TRANSCRIPT
[for quotation purposes, confirm audio]
Jacob Appelbaum
Berlin Logan CIJ Symposium
Re: Journalism, the 'Big Tent' & The Guardian
VIDEO - dur: 19:59
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJValv4YQcY&feature=youtu.be
John Goetz
Moderator
So, before we go to the discussion, I would like to introduce — before we have one last speaker — Jake Appelbaum is surprisingly enough perhaps to some people, is now working on a PhD. in math at a university in the Netherlands, in Eindhoven.
Jacob Appelbaum was perhaps the first employee of the Tor Project, he was an early member of WikiLeaks, and in terms of journalism, he— it's very interesting when we think about what was the big story in Germany of 2013, we tend to think right away: oh it was the Edward Snowden revelations. But the real huge story in Germany and that kind of riveted the world was the story that appeared in Der Spiegel, and it was about the mobile phone of Angela Merkel being listened to by the NSA.
That actually was not a story that came from Edward Snowden, it was a story that came from Jake Appelbaum.
[applause]
Jacob Appelbaum
Ummm, Hi ...
So, first of all: it's really an honour to be here.
It's really fantastic to see so many colleagues in the audience that I've worked with, as well.
And to some of you, I'm sorry for some of the things that I'll say next, but not so sorry that I won't say them.
So, as a technologist in particular, I find myself often in a tech ghetto, and so I kind of expect that everyone here will expect me to talk about technology, but instead I want to talk about— I want to talk about the biggest threat to investigative journalists, and that is: other investigative journalists.
[audience titter]
2:00
And if that sounds a little bit ridiculous, I'd like to tell you a story, and the story's pretty simple.
Most of my stories are personal anecdotes that I've experienced in the last three to ten years working as a journalist independently, publishing on the internet, but also publishing with Der Spiegel, working with ProPublica or other agencies in different capacities.
And, so, I come from a background of working with WikiLeaks to these organisations, and currently WikiLeaks is — I don't know, the sixth or seven year of being investigated by the US government for espionage and terrorism.
So there's an important context there: which is, when we talk about journalism, there is a 'big tent' and that 'big tent', when you're inside of it, you have the political support — or, if you will, the privilege.
Most of the white male journalists in the room will of course know what I'm talking about when I speak of privilege, and this is a part of that privilege.
And, so, what I would say, in particular, is that I'd like to address a few realities about that.
So, one of them is literacy — which is to say that most of the people that are in this room, which I would say I have worked with, they understand to some extent, technology — but you've heard it here a little bit already, where people talk about the 'tech guys' and they bring up the 'tech guys', and there's an interesting thing there which is— actually, there's an issue of literacy.
We don't need to talk about 'tech activism,' just the same as we don't need to talk about, for example, 'grammar activism' or 'fact check activism'.
This is a fundamental core component of modern journalism — being able to use a computer, understanding operational security — and what happens is that when people don't understand that, instead of having a little bit of humility (of which I have plenty, I'm sure you can see), they will absolutely do everything that they possibly can in order to discredit and to disqualify other journalists.
And you actually see this happening all the time: that is to say, if you know how to use a computer, you're instantly a 'nerd' and the 'nerd' is instantly out.
And this is done under the mask of so-called 'objectivity'.
3:52
And to that I say: you are rarely, if ever, fucking objective. Your politics are in everything that you write.
And, so the question is, where are the disclosures, where is the data?
So, when I speak of 'literacy' here, I don't only mean, of course, about fact-checking, or about understanding how systems work, but also literacy in understanding what is and is not political.
So, for example, when we consider that capitalism itself pits us against each other, are we questioning that?
Do we consider that the competitive models in journalism actually cause us to push people outside of the tents?
Isn't it the case that when we negotiate about our contracts? Isn't it the case when we think about money, that that, in fact, is at the core, causing us to betray each other and to, in fact, betray the public?
