or congressman from South Dakota but if somebody from South Dakota writes
[53:55] they're gonna jump to attention and I can write to my representatives here in Virginia and they will jump to attention so if we've got a concerted nationwide or semi nationwide campaign going we can really get results that way you know we've just had a question from the YouTube live chat and they've said why did Obama believe his legacy would be enhanced by his commutation of Chelsea's sentence and that is some kind of I can't even say the word that
[54:26] synchronizes with the thought that I was just having which is remembering that WikiLeaks had you just talking about the power of a good old-fashioned letter writing campaign that WikiLeaks actually did leader writing campaigns to Obama on with Chelsea Manning's behalf the years before the eventual commutation so what what would be your response to that question about why why do you think that Obama did go ahead and and commute the sentence I actually know the answer from
[54:57] inside Obama's head and I'll tell you why a very wealthy Greek American businessman who is very personally close to Joe Biden approached Biden to ask him if he would ask Obama to pardon me and so I went to Delaware one night I took the train and went to Biden's house and this Greek American took the train down from New York and we met at Biden's house and Biden agreed to go to the
[55:28] president the next night and lobby for me so the next day the two of them went to the White House I went home I wasn't invited to the White House and and when they came out the Greek American businessman called me and he said you would have been so proud of Joe Biden he went to the mat for you he argued your case with everything that he had and then he said ten minutes into it the president put up his hands and said guys I'm just not going to do this it's
[56:00] either him or it's Manning and Manning got thirty five years and that's why Obama did it Obama was not upset that Chelsea was convicted Obama just believed that 35 was too much so he didn't really commute Chelsea's sentence out of the goodness of his heart or because of some some you know pursuit of justice I mean we all know now that Barack Obama was the enemy of transparency he waged a war on whistleblowers Chelsea just got lucky in
[56:32] the end yeah that's something that a lot of people underestimate and don't take into account is how much Obama actually escalated a lot of these problems prosecute eight national security whistleblowers that's almost three times the number of all previous presidents combined extremely just mind-boggling that a supposedly liberal president would do that type of thing and it really kind of reveals that it's not just you know it's not New York on one side of the political spectrum this is obviously an unelected power structure
[57:03] that persists despite whoever is elected president and that that's that's the power that as you've been saying Julian Assange is up against right now and that is what is so disturbing and I think as you mentioned that's what overrides the fact you know whatever comments Trump may have made on the campaign trail that own alleged power structure has it has its own agenda so yeah let me let me leave you with one thought I know my time is up it's not looking fine you're gonna fine I really do with one more thought there's a pardon process a formal pardon process here in the states it's both
[57:33] pardon and commutation in brock obama's final two years as president the u.s. pardon attorney recommended zero people for a partner zero the commutations but nobody was pardoned in the last two years so you know you're right it doesn't matter if you're liberal or conservative or neo liberal or neo conservative it makes no difference we have to elect people regardless of party for whom civil
[58:07] rights and civil liberties and human rights are important because the the the deep state or the federal bureaucracy whatever you want to call it isn't gonna do it for us that's an incredibly important you know statement and it's a great one to leave everyone with thank you so much for joining us thank you best of luck tonight thank you it's an honor to speak with you and happy here was all mine thanks for inviting me thank you so much John we are so so lucky to have you I
[58:38] just want to thank you too from the bottom my heart it's really special to speak with you is amazing thank you so much it's great to Julian absolutely absolutely thank you