The title ("We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks") is false. It directly implies that WikiLeaks steals secrets. The title is superimposed over an image made up of both Bradley Manning and Julian Assange's faces, implying that these specific people steal secrets. In fact, the statement is made by former CIA/NSA director Michael Hayden in relation to the activities of US government spies, not in relation to WikiLeaks. This an irresponsible libel. Not even critics in the film say that WikiLeaks steals secrets.

As the song draws to an end, the point of view begins to zoom out and the graphics begin to assemble into the title screen of the film: a monochrome image of a face. Half of the face is Julian Assange's face. The other half is PFC Bradley Manning's face. The title is superimposed over the composite face.

The image fades, and is replaced by stock footage from a July 2010 interview with Julian Assange conducted by ABC Nightline's Jim Sciutto.

But is crushing bastards, in its own right, a just cause?

Well, I like being brave. I mean, I like being inventive, I've been designing systems and processes for a long time. I also like defending victims. And I am a combative person so I like crushing bastards. And so this profession combines all those three things, so it is deeply, personally, deeply satisfying to me.

I see this story entirely as one man against the world. One man against the world.

He is extremely clever, brave, dedicated, hard-working guy with a brilliant idea that he managed to execute.

Footage of a WikiLeaks supporter billboard on Santa Monica Boulevard, reading "WikiLeaks: Giving us the truth when everyone else refuses to." The image then fades into stylized graphic depictions of "the internet" : a scrolling field of bright shining nodes connected by lines, as the narration returns.

Julian Assange was obsessed with secrets, keeping his own and unlocking those of governments and corporations. The internet is not a good place for secrets. Cyberspace is like a galaxy of passage ways, constantly moving streams of data. With a simple computer anyone can enter and explore. That's what Julian Assange liked to do: explore. He liked to use trap doors to enter where he wasn't supposed to go. To find secrets and expose them. He built a machine for leaking secrets and called it WikiLeaks. The website boasted an electronic drop box and could receive secrets sent by people who didn't want to reveal who they were. Once WikiLeaks had the secrets it would publish them across servers, domain names and networks so numerous that the information could never be taken down.

WikiLeaks is a publisher. It does not "enter where it is not supposed to go".

Stock footage of Julian Assange at a conference. A web browser is projected onto the screen behind him, showing the WikiLeaks website.

So this is what you’ll see if you go to the front page of the website. This is WikiLeaks, we help to get the truth out. We want to enable information to go out to the public that has the greatest chance of achieving positive political reform in the world.

Footage of the website text is shown, highlighting key passages. Eventually the screen is cropped to the highlighted selection:

To get things to the public you need to protect sources who want to disclose and you also need to protect your ability to publish in the face of attack.

Text from emails rumoured to have been from Julian Assange is displayed online.

We're going to fuck them all... Crack the world open and let it flower into something new.

WikiLeaks may become the most powerful intelligence agency on earth, an intelligence agency of the people.

His thinking is: how can we destroy corruption? It's the whistleblower.

His thinking is: how can we destroy corruption? It's the whistleblower.Julian Assange is neither a right-wing libertarian nor a standard leftist. I think he is a humanitarian anarchist. A kind of John Lennon-like revolutionary, dreaming of a better world.

If we are to produce a more civilized, a more just society it has to be based upon the truth.

When I heard Julian speak I was struck by his vaulting idealism and forthrightness about what he believed in.

Totally uncompromising about freedom of speech. I agreed almost entirely with everything he said and I had never experienced that before. So I thought he was amazing.

Every week we achieve major victories in bringing the unjust to account and are helping the just.

The screen pans over an image of the WikiLeaks logo on a computer screen, eventually settling on text:

"Three things can not hide for long. The Sun, the moon, and the truth." - Siddhartha

Stock footage of Bank Julius Baer's headquarters, Kenya's president Daniel Arap-Moi and Trafigura's ships in Ivory Coast

Before WikiLeaks was frontpage news, there were some smaller successes. The website published evidence of a tax-avoiding Swiss bank, government corruption and murder in Kenya and a secret company report on illegal toxic waste dumping. One early leak was from the National Security Agency: frantic text messages from desperate workers trying to save lives on 9/11. 9/11 turned out to be the watershed moment for the world of secrets – both for the leakers and the secret-keepers.

Gibney collapses four years of publishing history, touching on nearly every country in the world, into "some smaller successes" -- because his documentary does not cover them. In fact, WikiLeaks has been making front pages since 2007. Legal attacks on the organization started immediately. WikiLeaks won a significant battle against the largest private Swiss bank in US federal courts in 2008. That fight was the subject of extensive discussion, including New York Times editorials.There were many significant WikiLeaks releases and conflicts prior to 2010.For a comprehensive list, consult the archives at Wikileaks.org. The archives can also be browsed by country or by year of release

Stock footage showing a view of the World Trade Center from a helicopter, under a column of black smoke, the 9/11 pager messages superimposed over it.

...fighter aircraft have been scrambled... ...this is not a joke... ...All ERT personnel, FYI monitor your pagers:... ...most likely an act of terrorism... ...We are locked down... ...another plane hijacked... ...high level DEFCON alert... ...RETURN TO YOUR STATION NOW!...

After 9/11 we were accused of not being willing to share information rapidly and fastly enough and we’ve pushed that very far forward.

Michael Hayden is an expert on secrets. He’s been the director of the National Security Agency and the CIA.

In terms of our focus the default option in a practical sense has been to share it, rather than caging in information and making it more difficult to flow.

Footage of a satellite in orbit, the Earth speeding past beneath it.

In the years after 9/11, facing enemies it didn't understand, the US government started sharing more information between different agencies. At the same time, the US also started to keep more secrets from its citizens.

The view zooms dramatically on the Earth, showing a sequence of aerial photographs of US agency buildings, their names scrolling across the screen:

In data centers that sprang up all over the country the US launched a massive expansion of its operations to gather secrets. The amount of classified documents per year increased from 8 million to 76 million. The number of people with access to classified information soared to more than 4 million.

The view zooms out again, back to the orbiting satellite, eventually zooming in again on an aerial photograph of Capitol Hill.

And the government began to intercept phone calls and emails at a rate of 60,000 per second. Nobody knows how much money is involved – it’s a secret. Not even Congress knows the entire budget.

The classification system can be a very effective national security tool when it is used as intended; when it is used with precision.

During the Bush administration, Bill Leonard was the classification czar - the man charged with overseeing what information should be secret.

The whole information environment has radically changed – just like we produce more information than we ever produced in the history of mankind, we produce more secrets than we ever produced in the history of mankind and yet we never fundamentally re-assessed our ability to control secrets.