I think the answer to that is: yes.
And I think that the answer to that, for me personally, means that I have, almost every single time I have worked on stories, I have taken I would say very small amounts of money. I have tried not to make my primary living from working as an independent journalist because, in fact, I find that it compromises me.
It means that I'm tied to one editorial room, I am tied to one political viewpoint, and usually those viewpoints are hidden away. They're hidden away where it's supposedly objective.
But I tell you what, The Guardian — absolutely the shittiest publication in the English language — is shitty for not what they publish, but shitty for what they refuse to publish and pretend that it is a non-political discussion and decision.
And, so, I want to tell you a little bit about why they're shitty and give you some sourcing, which you can then, if you'd like, investigate.
I've not talked about most of these things in public, but I think it's important that after all of these great journalists have built up a tree of journalism, that we can put some fuel on the tree and then light the motherfucker on fire.
[laughter / applause]
So, first, I guess I should start by saying it's not just The Guardian. I have experienced this a lot.
5:53
Some of you have written things in papers, for example, were you call me, or Julian Assange, or Sarah Harrison, 'internet activists'.
To you that have done that, I think that you do not understand potentially what you do and, in that case, I have some forgiveness for you.
But for those of you that do, I understand that you think me your political enemy and I take that up quite seriously, and I will win.
6:17
So, with that in mind, I don't call you a 'grammar activist'.
But I would say that it is important that if we have 'disclosure activists' in the audience, I think it's important to consider, for example, that when we have bylines together in papers and later you call me an 'internet activist', it's important to remember you should probably have disclosed in your article where you called me an 'internet activist' that, actually, we were co-authors on, for example, the equivalent of the German Pulitzer Prize, or something similar to that.
6:49
To call me a 'political activist' is to consciously put me outside of the political tent of privilege and to say: go ahead, instead of being under journalism law, you're under terrorism law.
[applause]
7:06
And, of course, it's important to name names, so thank you to the sponsor:
[ Appelbaum speaks German. Says something like: ]
Der SPIEGEL hat keine Angst vor der Wahrheit
[Der Spiegel has no fear of the truth]
7:13
I think it's important to say, Michael Sontheimer(?), that for me, when you call me an 'activist', it breaks my heart because we have worked together.
But, more importantly, it breaks my heart because you put me under threat of going to prison for the rest of my fucking life.
[enthusiastic applause]
7:37
One of my favourite journalists in Germany, his name is Tilo Jung.
He's a wonderful journalist. He has a very funny comedy show and he says:
"Alle Journalisten sind Aktivisten für die Wahrheit."
All journalists are activists for the truth.
And, so, let us address this concept of activism, and it works like this: 'activism' is used as a pejorative term in order to suggest the participation in a democratic society is somehow outside of the normal behaviour.
Fuck that. That is wrong.
[applause]
8:11
The purpose of journalism is not only to be engaged, but to engage others in that process. That is the purpose.
It is to spread the truth. It is to bring facts. It is to put forward information.
8:24
So, let us speak now of the crimes of The Guardian, who are by far much worse than anyone else in this realm, in my experience.
First, what we'll start with is David Leigh and Alan Rusbridger.
Why will we start with them?
8:34
Well, first with David Leigh, because he is an incompetent, illiterate, absolutely despicable human being, with how he has treated Julian Assange.
He has lied about facts about Julian Assange, suggesting, for example, that Julian suggested that informants 'deserved it', when in fact no such thing was said, as John [Goetz ?] being at that lunch can attest to that.
He has, for example, released encrypted files, not understanding the difference between encryption and authentication, and done so in a way that actually published information that previously had even been withheld by WikiLeaks, and then blaming WikiLeaks for that.
This is an absolutely atrocious problem, but what is worse than that, is that when confronted with it, he continued to take his ignorance with him all the way out the door at The Guardian, instead of correcting his mistake and owning his mistake.
