07/05/12 – Birgitta Jonsdottir – The Scott Horton Show

All right, y'all, welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
And our one and only guest today on the show is Brigitta Johnstetter, and I'm sorry, because I'm sure I have a terrible Icelandic accent there, I'm trying.
She is a member of parliament there in Iceland.
And you may remember that she's credited as being a co-producer of the collateral murder video that came out at the same time as the Iraq war logs released by WikiLeaks.
And you can actually read all about her and her role in that entire saga in a great article by I don't know who in the New Yorker magazine.
If you just Google Brigitta Johnstetter, Julian Assange and the New Yorker from back, I guess it would have been 2000 and early 2010 for that.
Right.
Welcome back to the show.
How are you doing?
I'm good.
I'm good.
How are you?
I'm doing great.
I appreciate you joining us today and sorry for the time mix up there.
I really appreciate you making time for us.
I know who can say no to your radio station.
Okay, great.
Well, that's very kind of you.
Okay.
So now you have this very important piece here in the Guardian, Guardian.co.uk evidence of a U.S. judicial vendetta against WikiLeaks activists mounts.
And that's a mouthful right there, I guess.
But so let's talk a little bit about this.
First of all, you say it was legal the way the American government tried to break into your Twitter account, but Twitter actually went to bat for you and released basically outed their efforts before they were successful.
Is that correct?
Yeah, that is correct.
The Twitter was originally supposed to deliver my personal back end information within three days without my knowledge or the other people that were in that same package.
And now that's important, because you can have private messages back and forth on Twitter that no one else has access to.
That's what they were going for there, right?
Yeah, much more.
Actually, they were also going after my IP numbers, which can locate me in various locations where I log into my computer.
And then they can match it with whom I have been in the same area.
It's just like sort of very similar to if they would be monitoring your mobile phone.
Right.
This is you know, they want to be able to make a case to a grand jury or a jury or a military tribunal or something later that see just like the New Yorker reported here.
She was hanging out with Assange when they were doing this criminal journalism.
Yeah.
And I want to stress, you know, the New Yorker piece was good in many ways, but it certainly was more of a portrait of Assange than a portrait of all the volunteers that actually or, you know, it didn't really do justice to all the volunteers that helped with it.
Yeah, well, that's certainly true that they focused on him.
I didn't realize it was to the detriment of the story to such a great degree.
I mean, they do describe in there a bunch of people working very hard on it, right?
Yeah.
Anyway, I always have problems with the glorified portraits of people.
Right.
Yeah.
Well, any journalism, whether it's WikiLeaks based or anything else is always going to have something wrong with it.
But you do it.
But anyway, so what actually happened after I got this information from Twitter was I basically got really pissed off when I saw this and tweeted immediately about it.
And those people became familiar with it.
And the aftermath was basically I was fortunate enough to get pro bono journalists and our lawyers from the EFF, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and from the ACLU.
Because this was considered to be a case that was groundbreaking.
And if we would win, it would set a good example for others.
Unfortunately, we lost in every court.
So the US government has now has been given legal permission to hack into all my back end information.
And what is sort of unsettling is, you know, that there are three other companies that we cannot unseal which companies they are.
And one can only speculate that it is possibly and most likely Facebook, Google, and maybe a telecom company or Skype or something like that, because of the letter that was sent to Twitter, it obviously is asking for information that sort of a standard letter, and it's asking for information that Twitter does not keep.
For example, they wanted my bank account information, which Twitter does not, you never use, you never submit that sort of information to that site, but you do it with Facebook, for example.
And this was a national security letter or something else?
Well, the letter is actually available online.
I posted it, or I sent it to Glenn Greenwald, and he posted it.
Since it was unsealed, I thought that was okay.
So people can see that if they go on onto his site and Google mine, or you know, search for my name in that context.
Yeah, I'll see if I can find that during the break and post it for people.
And now you say in here too, that it's, you're not sure why they chose to take the risk of going after you.
There's so many people involved in WikiLeaks that they can persecute, but they targeted a member of parliament there in Iceland, and there was an immediate chilling effect on the part of parliamentarians all around the world and people with political power who, you know, they all supposedly have a deal with each other, that they're all immune and safe from the violence of each other's states and that kind of thing.
And so they really kind of panicked and you have this, I didn't even know there was such a thing, the International Parliamentarian Union.