Aerial photograph of the Pentagon

2009's Most Wanted Leaks- the concealed documents or recordings most sought after by a country's journalists, activists, historians, lawyers, police or human rights investigators.

The following text is also on the screen, but the screen is deliberately blurred so as to make it almost unreadable:

In this environment of expanding secrecy, Assange went fishing for secrets to publish. To bait whistleblowers, he published a list of the most wanted leaks.

Gibney's choice of words, “Fishing,” “Bait”, implies solicitation.Throughout the film, Gibney propagates the idea Assange had been “fishing” for the leaks or that Manning had been “persuaded” to leak. This is factually incorrect but also buys into the dangerous proposition that journalists and publishers can be conspirators by virtue of their interaction with confidential sources. The US government is attempting to argue that any news organization that deals with confidential sources can be put into prison for engaging in "conspiracy".Gibney makes a careless error that shows poor fact-checking. WikiLeaks makes clear on its website that, like "other media outlets conducting investigative journalism, we accept (but do not solicit) anonymous sources of information".Gibney falsely attributes the 2009 "Most Wanted Leaks" list to Julian Assange. It was compiled by human rights NGOs, activists, lawyers, journalists and historians nominating the censored documents they considered the most important to uncover.

Those of us who've been in this business a long time knew that this day would come. Knew that because we'd removed all the watertight doors on the ship, once it's started taking on water it would really be in trouble.

A black screen, with visual and aural static for stylistic effect. Distorted text appears on the screen, eventually stabilizing.

Instant message communications now begin to appear on the screen in a stylized manner, accompanied by the sound of someone typing on a computer keyboard.

hi...how are you? im an army intelligence analyst deployed to eastern baghdad lets just say "someone" i know intimately well... has been penetrating US classified networks, mining data... its important that it gets out. it might actually change something information should be free...

Cut to computer generated footage of the Earth from a satellite again, moving over the Earth and zooming in on a cloudmass over the North Atlantic Ocean

A clip of an Icelandic geyser discharging water and steam into the air

Footage of Icelandic springs, emitting steam, while the sound of a newsreader reporting the Icelandic banking crash begins to play.

In Iceland winter is never easy but this year much of the pain is manmade.

Footage of the austerity protests in Iceland, with police in riot gear spraying crowds with water, streets filled with masses of people, skirmishes and struggles, protesters hitting riot shields, and fires burning in the streets.

Last October all three of Iceland's banks failed. Normally stoic and proper, Icelanders have started protesting.

Kaupthing documents leaked by WikiLeaks appear on the screen

In July 2009, WikiLeaks fuelled a growing popular rage when it published a confidential internal memo from Kaupthing – the largest failed bank in the country.

A slideshow of still photographs of Kaupthing buildings.

WikiLeaks had got hold of the Kaupthing loan book, which showed what was going on in a lot of those Icelandic banks. They had credit ratings which were completely at odds with their actual credit-worthiness.

It was all insiders, they took out billions of dollars out of this bank and bankrupted the thing, shortly before it went bankrupt anyways.

A photograph of Julian Assange smoking a cigar with Daniel Domscheit-Berg, who holds a WikiLeaks award: "PRIXARS 2009 Award of Distinction".

It is false that Daniel Domscheit-Berg was the second full-time employee of WikiLeaks. He volunteered full-time for WikiLeaks during 2009. He was uninvolved in WikiLeaks for most of the significant events of 2010, until he was suspended in September of that year.Gibney lacks access - WikiLeaks staff declined his interviews - and therefore tries to boost the CVs of those he was able to interview, no matter how peripheral their actual role.

A sepia-tinted still photograph of Domscheit-Berg and Assange.

We met online first and then we met personally in December 2007 at the Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin. He was not the stereotypical hacker you would expect. He looked completely differently, he was interested in completely different topics.

Footage of protests in Iceland. A woman being dragged off by the police.

For Daniel and Julian, the Kaupthing leak was their biggest success to date.

False. Here Gibney shapes the narrative to fit his access. For example, in 2007 WikiLeaks uncovered billions of dollars' worth of corruption in Kenya, a leak that made front pages around the world, and is widely viewed to have changed the results of the Kenyan 2007 Presidential Election. In 2008 WikiLeaks defeated the largest private Swiss bank in US courts after revealing its Cayman Islands trusts, costing the bank hundreds of millions as it cancelled its scheduled US IPO. However these leaks pre-date Domscheit-Berg's substantive involvement.For a comprehensive list, consult the archives at Wikileaks.org. The archives can also be browsed by country or by year of release

The loan book came out and took the country by storm. RUV, the national broadcaster was going to do a big segment on it and they got slapped with an injunction.

Footage from Icelandic television with subtitles.

This evening, we had intended on releasing a full report regarding the enormous credit facilities made available by Kaupthing to the various companies of its shareholders. However, we are prevented from doing so this evening...

It was the first time in our history that a gag order was placed on the state TV not to produce the news just before they were supposed to produce it. So instead of doing nothing, they decided to put the website up.

A photograph of the WikiLeaks website open on a browser appears on the screen. Then photographs of the Kaupthing document.

Up pops WikiLeaks.org with the Kaupthing loan book front and centre and everybody goes online and checks it out. And the guys at WikiLeaks definitely got massive props for that.

Pastoral scenes of Icelandic hills and lighthouses, with suspenseful piano music.

Later that year, a group of young cyber activists from Iceland invited representatives of the WikiLeaks organisation to come speak at a conference in Reykjavik.

A wide shot of a barren Icelandic landscape, with a road dissecting it. A vehicle drives along the road. Now dash footage, as the vehicle drives along the road.

Iceland and WikiLeaks really fit. This is something we really need in our society. The media failed us so we decided to meet them.

Dash footage as the car drives along a Reykjavik street in the rain. Now stock footage inside the conference hall, as Daniel Domscheit-Berg and Julian Assange approach the podium.

Up until the day before the conference we didn't know who was going to come. It could be a massive organisation or it could be a tiny organisation.

In the beginning we had no funding at all. We were not set up with manpower nor organisationally so there was a lot to improvise.

[Cuts in] If you could let me finish my sentence...

[Jumps in] But, wait, we're not in a Beta stage. We're not in a Beta stage as far as... we're in a gmail Beta stage, but we're not in a Beta stage in terms of our ability to protect people. In terms of...

WikiLeaks, we have to mention that what we are doing right now is still a proof of concept so in technical terms we are in the Beta stage, so it's just...

It was really an off-world experience in some way because we were just so famous over there.

You know, we got this letter from the Kaupthing lawyers telling us that under Icelandic banking secrecy law we deserved one year in prison, so we thought we would come to Iceland

You work for WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks is now very famous in Iceland because of the big Kaupthing leak.