9:24
And for that, I really hope that we never forget that.
We should never forget David Leigh's legacy is to have published things, and to have done so because he did not even understand what they were doing, and then to put Julian Assange under a bus so that that bus could run him over instead.
So, let us call that what it is: it is a political act of betrayal of Julian Assange.
[applause]
In the early days of the Snowden affair, I worked with Glen Greenwald and with Laura Poitras, and with many others — many in this room.
9:58
Two of the great journalists that I worked with, Marcel Rosenbach and Holgar Stark (?), have really honoured me.
They've helped me to have a visa in Germany, to be safe here, and I really respect that very much.
And they understood what it meant to work with me, and in the past having worked with WikiLeaks; they were extremely good about this. They were in constant communication. They absolutely told us what they understood [and] they knew. They treated us as equals. They were so respectful to us that it is in some ways beyond the pale.
An important—
[applause]
Wait a second.
And I want to thank them them for that, because that is, with the exception of John Goetz and very few other people, they are the exception of doing that.
10:38
They treated us as equals. They did not try to treat us as sources, or try to manipulate us, they actually cared very much about getting out the truth. The understood the political impacts, they understood the 'big tent', they understood the 'umbrella', and for that, I really think they deserve a round of applause.
10:53
So thank you Marcel and Holgar (I know that you're here).
[applause]
Now, let's contrast that, for example, with The Guardian.
11:06
I requested a letter from The Guardian to say that I was working on classified documents.
Now, Glenn Greenwald had passed me a number of documents for working with him. Specifically, technical-related documents which he wanted me to help elucidate what they did and what kind of crimes the NSA was committing, and The Guardian actually refused — directly refused — to give me a letter, knowing that I was in possession of classified documents.
11:28
They directly refused to put myself and other people directly under that political tent. They simply didn't want to do it.
And, so, since I am not under contractual obligation and have no loyalty to people that want to put me outside the tent, I'd like to tell you a funny story about them.
[audience laughter]
And it goes like this: when The Guardian was raided, they did not call myself, or Laura Poitras here in Germany to tell us that the GCHQ, and other political powers and police powers in the UK, had in fact come to destroy source material. They did not tell us. We had to find out in public. They left us to hang in public. They did not treat us as equals. They did not protect us. They did not care. And the continued with this, every step of the way.
And while writing technical stories, they directly consulted with the White House and with the GCHQ and other government officials, in order to do, essentially, line by line redaction of things that were for the most part not even worth redacting. They weren't worth even compromising yourself.
It reminds me of the Winston Churchill story about whether or not someone would sleep with him for a million dollars and, of course, when a person says 'no' to one dollar but 'yes' to a million, we know what kind of person that person is, and the same is true for The Guardian. They were willing to compromise and to give editorial control to the state.
What are they then? They are stenographers.
And the way, for example, they talk about Laura Poitras, who has no knowledge of me giving this talk right now.
I would just like to underscore that by reading a small thing.
I apologise for reading from a screen, but it's just too good just to not say it.
"A team of reporters and editors here at the Guardian won the Pulitzer prize for their meticulous, months-long work bringing Snowden to scale. Yet Snowden’s first confidant was a film-maker, Laura Poitras, who documented her initial contact and subsequent collaboration with Snowden in Citizenfour, the third in a trilogy of feature documentaries on war and the security state. It is the weakest film of the three, despite its Oscar ..." [The Guardian]
[audience laughter]
Now, I don't need to go on to tell you what's going on there.
13:35
Why do we tolerate this shit from these people? What arrogant British cunts. It's unbelievable. Absolutely.
[applause]
Now, in addition to not telling us about the raids, let's talk about another reality.
David Miranda, working with The Guardian, working with Glenn Greenwald.
Who do you suppose paid David Miranda's legal bills, knowing that fact?
Anyone from The Guardian care to comment?
