All right, y'all, welcome to the Scott Horton Show.
I am the Director of the Libertarian Institute, Editorial Director of Antiwar.com, author of the book Fool's Errand, Time to End the War in Afghanistan, and I've recorded more than 5,000 interviews going back to 2003, all of which are available at scotthorton.org.
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All right, you guys, introducing Nozomi Hayase.
She is an essayist and author of the book Wikileaks, The Global Fourth Estate, History is Happening, and we regularly run her great articles at antiwar.com.
This one is called The War on Journalism, The Greenwald Persecution Mimics Assange.
Welcome back to the show.
How are you doing?
Good.
Great.
Thank you for having me.
I really appreciate you joining us on the show and such an important story going on here.
My friend, Glenn Greenwald, has been charged or accused, not exactly charged, I read that the judges have to actually approve the charges before they're really charged, one extra step, and I don't know if that step's been taken, but it looks like they're trying.
Not yet.
Go ahead.
Not yet.
I mean, right now, the federal prosecutors in Brazil just have filed criminal complaints against him, and this is for reporting on leaked cell phone messages showing widespread corruption of Brazilian public officials.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
So, let's start with that.
So, Greenwald and the Intercept, they got a huge leak, and they published a bunch of stuff about the right-wing party and the current president of Brazil's party there, right?
Exactly.
Right.
And what is very troubling is that the criminal complaint filed against him says that the Intercept, the Brazilian operation, didn't just receive the hacked messages and then publish some of them in news stories, but it was painting a journalist as an active participant in a crime.
So, basically, the accusation is that Glenn, being a part of a criminal organization that hacked cell phones of public officials, I mean, this is just outrageous.
And the federal police actually spent months investigating this alleged hack, and they came to a conclusion that Glenn was not anyway engaged in criminal activities, and furthermore, he actually acted as a journalist and demonstrated high-level professionalism.
So, you know, yet prosecutors went ahead and filed this complaint against him, right?
I mean, this is just outright, I mean, a threat to press freedom.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, we got to talk about the precedent here.
You mentioned right there in the title and right about this in the piece is this is what they're doing to Julian Assange, and it's this technical legal argument in order to, so in America, for people who don't know, if you're a journalist and you receive a classified document, well, you can publish that right on the front page, and at least traditionally, they can't prosecute you for that.
The leaker is in big trouble, but the leakee, simple freedom of speech, they didn't steal the document.
They only received it.
And so that's the question.
Now, they're trying to twist that, and in the case of Assange, say that Assange directed Manning in the leak in a way that made him a co-conspirator, and then you're saying, so they're using that same twisted logic here against Greenwald and saying that he didn't just passively receive this leak, but somehow he encouraged it.
Do they make specific accusations about what he supposedly did?
You said something about hacking text messages is what they're claiming?
Yes, exactly.
And then also the accusation was that Glenn actively engaged in hacking and then also assisted the hackers to delete their, basically, the identities so that they won't be revealed and things like that.
So, I mean, this is exactly what the indictment against Julian Assange, which was revealed back late in 2018, showed.
Also, DOJ said that Assange not only just received the material from Churchill Manning, but that he assisted Manning, solicited information from Manning, and also assisted Manning, right?
So that was the accusation.
And this was actually the one count of, I mean, the DOJ charged Assange with one count of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion, right?
But if you read the indictment carefully, what Assange was, or what the government was accusing Assange of doing is at the heart of, the very heart of journalistic activities, which is source gathering activities and source protection.
And I mean, so that's why it's, and then Glenn Greenwald did the same thing.
I mean, you know, as I said, the federal police that investigated this alleged hack didn't find any, you know, criminal activities that Glenn was involved in.
And he was just, you know, engaged in this source protection.
And I mean, so there is nothing there to be accused, you know, for him to be accused of any, any, you know, being a part of any criminal activities.
All right.
Now, but so Brazil, they don't have a First Amendment like we do.
What exactly is the law there?
Well, I'm not sure about, but they have a press freedom and journalists are protected under that.
And, and, and obviously, I mean, the president, Boris Noor, I mean, he's, he's a close ally of Trump and he has shown this deign toward press freedom.
So this is not surprising that how this, you know, the Brazilian government is now acting.
And then obviously he also got the inspiration from Trump and how Trump has been very hostile to media domestically and then also overseas.
I mean, you know, this is, this is the trend that we are seeing.
And then the very thing that Assange's legal team has warned after the indictment against Assange was revealed last year.
Well now, so the media just totally sacrificed Julian Assange, even though the Obama government, which obviously really wanted to prosecute him and prosecuted more journalists under the espionage act than any president, all other presidents combined before him.