Footage of Julian Assange at a protest in Iceland.

The bankers should be put on public trial and given the justice they deserve. More power to you, Iceland.

A still photograph of the crowd at the protest. It zooms in on the figure of Birgitta Jonsdottir. A series of stills follow, showing Assange and Jonsdottir.

Julian teamed up with Birgitta Jonsdottir, a poet turned politician, to hatch a plan to turn Iceland into a haven for freedom of information. But Julian was also preoccupied with a new source, one with access to classified US government materials and a willingness to leak them.

The buzz of audio static and radio chatter from Collateral Murder plays, as chat logs are displayed on a black screen.

the video came from a server in our domain! and not a single person noticed

Now footage from Collateral Murder plays.

See all those people down there... There's more that keep walking by and one of them has a weapon.

More chat logs.

We have five to six people with AK47s. Request permission to engage.

It was an onboard video of an Apache helicopter gunship on patrol in Iraq.

The screen now shows stock helicopter footage that is not from Collateral Murder - exterior view of a military helicopter hovering in the sky - cockpit footage of a helicopter pilot - a pilot's eye view of a HUD - but the audio track from Collateral Murder plays in the background.

I can't get 'em now because they're behind that building.

A half-mile above the ground, it was invisible to the people below.

The footage returns to Collateral Murder.

What had looked like a weapon from the sky, turned out to be the long lens of a camera.

Oh, yeah! Look at that! Right throught the windshield!

Uh, Bushmaster, we have a van that's approaching and picking up the bodies.

More video footage from Collateral Murder.

Inside the van were two children who were wounded in the hail of cannon fire.

Alex Gibney does not mention that the Collateral Murder video contains clear evidence of a war crime. In the aftermath of the first attack a passing van stops in order to render aid to the injured. The Apache helicopter crew is eager to fire on the van and its occupants, including two children. The ensuing attack kills a further four people. None of them were armed.A US soldier who was present, Ethan McCord, states:

Well, it's their fault for bringing their kids into a battle.

Return to chatlogs, with sombre piano music.

I just...couldnt let these things stay inside of the system and inside of my head... i... care?

Exterior shot of a small house on a street in Iceland, with the roof covered in snow.

Note: Alex Gibney fails to mention that WikiLeaks also sent a group of journalists to Baghdad to investigate the background to the events of Collateral Murder, and to film interviews with the spouses and children of the victims. The investigative work they did - originally research for the release of Collateral Murder - became a Alex Gibney fails to mention that WikiLeaks also sent a group of journalists to Baghdad to investigate the background to the events of Collateral Murder, and to film interviews with the spouses and children of the victims. The investigative work they did - originally research for the release of Collateral Murder - became a documentary film Collateral Murder: Hellfire , produced by Kristinn Hrafnsson and Ingi R. Ingason.

Narration by Alex Gibney: In March 2010, Assange and a team of Icelandic activists holed up in a rented house in Reykjavik to edit and prepare the video for publication.

Footage of Birgitta Jonsdottir visiting the house where it took place.

Birgitta Jonsdottir: We did most of our work here. This was the operation on the table.

Still photographs of Smari McCarthy, Julian Assange and Birgitta Jonsdottir working at the table.

Stock footage of the a team editing the Collateral Murder video on an editing workstation.

Smari McCarthy: It was chaotic and hectic and also sort of very varyingly frayed nerves. Eventually, I went out and bought a bunch of post-its and kind of... [laughs] tried to figure out what it was we needed to do.

A still photograph of a wall of clipboards, with post-it notes pinned to them.

A montage of stills from Collateral Murder at high speed.

Birgitta Jonsdottir: My horrific task was to go through the entire movie and pull out the stills to put on the website, and at the same time I was learning who these people were that I could see their flesh being torn off their bodies.

A montage of still photographs from the scene of the airstrike in Baghdad, dead bodies and debris, and soldiers looking at them and taking photographs.

TEXT Photographs taken by US soldier

Narration by Alex Gibney: The army claimed it was engaged in combat operations against a hostile force. But it also began a criminal investigation.

Photograph of the interior of a van, the driver, dead, lying face down across the seat, a dead child folded under the dashboard.

Narration by Alex Gibney: It turned out that the driver of the van had been a father taking his children to school.

STOCK Bradley tank crewmember: I think I just ran over a body! Apache helicopter crewmember: Really? Bradley tank crewmember: Yeah! Hah!

More stock footage of helicopters in Baghdad, but not from the Collateral Murder video

Footage of Birgitta Jonsdottir looking out a window. Sinister music plays. Oblique views of the street through the window blinds.

Birgitta Jonsdottir: The curtains were drawn. But I never had any sense that we were being watched, not physically. But we joked a lot about it. We were like all becoming super-paranoid.

Smari McCarthy: It wasn't really cloak and dagger stuff, it was just, you know, yes, another cool project.

Birgitta Jonsdottir: Everybody thinks it was all huddled, you know, with the computers, and it was all very serious.

Two still photographs of the Collateral Murder team huddled over computers, looking serious.

Birgitta Jonsdottir: But we actually had an incredible time. The second last night we all went out and we were all wearing the same silver snow suits [laughs]

Stock footage of Julian Assange with Jonsdottir and others at a volcano.

STOCK Someone: Wiki! Everyone: Leaks! Julian Assange: Lava! Leaks!

Still photograph of the Iceland Collateral Murder team

Birgitta Jonsdottir: It was an incredibly intimate time because we were all working closely. We were working on something that we knew that could get us into serious trouble and we were all willing to take that consequence.

Black screen with text. Music changes to chirpy synth.

TEXT WASHINGTON, D.C.

NATIONAL PRESS CLUB

05_APRIL_2010

Stock footage of Washington DC press conference.

STOCK Julian Assange: So, my name is Julian Assange. I am the editor of WikiLeaks. Reporter: Could you spell your name? Julian Assange: Julian with an A. Assange...

Robert Manne: What's clear about him is he became a public figure extraordinarily quickly. It was really April 2010 where he went from relative obscurity into an absolutely central world figure and he did it deliberately, I mean he knew what he was doing. He decides to take on the American state, in public.

Opening frames from the Collateral Murder video, showing text.

TEXT Wikileaks exists to help you safely reveal important material to the world.



We have an unbroken record in protecting confidential sources.



Contact Us.



wikileaks.org

Narration by Alex Gibney: The team posted the unedited video on the WikiLeaks website. They also posted a shorter version, edited for maximum impact. Julian titled it “Collateral Murder".

Close up of the text, panning from left to right. Chirps and crackles of radio static.

TEXT COLLATERAL MURDER

Cuts to footage of reaction to Collateral Murder release.