Yeah, it's actually been around since 1885.
And unfortunately, the United States is not a part of it.
But most parliaments in the world are a part of it.
I think the US is not in it because they don't have nobody has like a veto right or anything like that.
Everybody comes equal to the table.
Yeah, you don't want us to participate.
Just thank your lucky stars.
It would be very useful, actually, if the United States would be part of this.
So anyway, this is what I found to be actually quite interesting in when I was rereading some of the news on my case, I had actually forgotten that the judge that ruled last time or in November, I think it was last year, he actually stated specifically that one of the reasons he didn't rule in my favor is that he felt that it would be important for a grand jury investigation to have access to this information.
And so that confirms to me that there is a grand jury and all attempts to say that this is not ongoing.
The crackdown on WikiLeaks and their supporters and volunteers is, of course, ludicrous.
And I've just like this last month, I am the chairperson on the board for the International Modern Media Institute in Iceland, and our executive director went to the States to participate in a conference, I think it was actually hosted by Google.
And he was stopped when he entered the United States and interrogated about WikiLeaks, his name was on the collateral murder video as one of the volunteers.
And he was also approached by two guys.
This is an incredible story.
He actually was going to take the metro in Washington, D.C.
And it had stopped running.
So he walked up out back on the surface.
And there are two FBI guys approached him, or at least they claim to be and had FBI badges when he asked them to show him to him.
And they wanted to interrogate him.
He refused on the grounds that he didn't have his lawyer with him and apparently didn't have official business cards.
They had business cards with Hoffman addresses.
So we haven't really figured out who these guys were, but they had FBI badges.
I'm sorry.
We'll have to hold it right there.
When we get back, we're going to talk about more indications.
In fact, I can provide proof that there is a grand jury.
There is a U.S. government attempt to criminalize Assange and the rest of WikiLeaks.
And we will get back to that with Brigitta Johnstetter from the Icelandic parliament right after this.
All right, y'all.
Welcome back.
I'm Scott Horton.
I'm talking with Brigitta Johnstetter.
She is a member of the Icelandic parliament and a participant in the WikiLeaks project in some ways.
Now she's got the proof.
The letter has been published, as she said, by Glenn Greenwald that the U.S. government targeted her.
And then before the break, she was telling us a few more examples of people associated with WikiLeaks being harassed by FBI agents and or whoever these goons are.
Nobody really knows all the time, Homeland Security people or whatever.
And then I wanted to point out real quick here before I turn the mic back over to you.
Brigitta is this piece also in The Guardian by the great Glenn Greenwald, Julian Assange's right to asylum.
And what he says in here, well, he links to it and proves it too.
There is no question that the Obama Justice Department has convened an active grand jury to investigate whether WikiLeaks violated the Draconian Espionage Act of 1970.
That's putting it pretty politely in order to rubber stamp an indictment.
And I think it's pretty obvious to everyone, isn't it, that that's what this whole honey trap thing in Sweden is about, is getting Assange turned over to a government that, as Greenwald points out in here, has even been condemned by the United States for the secrecy surrounding its judicial proceedings.
The Americans want Assange.
They're not giving up on this.
And that's what this is all about.
They want to prosecute him for espionage when all he is is a journalist, only better.
Yeah, I want to go easy on the honey trap thing because none of us were actually present.
But it's obvious that the legal...
Well, the one girl's boyfriend was a CIA agent or something, right?
Well, I don't know.
But I just I want to go easy on that.
Just, you know, what is important, though, is that all the legal procedures afterwards have been highly irregular.
And this I've heard from, you know, journalists that have spoken to the people in Sweden, and also from lawyers.
So something's spooky.
And I think that, just like I conclude my article, and I think if Sweden really wants Assange to come over, at least they can make a guarantee that he is not going to be extradited from there to the United States.
And I think that's the least they could do.
But they apparently refuse to do that.
So I find that to be troubling.
Well, and which is funny to me, because why not lie?
I mean, what's the big deal if they break their promise?
Nothing.
Well, you know, I mean, if he's in American chains on a plane being renditioned off to God knows where, then, you know, I guess he could cry about their betrayal all he wants at that point.
That would be a massive, massive outrage towards them by their, you know, people that work very closely with them.
So I don't think that they, you know, would go back on that sort of, if they would make that guarantee.
Oh, I see.
Because of repercussions of other people inside Sweden who support him and would be absolutely outraged by that.