They decided they just couldn't frame a case against Assange without essentially saying that the Washington Post and the New York Times are guilty of the same thing every day.
But the Trump government has picked this up.
They're running with it anyway.
Screw the New York Times, I guess, so they don't mind.
I mean, Scott, what, what is troubling, more troubling here is that yesterday there was this court hearing that deals with the timeline of Assange's former extradition hearing that is, that was scheduled to happen at the end of February.
And during the court hearing, I mean, the evidence submitted for this extradition case clearly indicated that, you know, U.S. government doesn't consider the foreign nationals like Assange to be entitled to First Amendment protection.
So I mean, so this is the case.
I mean, they, I mean, First Amendment, to be clear, I mean, we are, there has been the rhetoric about, or discussion about whether Assange is a journalist or not, right?
That we have seen this argument, right?
Whether Assange is a different kind of journalist than the journalist at the New York Times, for instance.
And the New York Times editor in chief, like Bill Keller, for instance, he distanced himself initially back then when Wikileaks came to a public limelight.
I mean, the Bill Keller said that, oh, you know, Assange, initially Bill Keller said that Assange is not a journalist.
And then later he changed the tone saying Assange is a journalist, but not the kind of journalist, you know, different kind of a journalist I am, right?
And so there has been all of this, this kind of a trying to split the hair to say that this is, he's not journalist where he is.
But to be clear, I mean, First Amendment protection doesn't just apply to journalists.
I mean, it applies for everyone.
I mean, everyone has a right to free speech, period, you know?
So I mean, the fact that the U.S. government, you know, the First Amendment protection doesn't apply to foreign nationals, that is clearly indicated by the evidence submitted for this extradition case, is deeply troubling, right?
And on the one hand, as you see, I mean, U.S. government does engage in judicial overreach to prosecute a foreign journalist.
I mean, Assange is not a U.S. citizen, right?
I mean, he's an Australian citizen.
And yet the U.S. government, I mean, to try to charge him, charge him under the Espionage Act, I mean, that's how outrageous it is.
And at the same time, denying the First Amendment protection, right?
People have to understand, and that's just crazy, I mean, a U.S. person, this is already decided law, hundreds of years old, at least more than 100 years old.
A U.S. person is anybody who's being prosecuted by a federal court.
Right.
I mean, that's just right.
And then here, I mean, Kim Dotcom is another example, of course, I mean, extradition, you know, U.S. government is trying to extradite him.
And Kim never, you know, even put a step on U.S. soil, right?
And yet the U.S. government is to think that they could extradite him.
I mean, that's that's just the utter, you know, craziness.
Right.
And what's more concerning is that there have been complete media blackout about again, about Assad's situation.
I mean, have you ever read anywhere that, I mean, news reporting in the mainstream media that Assad has been subjected to psychological torture, you know, or Assad has been in complete isolation, you know?
Yeah, they're holding him under supermax conditions now on a charge of jumping bail on a warrant just to ask him questions about a case in a foreign country that has now been completely dismissed.
Exactly.
And then he already completed, you know, 50, 50 weeks sentence for the, you know, that was given for the minor violation of, you know, jumping bail.
Right.
And they're still holding him.
I was going to say, when is that 50 weeks up?
Already up.
I mean, it's it was done on September 22nd of last year.
So he's now sorely detained for the request, extradition request from the U.S.
Yeah, that's it.
You know.
Well, you know, there was footage of him the other day leaving some kind of hearing where people were shouting at him.
We support you and stuff.
But he was pointing at his ear like, yeah, he's behind bulletproof glass and can't hear anything.
But at least, you know, I have no idea what's going on in his brain.
But it didn't look like he was in too bad a health, I don't think, at least.
I mean, you know, he's his physical health has been deteriorating.
And then obviously, I mean, if you consider the fact that he has been arbitrary, arbitrary detained for seven years in the Ecuadorian embassy and being spied, you know, every act that he made while he was living there has been monitored by the CIA.
You know, CIA hired the Spanish security company to spy on not only Assange, but Assange's lawyers and doctors.
I mean, this is completely, you know, unthinkable.
And obviously, I mean, it's become so clear that he is a political prisoner.
Right.
And that there is this journalist being being imprisoned in the UK.
I mean, just I mean, I never thought that we would come to a day where we would be talking about talking about journalists being being imprisoned in Western societies like this.
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One thing that I really have going for me right now is that I quit Twitter, but I did see on a website a reference to a tweet by the great Radley Balco from The Washington Post, the great civil liberties writer there.
And he was condemning and he didn't name names, but I believe him.