STOCK Newsreader: No surprise it's getting reaction in Washington.

TEXT Robert Gibbs

White House Press Secretary

C-SPAN

STOCK Robert Gibbs: Our military will take every precaution necessary to ensure the safety and security of civilians.

STOCK Julian Assange: The behaviour of the pilots is like they are playing a computer game. Their desire was simply to kill.

Montage of news reports on Collateral Murder inquiry.

STOCK MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan: The Pentagon says that it sees no reason to investigate this any further.

STOCK BBC Correspondent: An internal inquiry found that the journalists' cameras were mistaken for weapons but the rules of engagement were followed.

STOCK Julian Assange: If those killings were lawful under the rules of engagement, then the rules of engagement are wrong – deeply wrong.

Brief clip of Collateral Murder

Michael Hayden: You've got this scene, somebody evidently troubled by the scene - frankly, I'm not - but I can understand someone who's troubled by that, and someone who wants the American people to know that, because the American people need to know what it is their government is doing for them. I actually share that view - when I was director of CIA there was some stuff we were doing I wanted all 300 million Americans to know. But I never figured out a way without informing a whole bunch of other people that didn't have a right to that information who may actually use that image, or that fact or that data or that message, to harm my country.

Brief clip of Collateral Murder

Bill Leonard: From a national security point of view, there was absolutely no justification for withholding that videotape, not one. Gunship video is like trading cards among soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's freely exchanged back and forth.

TEXT funny thing is...



we transferred so much data on unmarked CDs



everyone did...videos...music...movies



all out in the open

Cinematic suspense music. The screen shows Youtube open in a browser window. The video playing is an aerial combat video. The screen zooms in on the video, while it displays a quick succession of clips from different aerial combat videos, each showing bright explosions and fleeing people on the ground. The music and montage abruptly end.

TEXT bringing CDs to and from the networks was/is a common phenomenon



i didnt even have to hide it

Bill Leonard: What's even more disturbing is that it was one in a series of efforts to withhold images of facts that were known.

More Collateral Murder frames as Gibney speaks

Narration by Alex Gibney: Reuters knew its employees had been killed. The news agency requested the video but the army refused, claiming the video was classified.

Bill Leonard: The fact that innocent people were killed in that helicopter attack, that was a known fact that was not classified.

Footage of a page of David Finkel's "The Good Soldier, which scrolls down as Gibney speaks, showing a transcript of the radio chatter from Collateral Murder. Then a still of the cover of the book.

Narration by Alex Gibney: A record of the incident and a word-for-word transcript of the pilots' conversation had already been published in a book called “The Good Soldiers” by a writer embedded with the army. The army later confirmed that the information was not classified, yet the army would prosecute the man who leaked the video to WikiLeaks. What kind of games was the army playing? Why was a transcript less secret than a moving image?

Footage from Collateral Murder again, this time showing Reuters' Namir Noor-Eldeen, wounded, crawling towards the kerb, with the helicopter gunsight crosshairs on him.

Bill Leonard: Clearly the government recognizes the power of images. But the ultimate power of image is that it helps people understand what it is, this fact is that we all know.

Photographs of flag draped coffins.

Bill Leonard: Flag-draped coffins help us understand the consequences of sending our children off to war.

Photographs of detainee abuse in Abu Ghraib.

Bill Leonard: Pictures of detainee abuse in Abu Ghraib help us understand exactly what was taking place.

Footage from Collateral Murder.

Bill Leonard: Video of that unfortunate occurrence where innocent people were killed helps us understand that this is an inevitable consequence of war.

News footage of press conference

STOCK Reporter: How did you obtain the video? Julian Assange: We can't discuss our sourcing of the video.

TEXT the reaction to the video gave me immense hope...



Twitter exploded



i want people to see the truth...regardless of who they are



because without information you cannot make informed decisions as a public.



or maybe im just young, naive, and stupid...

The screen, black for the above chatlogs, now turns white, and black text appears on it.

TEXT info@adrianlamo.com: which one do you think it is?

Slow zoom in on "info@adrianlamo.com", while the rest of the text fades out, leaving...

TEXT Adrian Lamo



Hacker

Montage of stills of Adrian Lamo during his federal prosecution in 2003/2004, while Gibney speaks.

Narration by Alex Gibney: Adriam Lamo is known as the homeless hacker, a couch-surfing computer infiltrator who had been convicted of hacking into the New York Times. In 2010, not long after the release of the Collateral Murder video, Lamo used twitter to urge his followers to donate to WikiLeaks. Only one day later he was contacted by someone with the screen name “bradass87”.

TEXT (1:40:51) Unverified conversation with bradass87 started



bradass87: hi...how are you?



bradass87: im an army intelligence analyst, deployed to eastern baghdad...

Adrian Lamo: Frankly, I didn't find what he had to say all that interesting at first, not until he started making references to spilling secrets.

TEXT bradass87: hypothetical question: if you had free reign over classified networks...



bradass87: and you saw incredible things...awful things

Text suddenly becomes bigger for dramatic effect, stretching across the screen.

TEXT bradass87: awful things



things that belonged in the public domain



what would you do?

Text returns to normal size.

TEXT info@adrianlamo.com: What are the particulars? bradass87: things that would have an impact on 6.7 billion people bradass87: a database of half a million events during the iraq war...260,000 state department cables... bradass87: let's just say *someone* i know well, has been penetrating US classified networks, mining data...

Text becomes huge again.

TEXT and uploading it to a crazy white haired aussie who can't stay in one country very long...



crazy white haired dude = Julian Assange

Ominous music plays. All of the text but "Julian Assange" fades out, and the screen slowly pans and zooms in on "Julian Assange" as Lamo speaks.

Note: In fact, the alleged chatlogs between Lamo and Manning show that Lamo started slyly manipulating and exploiting Manning immediately. Purporting to be a journalist, Lamo claimed that he could protect Manning under journalist-source confidentiality laws. He then also claimed he could additionally protect Manning under Californian Confessional laws (as he was a registered priest). When WIRED magazine first published the alleged logs, these references were censored, allowing Lamo to lie to the press about what they contained. Later publication of the alleged logs make the duplicity clear. (10:23:34 AM) info@adrianlamo.com: I’m a journalist and a minister. You can pick either, and treat this as a confession or an interview (never to be published) & enjoy a modicum of legal protection...



(1:55:10 PM) info@adrianlamo.com: i told you, none of this is for print Source: Click here.



WIRED's censorship of the logs has been attributed by journalist Glenn Greenwald to the close personal relationship between Adrian Lamo and WIRED section editor Kevin Poulsen.



Source: Click here.

Source: Click here.