Right. So, in the beginning, it was potentially going to be The Guardian, but later when Glenn left, it wasn't The Guardian anymore. They left them to hang. Again and again.
14:18
So think of this in this case — this case in which serious journalistic freedoms are at risk, where serious people are in extreme danger under terrorism laws, and they are simply left out in the cold. And why is that?
14:32
Because in capitalism — when competing, when we aren't actually cooperating together — we find in that political space, the ability to get rid of our competition, literally with terrorism laws.
Is that really what we want?
I think what we want is a collaborative framework, where we actually work well together.
Now, I know that what I've done here does not work for much more than retiring, but that's OK.
And I'll leave you with another story. I suppose two stories.
One is Luke Harding.
Luke Harding wrote a book about Snowden in a very exploitative, extremely negative way, and knows next to nothing about anything in the story.
But an important detail is he came here to Berlin to try to pump me for information, to ask me questions about Hawaii, to ask me questions about other details.
Now, one of the things that he told me was that all of his computers were compromised to the point that his mouse was moving on his screen without him doing that, and he dumbly asks — and I'm not even sure if it was possible that he could really believe that he didn't know the answer to this.
He said: "Do you suppose my computer is compromised when someone is editing the text and it removes critical parts of my story?"
[audience laughter]
You might want to see a doctor about that, Luke.
[audience laughter]
And, finally, the most insulting aspect, I would say, about The Guardian, is what they did to Julian Assange upon him being in the Ecuadorian Embassy.
And I can't underscore this enough. There are plenty of problems with Julian. I can barely handle Australians. They're very difficult people culturally.
[audience laughter]
And then there's Julian.
[more audience laughter]
But The Guardian, in all seriousness, sent him a basket with soap and socks — while leaving us to hang, literally, where we could face life in prison or the death penalty for the things that we have published, where alleged sources of ours are in prison, or under threat, or needing political asylum.
That is not a serious thing to do. These are very serious topics indeed.
So, I think that it is important for us to consider also, if you were to watch the film Mediastan, you will see the edges of publication in the Western world and you will see the collaboration of the New York Times editor, where they have phone calls with the CIA.
This is a political decision. This is not an objectivity fact. This is a political negotiation. Under threat. Under coercion. And then it is a lie to the public and to other journalists to say that that is a non-political thing, that there's no issue.
And if the question is the law, about sources and methods and about names, well sure, let us say then, we would love to publish their names, we would love to publish the sources and methods. But we can't, because it is illegal for us to do that. But we should, because that would help us to hold power to account.
And, so, we should work, actually, to change those laws. To better inform people in our democracies. To ensure that it is actually possible to hold CIA agents, who commit war crimes, for their crimes to account. It is absolutely a necessity to do that, and we must as a free press to do that. And when we do not, we are collaborationists who are responsible for being a part of those crimes.
And so it is David Leigh, it is Luke Harding, it is other people along these lines, like Alan Rusbridger, who collaborate with them.
For example, The Guardian holds ProPublica in a gag. You may not know this, but ProPublica has access to the Snowden archive, but they are not allowed to publish things unless The Guardian will allow them, and The Guardian has decided that they will not allow things from the Snowden archive to be published.
Things about Afghanistan or Iraq, crimes — serious war crimes — are documented in there. Crimes where civilians are killed, things that are absolutely political, and we will never see them because of the collaborationists at The Guardian, who absolutely kowtow to the British political class and the hereditary power structures in the UK, and we should not tolerate that and we should pressure them.
[applause]
Now that I've committed journalistic career suicide, I'd also just like to encourage you to encrypt your communications.
[laughter / applause]
Also, I think it's important to fight sexism in journalism quite seriously and I hope we replace most of the editors in journalistic rooms around the world with women, who have better sense and are stronger and will stand up to these fucking fascists.
[applause]
-- end audio --
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COMMENT
Despite the 1960s campus radical-inspired views that are alien and jarring to me, it was an interesting talk Appelbaum gave. And funny. I think. In a pouty, cross sort of way.