He was condemning popular liberal hashtag resistance journalists on Twitter who were celebrating Glenn Greenwald's arrest.
That'll teach him because, you know, he crossed me by making fun of me for being a Russiagate truther or whatever their problem is.
And so apparently there were enough of them, you know, early tap dancing on Greenwald's grave here that Balco had to shame them and say, nope, this is a fascist thing to do and you're a fascist if you support it and something like that anyway.
I mean, but so they've already warmed up on Assange.
They've already decided that doesn't count.
And I guess they don't like Greenwald, so he doesn't count either.
And it's that easy.
I mean, you know, I mean, what is at stake here is a right to free, I mean, right to free speech for ourselves.
You know, we are not just talking about First Amendment protection for journalists.
We are talking about First Amendment, you know, the free speech at the heart of democracy.
So, I mean, if we allow the government to, you know, infringe someone's free speech right, tomorrow is our right that will be violated.
I mean, you know what I mean?
So, I mean, this is I think this is not a matter of whether we like the person, you know, we like Glenn Greenwald or we like Julian Assange.
I mean, this is this is really about whether we would have these basic civil liberty.
You know what I mean?
And so I think it's important for us to really recognize what is at stake here and that we are just losing our very important, you know, right to free speech.
I mean, if we lose it, then it's we really don't have democracy.
I mean, this place become just the turning to authoritarian society.
Yep.
And, you know, by the way, as I know you're aware and it's really important, the espionage actually in America does outlaw what The Washington Post and The New York Times and Glenn Greenwald and Julian Assange do in publishing classified information.
It's just that part of it is never enforced.
But the Supreme Court, even when they were striking down prior restraint on the part of the Pentagon Papers case in the against The New York Times, they still left open the possibility that The New York Times could be prosecuted for leaking this stuff.
Just you can't stop them from doing it in the first place was the way that they ruled that.
And so it truly has only been tradition that our Justice Department doesn't go ahead and lock up this or that.
And mostly that's because the media is so compliant that the only secrets they publish are a bunch of lies that they want us to believe to justify the horrible things that they do.
The only people they would dream of prosecuting would be the very rare circumstance when a whistleblower leaks important documents that the people need to know about the crimes that their government's committing.
But that's exactly a very small percentage of them all.
Most of them are very official leaks on the front page of The New York Times every day.
And in the case of Julian Assange, of course, I mean, this is the first time that the espionage act has been applied to journalists.
I mean, we are talking about publisher, not, you know, whistleblower.
Right.
So this is quite unprecedented.
And if this is a word to be allowed to go on, I mean, yeah, I mean, this is the end of investigative journalism, basically.
And so and, you know, the prosecutors at the court yesterday, I mean, prosecutors at the court yesterday asserted, I mean, asked and asserted that if Assange were to be on U.S. custody, that he would be put into under the special administrative measures.
And what that means is that, you know, Assange would have no access to lawyers and media and he would be sent into a black hole, completely incognito.
I mean, that's what is awaiting Assange.
I mean, once he was extradited, I mean, so, you know, this this is a very serious situation and and we have to be informed about what's happening and and act to end this war on journalism.
All right.
So back to Greenwald for a minute here.
You mentioned that the cops already investigated Greenwald and recommended to their Justice Department that there's no there's no crime here.
He didn't really participate.
They went ahead and charged him anyway.
Right.
And yet then, as I was saying, I guess this is in the New Yorker interview of him where he says they still have to have a judge rubber stamp the charges before they go forward.
But if I understand it right, is it correct that the judiciary, as well as the cops, had already decided that there was no case here before their prosecutors went forward with the case?
So, in other words, there's a reasonable chance that it'll die here and not go forward.
Is that your understanding?
Yeah, that's my understanding.
But the fact that the prosecutors to just go ahead and file a criminal complaint against against him, I mean, that that is already outrageous.
I mean, this is abuse of power and complete, yeah, complete lack of respect for the process and democratic process and press freedom.
Yeah.
And, you know, in that interview, he says, you know, quite unlike all the hyperbole in America, there really is a threat of a return to fascism here from their previous fascist dictatorship that, of course, America supported the coup and backed all along there.
Whereas, no, America has its problems.
But for what it's worth, these institutions aren't going anywhere, not at the hands of any autocrat.
They're not.
Whereas over there, they really could snap their fingers and replace this constitution with a brand new one that goes back to the bad old days if people aren't very vigilant about that.
Right.
And also, I mean, for, you know, Glenn's case, I mean, he's a high profile journalist so that there is a lot of, you know, he would get a lot of public support and, you know, press freedom groups swiftly came to defend him, for instance.