Source: Click here. In fact, the alleged chatlogs between Lamo and Manning show that Lamo started slyly manipulating and exploiting Manning immediately. Purporting to be a journalist, Lamo claimed that he could protect Manning under journalist-source confidentiality laws. He then also claimed he could additionally protect Manning under Californian Confessional laws (as he was a registered priest). When WIRED magazine first published the alleged logs, these references were censored, allowing Lamo to lie to the press about what they contained. Later publication of the alleged logs make the duplicity clear.WIRED's censorship of the logs has been attributed by journalist Glenn Greenwald to the close personal relationship between Adrian Lamo and WIRED section editor Kevin Poulsen. Adrian Lamo: At that point I knew that this wasn’t some kind of game. It was for real and that I was going to have some very hard choices. In Star Trek every prospective commanding officer is expected to pass a test called "Kobayashi Mari".

TEXT KOBAYASHI MARU



"THE NO-WIN SITUATION"

Footage from "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan".

STOCK Lieutenant Saavik: Enterprise training mission to Gamma Hydra. Klingons: Klingon torpedoes activated! Firing! Lieutenant Saavik: Evasive Action!

Explosions on the Enterprise bridge. Everyone dies.

Adrian Lamo: The test cannot be passed. It is there to see how they deal with a no-win situation.

STOCK James T. Kirk: A no win situation is a possibility every commander may face. Has that ever occurred to you? Lieutenant Saavik: No sir. It has not.

Adrian Lamo: In this case, it was a no-win situation deciding what to do with it. No matter what you do, you're gonna screw somebody over.

A still black and white photograph of Timothy Webster in Army camoflage gear.

Narration by Alex Gibney: Unsure what to do, Adrian contacted Tim Webster, a friend and former army counter-intelligence agent.

TEXT Tim Webster

Former Army Counterintelligence Agent

Note: In fact, as the alleged chat logs make clear, Manning had already lost his security clearance, his access, and was being discharged from the US Army in relation to another issue. Despite this and Lamo's promises of confidentiality, Lamo not only became an informer, but immediately pushed the story out through WIRED magazine, issued nine press releases, gave dozens of interviews, and campaigned for Assange's extradition.



Court records show that Lamo actively attempted to inform on other people well after the Manning arrest, including Jason Katz, a physicist at Brookhaven National Laboratory, who he alleged helped WikiLeaks decode the encryption on a US Air Force massacre video. Katz was fired and swept up into the ongoing FBI investigation against WikiLeaks as a result of his alleged contribution to uncovering a war crime. People close to him were forced to testify against him at the WikiLeaks grand jury. None of this is covered by Gibney.



Source: Click here.

Source: Click here.

Source: Click here.

Source: Click here.

Source: Click here.

In fact, as the alleged chat logs make clear, Manning had already lost his security clearance, his access, and was being discharged from the US Army in relation to another issue. Despite this and Lamo's promises of confidentiality, Lamo not only became an informer, but immediately pushed the story out through WIRED magazine, issued nine press releases, gave dozens of interviews, and campaigned for Assange's extradition.Court records show that Lamo actively attempted to inform on other people well after the Manning arrest, including Jason Katz, a physicist at Brookhaven National Laboratory, who he alleged helped WikiLeaks decode the encryption on a US Air Force massacre video. Katz was fired and swept up into the ongoing FBI investigation against WikiLeaks as a result of his alleged contribution to uncovering a war crime. People close to him were forced to testify against him at the WikiLeaks grand jury. None of this is covered by Gibney. Timothy Webster: Adrian called me and he said "What would you do if somebody had approached you and said hey, I'm leaking secrets". I thought it was a pretty stupid question because of course Adrian knows exactly what I would have done in the situation.

Alex Gibney: What would you have done?

Timothy Webster: Well, of course turned him in. There's nothing else you can do in that situation. But Adrian was on the fence about it ethically.

Note: By showing a montage of photographs of an anguished Adrian Lamo, taken before 2010, along with emotional music, Alex Gibney furnishes a narrative that is By showing a montage of photographs of an anguished Adrian Lamo, taken before 2010, along with emotional music, Alex Gibney furnishes a narrative that is not substantiated by the known facts . This narrative serves to falsely rehabilitate Adrian Lamo's image, from that of a fame-seeking FBI informant to that of a tragic hero tortured by the guilt of being forced to choose "the greater good". A sepia still of Adrian Lamo (much younger) sitting anguished, with his head buried in his hands. Contemplative, sad music plays.

Timothy Webster: On one hand, here was this kid leaking all this classified information - could potentially cost lives - on the other hand, he was this kid who reached out to Adrian in confidence and trusted him. And Adrian took that pretty seriously.

A staged photograph of Adrian Lamo posing, craned over his laptop with his brows theatrically furrowed, as if concentrating.

Timothy Webster: He indicated he didn’t know who this person was, there was just a screen name. So very quickly of course the first thing anybody would be interested in is: who is this guy?

TEXT info@adrianlamo.com: hey you...around? bradass87: yeah info@adrianlamo.com: why talk to me? bradass87: because im isolated as fuck. my life is falling apart...i don't have anyone to talk to info@adrianlamo.com: I'm a journalist and a minister...



treat this as a confession or an interview (never to be published) & enjoy a modicum of legal protection. bradass87: but i'm not a source for you... info@adrianlamo.com: i told you, none of this is for print. I want to know who i am supporting bradass87: i guess i can talk a little about myself

The background of the chat logs gently fades into scenes from rural Oklahoma, soft-focused and bleached with sunlight. A mill, an empty street in a quiet town. Contemplative piano and synth music plays.

TEXT bradass87: i was born in central Oklahoma... a highly evangelical town... with more chuch pews than people

Black and white school photos. Zoom in on Bradley Manning's photo: a small child with blonde hair and a gummy smile. Another photo, adolescent now, wearing glasses and facing the camera in front of a science fair stall with a paper sign marked "Bradley Manning".

TEXT bradass87: i was a science fair buff... won grand prize 3 years in a row

A photo of a young teenaged school basketball team wearing Crescent, Oklahoma jerseys. Camera zooms in on number 11 in the front row, a seated Bradley Manning, wearing glasses.

TEXT bradass87: i didnt like getting beat up or called gay... so i joined sports teams

Photos of Manning in late teens, using computers.

TEXT bradass87: i also started playing around more and more with computers

The background returns to black.

TEXT bradass87: questioned my gender for several years...sexual orientation was easy to figure out. info@adrianlamo.com: I'm bi myself... bradass87: im aware of your bi part

The text becomes huge again. Doleful cello music plays.