But Sweden collaborates with the United States.
Yeah, but not only Sweden, but Sweden collaborates very closely with, you know, other Scandinavian countries.
Well, aren't those same people going to be very upset if they go ahead and turn him over to the Americans without any lying or betrayals in there?
I mean, that's what's worse.
That's the real problem is not if they break a promise, but if they turn him over.
Yeah, I mean, that is, but I, you know, the thing is, we also have to be a little bit realistic.
So if while the procedures are about the other case, he can't be extradited anywhere, if you know what I mean.
So it's after that procedure is finished and let's say that he's either found guilty or innocent.
That's when we really start to have to worry.
I see.
Um, but but I think, you know, I think what worries me is just the fact that, you know, during the times of the sort of the house arrest Assange has been under, the US has had a lot of time to build the case.
Obviously, they, you know, won't have much to build the case on.
And, but I'm also very concerned about the fact that Bradley Manning is never going to get a fair trial if the President of the United States actually said on camera quite a while ago that he was guilty.
And that was before the trial.
Yeah, the Secretary of Defense has pronounced him guilty as well.
Who did?
The Leon Panetta, the Secretary of Defense.
Jesus.
So I mean, in any civilized country, that would actually mean that the trials are null and void, and that they should release him.
And they did similar errors in the Daniel Asper case, I remember, and it actually resulted in him going free.
But it really worries me.
It really just very seriously worries me the development in your country, because I, I have lots of good friends in the States, and I have family there and everything.
And I'm really sorry to see how things are just heading deeper into oppression.
And when people ask me about, you know, how do you see the United States?
And how does Europe see them see what's going on?
The only country that I can compare it to is China.
Because I mean, not only has the US the capacity to go into everybody's social media back end information, because it either flows through the states through the clouds or originates from there.
But also, and they have like a global jurisdiction of everybody's social media.
And that is what people don't understand.
But by actually being able to get into my private information, even if I'm a member of parliament, and at the time, I was a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee in Iceland, and I'm a member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.
Can you think, you know, how it is to, you know, people that are not as high ranking.
So the regard for people's privacy is zero in your country.
And I don't think that fits in with your constitution.
Yeah, you're absolutely right.
And I think it's really important that people hear that from, you know, someone overseas that, hey, looking from here, my little island, there's you guys, and there's China, I'm not really sure who else I could use as a good example to make my metaphor.
I mean, that's true.
That's right.
America, we're like China only, you know, 51% white or whatever.
I don't know.
Yeah, but then another thing which I want to stress, I mean, I have obsessed the Chinese authorities just as much as the US.
So it has nothing to do with some sort of anti Americanism or whatever, which has been attributed to WikiLeaks.
And just today, WikiLeaks released massive amounts of very important information from Syria, from the government of Syria.
So I think those that want to portray WikiLeaks as an anti American organization, or those that support them need to look no further than just face it that the state of secrecy in your country and others.
We know there are people who there are people who have suspected I'm not saying I buy this.
But there are people who say that WikiLeaks always was a modified limited hangout.
That's what Richard Nixon called it when you tell a little bit of the truth in order to cover up the real truth in that, yeah, leak some confidential level documents that yeah, break some stories and I guess kind of matter.
But at the end of the day, their real purpose is undermining America's enemies like Bashar al-Assad in Syria.
And here perfect timing.
Right?
Yeah, I don't really buy that.
I'm just saying their argument is going to be this week.
I mean, it's sometimes it's just better to live in a conspiracy than and then face reality.
And I think well, I would say I think Assange made an absolutely horrible choice to help the empire like this.
I mean, how many documents is he leaked all the time that he sits on?
He chooses right now to leak a bunch of stuff about Assad.
I'm not saying I think he's a CIA agent.
I think that's absolutely stupid.
But I think that he doesn't have his priorities straight at all.
I mean, he might as well be leaking a bunch of anti Saddam Hussein material on the eve of the invasion of that country back in 2003.
Well, I think that actually what the from I don't know if you saw the press conference explaining the Syrian document, but they are highly embarrassing also to the Western countries because of how they double playing with selling weapons to both Russia and Libya, no Russia and Syria and then Russia also selling these weapons to Syria.
So oh, that's good.
Yeah.
So I think one has to understand we need to get out of this perspective of looking at the world like black and white or left and right or whatever, east and west.