Except the bit about that guy's computer being compromised. The audience found it funny, but I didn't get what was funny about that.
Hard to know what to make of this guy.
On the other hand, I don't know how to read anyone here.
Everybody sounds really suspicious to me:
- Who does an NSA leak without having an advance exit plan and winds up accidentally in Moscow without a passport?
- Who goes to Germany to escape American harassment when Germany's an occupied state that hasn't been sovereign since WWII -- and an oppressive state that covers up mass rapes (Cologne); deploys agents to infiltrate political parties (or the ones described as 'right-wing'); deploys former East German Stasi to watch and censor so-called 'social media', which it polices in collaboration with CIA-book's Zuckerberg; Germany, which raids the homes of social media commenters; when Germany's not imprisoning old women, old men, lawyers who defend old men, or renditioning German expatiates from Canada and Britain?
- The lady film-maker also sounds very unusual to me, from what little I know.
- And what's the deal with the Snowden adulation, or am I just particularly ungrateful? As in an Oliver Stone film? C'mon? Hollywood attention reminds of the incongruous Hollywood sparkle bouncing off William Hague's skull, not so long ago.
Listening to Appelbaum give The Guardian a serve was entertaining.
In terms of the gag on Snowden material, it would appear that parties other than The Guardian also have possession of the Snowden NSA data, and presumably The Guardian doesn't have veto over that. Whoever has the data [Poitras, Greenwald, Intercept, Washington Post] isn't publishing, they're not making an archive available to the public, and they're not even saying how much data they've received, which seems rather excessively secretive and controlling. So what were all those enthusiastic accolades for? Or am I ungrateful once again?
EDIT: there's an archive of the 400 released documents of an 'estimated' 50,000 at this site:
The Snowden Surveillance Archive
https://snowdenarchive.cjfe.org/
collection of approx. 400 documents
of estimated 50,000 documents
to journalists:
-- Laura Poitras - US documentary film-maker
-- Glenn Greenwald - US lawyer-journalist
-- Ewan MacAskill - UK journalist (The Guardian)
Archive
built to enable citizen & researcher to access documents
re US National Security Agency (NSA)
& Five Eyes partner countries (UK, Canada, Australia, NZ)
Archive built by:
George Raine
Master of Information program
University of Toronto
assisted by: Jillian Harkness
then current student of program
various project partners & supporters listed
https://snowdenarchive.cjfe.org/
*unclear to me how an 'estimate' of documents can be made if nobody is saying what was released |
Snowden turned over the data, in a round-about way, to the corporate press ... despite a history of corporate press propaganda, state and establishment service, and CIA / intelligence collaboration.
That being the nature of the beast, there's not much logic in expecting the corporate press to behave as anything other than: the corporate press. And there's not much sense in crying foul that press snakes slither on their bellies. Or is there?
Well, I guess it's always good to know the ugly truth. Had I not listened to this, I'd have had no idea just how appalling the today's moralising and Putin-bashing press is, and I wouldn't have known about the concept of political protection for journalists as a collective.
Denying Appelbaum a letter in relation to the classified material he was working on is pretty low, and sending Assange the socks package is warped, when you think about the enormity of the risk to Assange and the pressure on Assange (who has now been arbitrarily detained for over five and a half years). And not paying the legal fees of Miranda sounds dishonourable to me.
Appelbaum's right. They sound like a pack of c*nts.
But I think maybe he ought to reconsider adulation of women:
Katharine Graham
Washington Post
Phil Graham was somebody you could get help from." Graham has been identified by some investigators as the main contact in Project Mockingbird, the CIA program to infiltrate domestic American media. In her autobiography, Katharine Graham described how her husband worked overtime at the Post during the Bay of Pigs operation to protect the reputations of his friends from Yale who had organized the ill-fated venture.