TEXT i don't know what to call myself

Blurry party photographs of Bradley Manning and Jason Edwards

Jason Edwards: I first met Bradley Manning at a New Year's Eve party. It was a 1930s theme party. I was the Prince of Wales and Brad showed up without any kind of costume or persona.

TEXT Jason Edwards



Friend of Bradley Manning

Jason Edwards: I looked at him and he was small and had this kind of ingenue expression on his face, this bright blonde hair so I said, oh, Jean Harlow.

Note: Selective editing. By introducing Bradley Manning in this way, Gibney establishes Manning's character in the context of an alleged gender confusion. This context is reinforced through constant repetition over the next few minutes of the film, in order to leave a lasting impression on the audience. This is Gibney's frame for Manning's alleged acts throughout the entire documentary: that his alleged acts represent a failure of character, rather than a triumph of conscience. In an interview, Gibney stated that: The initial presentation of the story was that Bradley Manning was a pure political figure, like a Daniel Ellsberg. I don’t think that’s a sufficient explanation of why he did what he did. I think he was alienated; he was in agony personally over a number of issues. He was lonely and very needy. And I think he had an identity crisis. He had this idea that he was in the wrong body and wanted to become a woman, and these issues are not just prurient. I think it raises big issues about who whistleblowers are, because they are alienated people who don’t get along with people around them, which motivates them to do what they do. Source: Click here.



This " god knows what happens now. hopefully worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms. if not... than we’re doomed as a species. i will officially give up on the society we have if nothing happens. the reaction to the video gave me immense hope... CNN’s iReport was overwhelmed... Twitter exploded... people who saw, knew there was something wrong. [...] i want people to see the truth... regardless of who they are... because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public Source: Click here.



From Bradley Manning's plea statement of February 28, 2013: ...the people in the bongo truck were merely attempting to assist the wounded. The people in the van were not a threat but merely "good samaritans". The most alarming aspect of the video to me, however, was the seemly delightful bloodlust they appeared to have. They dehumanized the individuals they were engaging and seemed to not value human life by referring to them as quote "dead bastards" unquote and congratulating each other on the ability to kill in large numbers. At one point in the video there is an individual on the ground attempting to crawl to safety. The individual is seriously wounded. Instead of calling for medical attention to the location, one of the aerial weapons team crew members verbally asks for the wounded person to pick up a weapon so that he can have a reason to engage. For me, this seems similar to a child torturing ants with a magnifying glass. While saddened by the aerial weapons team crew's lack of concern about human life, I was disturbed by the response of the discovery of injured children at the scene. In the video, you can see that the bongo truck driving up to assist the wounded individual. In response the aerial weapons team crew – as soon as the individuals are a threat, they repeatedly request for authorization to fire on the bongo truck and once granted they engage the vehicle at least six times. Shortly after the second engagement, a mechanized infantry unit arrives at the scene. Within minutes, the aerial weapons team crew learns that children were in the van and despite the injuries the crew exhibits no remorse. Instead, they downplay the significance of their actions, saying quote "Well, it's their fault for bringing their kids into a battle" unquote. The aerial weapons team crew members sound like they lack sympathy for the children or the parents. Later in a particularly disturbing manner, the aerial weapons team verbalizes enjoyment at the sight of one of the ground vehicles driving over a body – or one of the bodies. [...] For me it's all a big mess, and I am left wondering what these things mean, and how it all fits together. It burdens me emotionally. [...]



I hoped that the public would be as alarmed as me about the conduct of the aerial weapons team crew members. I wanted the American public to know that not everyone in Iraq and Afghanistan are targets that needed to be neutralized, but rather people who were struggling to live in the pressure cooker environment of what we call asymmetric warfare. After the release I was encouraged by the response in the media and general public, who observed the aerial weapons team video. As I hoped, others were just as troubled – if not more troubled that me by what they saw. [...]



For me, the SigActs represented the on the ground reality of both the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. [...] I believe that if the general public, especially the American public, had access to the information contained within the CIDNE-I and CIDNE-A tables this could spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general as [missed word] as it related to Iraq and Afghanistan. I also believed the detailed analysis of the data over a long period of time by different sectors of society might cause society to reevaluate the need or even the desire to even engage in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations that ignore the complex dynamics of the people living in the affected environment everyday. [...] [I] stated I had information that needed to be shared with the world. I wrote that the information would help document the true cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. [...] I considered my options one more time. Ultimately, I felt that the right thing to do was to release the SigActs. [...]



The more I read the cables, the more I came to the conclusion that this was the type of information that should become public. I once read and used a quote on open diplomacy written after the First World War and how the world would be a better place if states would avoid making secret pacts and deals with and against each other. I thought these cables were a prime example of a need for a more open diplomacy. Given all of the Department of State cables that I read, the fact that most of the cables were unclassified, and that all the cables have a SIPDIS caption. I believe that the public release of these cables would not damage the United States, however, I did believe that the cables might be embarrassing, since they represented very honest opinions and statements behind the backs of other nations and organizations. Source: Click here. Selective editing. By introducing Bradley Manning in this way, Gibney establishes Manning's character in the context of an alleged gender confusion. This context is reinforced through constant repetition over the next few minutes of the film, in order to leave a lasting impression on the audience. This is Gibney's frame for Manning's alleged acts throughout the entire documentary: that his alleged acts represent a failure of character, rather than a triumph of conscience. In an interview, Gibney stated that:This " crude gay caricature " is a version of a classic attack on whistleblowers, once used on Daniel Ellsberg : to distract from acts of conscience by focusing on sexuality, character, psychology and alleged "issues," rather than conscience, motive and morality. In order to carry out this attack, it is necessary for Gibney to ignore the explicit statements as to motive given or alleged to be given by Bradley Manning himself. From the alleged chatlogs between Manning and Lamo:From Bradley Manning's plea statement of February 28, 2013: On the screen Bradley Manning's face is morphed onto Jean Harlow's. Harlow lingers before returning to the original photograph, showing a nametag with "Brad Jean Harlow" written on it pinned to his chest.

Jason Edwards: Wrote that on a name tag, slapped it on his chest and we went on with the rest of the evening. When I met him at the party, he made no mention to me that he was in the army. This came as a surprise to me.

A famous photograph of Bradley Manning smiling in uniform and beret appears.

TEXT bradass87: in desperation to get somewhere in life...i joined the army... height of iraq war

Narration by Alex Gibney: To get government money for college, Bradley Manning enlisted in the army. In 2007, he began basic training. He was 19 years old. Just weeks after he started he was sent to a discharge unit to determine if he should stay in the army.

"Nick": My locker was next to his and that's when I met him.

A family photograph of Manning with his sister appears on the screen.

"Nick": Nobody puts their sister's picture - with him posing next to his sister - there. It was kinda weird.