Governments in general are in perfect marriage with the corporation in our world.
And by definition of Mussolini, no else.
The prime fascist, that is the recipe for fascism.
So we really have to start to look at who's controlling our world.
And I don't think that WikiLeaks is what WikiLeaks has been doing is to trying to point this out to us by for example, when they leak the spy leaks, or the spy files, which shows this perfect marriage between the corporations and the state.
Right.
So we need to start to look at that who really controls the politicians.
And unfortunately, it's those that run the lobbies that are the lobbyists in every country.
And it's a very strong tradition in your country, for example, with that.
So I guess the biggest improvement you could have or any country is to actually open up the laws and figuring out who writes what in them.
So people can be vigilant about finding out what they need to look very deeply into in order to prevent it from being becoming law.
Just like we managed to stop SOPA, and we managed to stop ACTA in the European Parliament, the people's people need to start focusing on more laws.
Yeah, well, I think ultimately, WikiLeaks is it's a heroic thing.
It's a and if not even never even mind all the difference, the particulars and all the different, incredible, extremely important stories that have been broken from the documents they've leaked, whether we're talking about the Afghan war logs, or the spy files, as you say, or, or any of these things.
But it's the example that they set.
And this is the thing that Glenn Greenwald talks about when he talks about WikiLeaks more than anything else is how much the rest of the media hates WikiLeaks.
Why does the New York Times and why does MSNBC, why do they hate Julian Assange so much?
It's because he's cast a shadow over them.
He is the example of what they claim to be, but clearly are not compared to him.
He's the watchdog and they are the lapdogs and they can't stand being exposed that way.
Yeah, but it's also because the corporations run the media.
I mean, like five, the ownership of the media, I think it's like 95% owned by five people or something.
So all the mass media is controlled by the same people.
So, you know, you would expect that, but they have larger legal departments than investigative journalism, because let's face it, as well, media is under very serious attacks by corporations and corrupt politicians.
So there are endless out-of-court settlements and the destruction of our current historical records because, you know, not everybody has had the backbone and the intelligence to figure out how to await it like WikiLeaks did.
And unfortunately, they have been under such serious attacks that like, for example, PayPal and Visa and MasterCard refused to allow donations to the site, but they endorsed donations to Ku Klux Klan and Al Qaeda.
I mean, something's really seriously wrong.
And it's amazing that there hasn't been more outcry and protest against this.
Yeah, well, you're absolutely right about that.
And I think that's actually one of the scariest stories to come out of the WikiLeaks is just how little the American people care.
You know, I guess if CNN told them to to take Assange's side and think that this was a great thing somehow, that all this new information has come out, then maybe they would see it that way.
But, you know, lately there's been a whole giant scandal in the media here, which is who's leaking all this information and the leaks in question that they're all crying about are leaks that quite obviously it's admitted right in the New York Times article.
All of this stuff comes directly from the White House.
It's Obama sent his 15 closest friends to brag about his drone program.
And there's a whole scandal about, oh, my God, classified information is getting out to where we can see it.
And we're terribly upset by that.
We don't want to know.
That's a TV and radio tells Americans to think about these issues.
And therefore, that is what they think.
It's as simple as that.
Wow.
Pathetic.
I mean, it is very sad.
They will come right out and and because they're they they argue themselves into a corner.
Yes, I am saying that I am afraid of knowing this stuff.
You have to stop me from having access to this truth.
It's just I mean, that is, you know, incredible.
I mean, I'm just so astonished.
Well, you know, this is why they named it Iceland is so everybody would think it was covered by ice and stay away and they could have their awesome little island where they don't put up with crap like that.
I learned that.
Yeah, well, I'm sorry.
We're way over time and I have got to let you go.
But thank you so much for coming on the show today.
I really appreciate.
I hope we can talk again soon.
Yeah.
OK, thanks.
Thanks very much.
All right, everybody.
That is Brigitte Johnstetter.
I'm sorry, ma'am, for saying your name wrong.
That's as best as I could do.
The article at The Guardian is evidence of a U.S. judicial vendetta against WikiLeaks activists mounts.
Iceland's government warns me not to visit the U.S., which tried to hack my Twitter account.
Julian Assange has legitimate fears.
That's at the Guardian, that's CEO UK.
Thanks, everybody, for listening.
We're already way over time.
See you tomorrow.