After Graham committed suicide, and his widow Katharine assumed the role of publisher, she continued her husband's policies of supporting the efforts of the intelligence community in advancing the foreign policy and economic agenda of the nation's ruling elites. In a retrospective column written after her own death, FAIR analyst Norman Solomon wrote, "Her newspaper mainly functioned as a helpmate to the war-makers in the White House, State Department and Pentagon." It accomplished this function (and continues to do so) using all the classic propaganda techniques of evasion, confusion, misdirection, targeted emphasis, disinformation, secrecy, omission of important facts, and selective leaks.
Graham herself rationalized this policy in a speech she gave at CIA headquarters in 1988.
"We live in a dirty and dangerous world," she said. "There are some things the general public does not need to know and shouldn't. I believe democracy flourishes when the government can take legitimate steps to keep its secrets and when the press can decide whether to print what it knows."
http://www.wanttoknow.info/secrecygraham
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Coincidentally, there's also an amusing story of Janet Cooke, the Washington Post ... and the Pulitzer Prize:
EXTRACTS
The Case of Janet Cooke
When "Jimmy's World," the story of an eight-year-old heroin addict, appeared on the front page of the Washington Post last…
Naomi Munson / Aug. 1, 1981
When “Jimmy’s World,” the story of an eight-year-old heroin addict, appeared on the front page of the Washington Post last September, it created quite a stir in the city. According to Janet Cooke, the young black woman who reported the story, “Jimmy” (a pseudonym) had been on heroin since the age of five ...
The local government reacted to this grisly tale by launching an intensive search for the child. When schools, social-welfare services, and police all failed to unearth any trace of him, the authorities requested that the Post reveal Jimmy’s whereabouts.
The Post refused. There was, first of all, Miss Cooke’s personal safety to consider: it seems that Ron had threatened to come after her with a knife at the first sign of police interest in him. So terrifying was this prospect that Miss Cooke had felt constrained to keep the true identity of her sources secret even from her immediate superiors. Then, of course, the Post recognized a First Amendment issue when it saw one. Where soldiers and statesmen had failed in their efforts to abridge the constitutional guarantees of freedom of the press, was a mere child to be permitted to open a breach in the wall? When the mayor and police chief threatened to subpoena Miss Cooke’s notes, Post staffers professed themselves ready to face jail sooner than capitulate to the pressure.
.. three weeks after the story was published, Miss Cooke was unable to produce her star witness for Coleman, and offered the flimsy excuse that the family had suddenly moved to Baltimore, Coleman’s faith was shaken.
But not shaken enough, apparently, to make Coleman think twice before recommending “Jimmy’s World” for a Pulitzer prize nomination—and for four other awards as well—more than a month after the family’s disappearing act.
...
... Criticism from outside the Post served only to send Woodward into what he described as his “Watergate mode: protect the source and back the reporter.” In fact, questions raised by the mayor and police chief hardened Woodward’s resolve to see Miss Cooke’s story nominated for the Pulitzer.
When the vote came, it was unanimous (with one abstention); the Pulitzer prize for feature writing was awarded to “Jimmy’s World.”
The Post management was jubilant.
Nobody counted on Janet Cooke—who had, it soon turned out, been less than entirely honest about her past when seeking work at the Washington Post. Not content with her own achievements in life, she had embroidered her résumé, claiming a B.A. (magna cum laude) from Vassar, an M.A. from the University of Toledo, and fluency in several languages. When the time came to provide a curriculum vitae for the Pulitzer committee, to be published if she won, she added a year at the Sorbonne and a couple of more languages for good measure.
... Post announced it had discovered that the story was a “hoax” and requested that the Pulitzer be withdrawn. The prize was handed over to the runner-up; Janet Cooke resigned, with apologies “to my newspaper, my profession, the Pulitzer board, and all seekers of the truth”; and the Washington Post went about the business of trying to salvage some of its credibility.
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-case-of-janet-cooke/
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