Footage then returns to "Nick".

TEXT "Nick"

Served with Bradley Manning

"Nick": But we knew right away that he was gay, it was like so obvious. So... Not that I have a problem with it.

A photograph of Manning in full combat fatigues, wearing a large automatic rifle slung over his shoulder and carring a large pack. The uniform appears too big for him.

"Nick": He was small, a little bit effeminate and that made him like public enemy one for drill sargeants to beat that macho into him. We're talking professional army - 30, 40 year old people that would pick on him just to [the audio is clearly edited here] torment him.

Alex Gibney: And what happened? Did he get discharged?

"Nick": No. The funny thing is, he was the least army material of anybody there and they all got discharged and he didn’t.

Narration by Alex Gibney: Instead of discharging Manning, the army decided to make him an intelligence analyst.

A photograph of Manning with two US army colleagues. Now US Army recruitment video for intelligence roles, underscored by brash metal music.

US Army Intelligence Poster Boy: There's a lot of points that go with the job. I'm in charge of security, document security, physical security, personnel security, like people's clearances. Does it make me feel like James Bond a little bit? Yeah, to some degree. What would I like the public to know about the army? We love what we do.

Interview with Jihrleah Showman, a prosecution witness at Manning's pre-trial hearing

Jihrleah Showman: He was definitely what society would label as a computer nerd. He was constantly up all night building specific computer programs.

Alex Gibney: So he was unusually adept at computers?

Jihrleah Showman: He was probably the first person in the military that I had met that is as talented as he was with computers.

TEXT Spc. Jihrleah Showman

Bradley Manning's Supervisor

Jihrleah Showman: But I had to pull him aside several times for his lack of sleep. He was desperately addicted to soda.

A photograph of Bradley Manning working with a laptop appears. Slowly, deliberately, the view zooms in on a deeply incriminating item: a half empty bottle of Coca Cola. After lingering on it, the camera returns to Manning's face. He wears a smile.

Jihrleah Showman: He drank approximately a litre to two litres every night, so he literally did not sleep, ever.

Brief stock footage of a generic army drill. The incomprehsible grunts of a drill sargeant are heard. The formation stands to attention.

Jihrleah Showman: One time he was late for formation and he had a very public display physically.

Inserted into this context, it falsely implies that he is unhinged. A photograph of Manning in uniform, where he has clearly been caught by surprise by the camera, causing his eyes to widen, is shown.Inserted into this context, it falsely implies that he is unhinged.

Jihrleah Showman: He was jumping up and down, flailing his arms, screaming at the top of his lungs, and to me, I had never seen a soldier do that before. It had to be something else, a seizure or something like that because it was very radical body movement. But it wasn’t something else. He didn’t like messing up.

The screen has been slowly, deliberately zooming in on Manning's face, until his widened eyes fill the screen.

Jihrleah Showman: He had to have everything perfect. I actually recommended three times that he not deploy.

A closeup photograph of Bradley Manning appears on the screen, as the audio of his voicemail greeting plays.

STOCK Bradley Manning: Hi you've reached Brad Manning at my deployment number. Please leave a message, or call me back later. Thank you.

More music. A montage of photographs taken around the time of Manning's deployment is played, showing automatic rifles leaning against walls and Manning sitting in aircraft seats.

Narration by Alex Gibney: In October 2009, Bradley Manning was sent to Iraq, posted to Forward Operating Base Hammer just outside of Baghdad.

A montage of stock footage from the military deployment in Baghdad plays, showing hovering helicopters and the normal workings of military bases. Chat logs appear over it.

TEXT bradass87: here its hot, dry...and fucking hot



[double emphasis on hot]





The screen shows an aerial view of Baghdad, as if from the satellite earlier in the film.

TEXT BAGHDAD

The screen zooms in hugely, focusing on an aerial view of a large rectangular compound.

TEXT FOB Hammer

Jihrleah Showman: We were the furthest FOB east that you could go out of the Baghdad area. It was definitely the best, most uneventful place you could have been deployed to. We never had any enemy fire.

Footage from the base. Jeeps pass and soldiers walk by. Footage from the on-base gym. Soldiers playing pool, basketball, eating pizza, getting massages and having their toenails painted. Footage of the soldiers' living quarters.

Jihrleah Showman: We could walk around without battle gear. We had a full gym, there's pool tables, basketball court. We had a little movie theatre, we had a Pizza Hut, a Burger King, a place to get your hair cut, a place to get a massage. We had air-conditioned living quarters - you could actually get cable and internet in your room. It was literally just a home away from home.

Footage along the barrel of an automatic rifle being fired into the desert, with the sound of other gunfire nearby.

TEXT bradass87: im in the desert, with a bunch of hyper-masculine trigger happy ignorant rednecks as neighbors...

Footage of cheerleaders performing to Aerosmith's "Dude Looks Like a Lady" at a function room in Forward Operating Base Hammer in front of a seated crowd of cheering off-duty soldiers.

TEXT bradass87: part of Morale Welfare and Recreation projects



>SHRUG<

Footage of cheerleaders in cutoff jeans and tank tops firing automatic rifles at a firing range.

Music suddenly stops. Still photo of Bradley Manning standing for inspection with other soldiers in a computer lab. He looks unhappy.

TEXT bradass87: for whatever reason, im not comfortable with myself...



no-one knows who i am inside...



the CPU is not made for this motherboard...

An exterior shot, showing a darkening sky with a crescent moon, and the silhouette of military satellite tranceivers in the foreground.

TEXT bradass87: and the only safe place i seem to have is this satellite internet connection



my speciality is tracking a Shi'a group... they make al-Qaeda knock offs look like kids

Jihrleah Showman: When you receive intel in it's extremely raw.

Stylized computer graphical representation of "intelligence": a galaxy of glowing white Arabic text swarms across a black screen, while in the background a graphical web of white lines and nodes goes through various transformations.

Jihrleah Showman: A lot of the times it's even in Iraqi so we have to actually get it translated and build a product so the commander can actually make military decisions.

Stock footage showing intelligence analysts working at computers.

Narration by Alex Gibney: But much of the information available to Manning’s intelligence unit had nothing to do with day-to-day combat operations. All of the analysts had access to central computer networks for the armed forces and the State Department.

Computer graphical representation of classified computer networks: a starfield of glowing white text shoots past the screen, emanating from a distant bright light.

Narration by Alex Gibney: With a few keystrokes a skilled user could gain access to vast streams of classified emails, memos and reports from around the world.

Alex Gibney: Why was it that Private Manning had access to all that information?