And then there has been a public outcry about this issue.
But, you know, what about like, you know, what if like if it's just an unknown journalist in Brazil?
I mean, this, you know, he or she could be easily indicted and, you know, sent to prison.
I mean, so we have to understand this is not just about Glenn's issue.
I mean, this is this is, you know, has a large implication for anyone, any journalist in Brazil and then also, you know, journalists around the world.
Yeah.
And, you know, the thing is, is the journalism profession is so discredited because of all the government's lies that they regurgitate all day.
And so but people blame them even more than they blame the government.
And so bad things happen to bad people.
We really don't mind so much, even though, as you say, yeah, but that's your rights to be careful.
But that's, you know, the same way they sacrificed Julian Assange.
I kind of feel that way about The New York Times.
You know, I don't mind when bad things happen to them.
You know, they're the ones who do the worst job selling us out.
Right.
I mean, that's but I mean, it's it's just I mean, that also reveals that what journalism as a profession has become and and and then at the same time, the significance of what Julian has done with his work with WikiLeaks, you know, WikiLeaks really enabled the true function of a free press and, you know, in some way that restored democracy.
And we think that we live in a democratic society and we think that we have a right to free speech when we don't.
So I think that, you know, I mean, it's very interesting to see how the mainstream journalists reacted to Assange's, you know, U.S. government's prosecution of Assange, how, you know, they ignored Assange or tried to distance themselves from him.
And, you know, that they don't realize that, yeah, they are actually the victims of this system of control.
Yeah, it really is embarrassing, too, because this is one of those most basic things where, well, it's not just that it's a core right, but it's a yeah, this entire gigantic multi zillion dollar profession built around this protection.
Without this, you guys are out of work.
You're nothing but a stenographer then at that point, you know, they this is the kind of thing.
Well, ask the gun owners of Virginia.
Hey, guess what?
We're drawing a line.
You can't have them.
And but you never see reporters do the same thing about their own and, you know, their own profession.
And here in sacrificing Assange, it's not like he's a good scapegoat.
I mean, he they act as though what he does is some different kind of journalism in the sense of, well, he's publishing troop movements so that our enemies can get them or something like that.
But that's never what he's done.
WikiLeaks has published leaks about all kinds of governments from all over the world.
And it's always exposing wrongdoing.
It's not exposing real top secret stuff that gets, you know, American spies in Russia's throat slit or, you know, some kind of nightmare scenario or nuclear codes turned over to the Chinese or any of these things.
It's not about that.
It's never been about that.
Even the Manning leak.
This is all secret level stuff.
It's not the kind of stuff that gets spies rolled up, but it's the kind of stuff that shows you the truth about what's going on here.
And exactly.
Also, I mean, to just remind you that the New York Times actually published the material.
Right.
Also, right.
I mean, one Pulitzer Prize is over it.
Exactly.
The Guardian, the New York Times, some of these established media organizations, they largely profited from release, I mean, WikiLeaks, you know, material.
So, I mean, where to draw a line, really?
I mean, if U.S. government can go after WikiLeaks, then how could the New York Times say that they could be exempt from this prosecution?
They did the same thing.
Right.
So they have to be David Sanger first.
And I'm for it.
No, I'm just kidding.
They have to be concerned about the journalist, everybody.
I mean, they should be concerned about this issue because basically what the government is trying to do is to criminalize journalism and saying that no one can publish classified material.
And, you know, publishing classified material of public interest and that that is verified to be authentic.
That is the journalistic activity.
Right.
That is protected under the First Amendment.
And if we allow, you know, the U.S. government's prosecution about such to just go on, I mean, then, you know, we cannot really do journalistic work anymore in this country.
And here we are talking about United States.
I mean, we are not talking about China or Russia or Saudi Arabia.
Right.
And I mean, this is just a and when the United States always kind of point the fingers of China or Russia saying they are very oppressive regimes and they don't have free speech.
And I mean, the irony of this is the U.S.
It's the U.S. government who is attacking press freedom around the world.
I mean, you know, that's just a hypocrisy right there.
Yeah.
Aren't you, guys?
That is Nozomi Hayashi.
And she is the author of WikiLeaks.
The global fourth estate history is happening.
And she regularly writes at antiwar dot com.
This one is called The War on Journalism.
The greenwalled persecution mimics Assange.
Thank you very much again for coming on the show.
Thank you, Scott.
Thank you for having me.
Bye.
The Scott Horton Show, antiwar radio can be heard on KPFK 90.7 FM in L.A.
APS radio dot com, antiwar dot com, Scott Horton dot org and Libertarian Institute dot org.