TEXT Philip J. Crowley

Former Asst. Secretary of State for Public Affairs

PJ Crowley: Now look, firstly the mindset changed after 9/11 from a need-to-know to a need-to-share, and the database that he had access to was a representation of the need for one hand of government to share broadly information about its activities with another agency of government.

Alex Gibney: How many people had access?

Michael Hayden: It's a hard question to answer.

Montage of photos of Manning.

Narration by Alex Gibney: Manning was regarded as one of the smartest intelligence analysts in the unit, but more than others he became increasingly distressed by the reports he was seeing.

Footage from the top of a tank driving through a street at night, its gunsight scanning the dark, while text from the SIGACTS Manning is alleged to have leaked to WikiLeaks is displayed over it.

TEXT Date:2009-05-02



"DISCOVERED MULTIPLE DETAINEES WHO APPEARED TO HAVE BEEN ABUSED BY [IRAQI POLICE]...

TEXT [KILLED]

TEXT Date: 2005-06-14



"OPEL DISREGARDED ALL HAND AND ARM SIGNALS... MARINES ENGAGED THE FRONT GRILL... ENGAGED THE DRIVER... ENGAGEMENT RESULTED IN 7X CIVILIANS KILLED (2X WERE CHILDREN)."

A montage of footage, probably staged, filmed in green night vision, showing detainees being marched in the dark, and having blindfolds tied while held at gunpoint. Morose ambient music plays.

TEXT bradass87: the thing that got me the most...



15 detainees taken by the Iraqi Federal Police...



for printing "anti-Iraqi literature"



i found out that it was a benign political critique titled "Where did the money go?"



*ran* to the officer to explain what was going on...



he told me to shut up and explain how we could assist...



in finding *MORE* detainees.



everything started slipping after that...



i was actively involved in something that i was completely against...

Jihrleah Showman: He back-talked a lot. He constantly wanted to debate. He wanted to be the person that disagreed with everybody. We had a separate little conference room, it had a doorway but it didn't have a door that you could close and he'd go in there and just scream.

A dissonant ambient chord sounds. Inserted into this context, the photograph portrays Manning as demonic and unhinged. A photograph of Manning, apparently making a face for the camera, with his mouth open, is displayed.A dissonant ambient chord sounds. Inserted into this context, the photograph portrays Manning as demonic and unhinged.

More chat logs on a blank screen.

TEXT bradass87: i can't believe what im telling you



ive had too many chinks in my armor :'(





The text becomes huge again, as the music plays ominously.

TEXT bradass87: im a broken soul info@adrianlamo.com: *hug* bradass87: thank you :'( it means a lot



i dont know what im going to do now... info@adrianlamo.com: keep typing <3

Footage from Mark Davis' documentary "Inside WikiLeaks". He turns the camera on and focuses it on Assange. They are on a train.

TEXT Mark Davis

Journalist and Filmmaker

Mark Davis: I was trying to trace him after the Collateral Murder video, but he's a pretty evasive guy. He doesn’t have a home, he doesn’t have an office, so it was no easy task. I’d been chasing him for weeks and had one phone contact with him but I heard that he was speaking in Norway so I jumped on a plane.

Footage from Oslo, showing the street and the poster for the 2010 OSLO FREEDOM FORUM, APRIL 26TH-28TH, 2010

Mark Davis: Turned up in Oslo and sort of, you know, shadowed him for a few days until things started to click.

Footage of Julian Assange's speech at the Oslo Freedom Forum.

STOCK Julian Assange: This is not the liberal democracy that we had all dreamed of, this is an encroaching privatised censorship regime. [applause]

Footage of Assange walking through a crowd after the speech - the camera following him.

STOCK Julian Assange: So embarrassing Mark Davis: What's that? Julian Assange: Having that camera in my face.

Mark Davis: At that time he had an underground following, of which I was aware. He's Australian, he's from Melbourne, but he had no public profile really.

Stock footage of Assange waiting for a train, eating a sandwich.

Stock footage from Mark Davis' interview with Assange on the train.

STOCK Mark Davis: WikiLeaks is not the first time you've come to the attention of the Australian public. Of course you had another controversial period when you were involved with a group that was essentially trying to penetrate military computer systems. What was the motivation there? Julian Assange: Well, there was two motivations for it. One was just the intellectual exploration and the challenge to do this, so if you're a teenager at this time in a suburb of Melbourne... and this was before there was public access to the internet – this was an incredibly intellectually liberating thing, to go out and explore the world with your mind.

TEXT MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA

EARLY 1990S

Note: Instead of providing his viewers with insight, Alex Gibney seriously distorts hacker culture by choosing to introduce it through a sensationalizing Australian television programme from two decades ago. He goes on to build upon this by using footage from a Hollywood film from the 1980s, "War Games." This is the tabloid mythology of hacker culture, not the reality. Hackers are routinely mythologized in mainstream culture as mysterious, illicit and all-powerful. The reality is that the global hacker community is a large community of scientifically-minded users and creators of technology, who write software and design systems. Gibney merely reinforces mainstream prejudices. The iconography of Gibney's Internet is devoid of intelligence and awareness, because he himself has no insight to offer us. The shifting political and socio-economic landscape of the information age remains unarticulated in the film, because it is obscured by the bare knuckled entrenched interests of his corporate politic. --Alexa O'Brien, Review of 'We Steal Secrets'



Source: Click here." Instead of providing his viewers with insight, Alex Gibney seriously distorts hacker culture by choosing to introduce it through a sensationalizing Australian television programme from two decades ago. He goes on to build upon this by using footage from a Hollywood film from the 1980s, "War Games." This is the tabloid mythology of hacker culture, not the reality. Hackers are routinely mythologized in mainstream culture as mysterious, illicit and all-powerful. The reality is that the global hacker community is a large community of scientifically-minded users and creators of technology, who write software and design systems. Gibney merely reinforces mainstream prejudices.--Alexa O'Brien, Review of 'We Steal Secrets'

Footage from an Australian television programme about hackers. A man with an earpiece talks to someone else.

STOCK Man: G'day mate! [listens] No, a hacker is not someone who kills their victim, dismembers them and cuts them into small pieces, hackers do far more damage than that.

A female presenter addressing the camera while walking across a giant computer chip, circuits and chips surrounding her.

STOCK Presenter: Hackers, the mystery operators of the internet. In the eyes of the law, they're criminal, but who are they?

Mark Davis: There was a really interesting period in Melbourne in the early 90s. There was a few places on earth that really clicked into the internet, pre-internet. There was also a sense of rebelliousness, a sort of an alternative political culture in Melbourne. All those things converged and Julian was absolutely the core part of it. It was almost a cliché – the teen hacker.

Footage from the movie War Games.

STOCK David Lightman: 72,000,000 people dead? Is this a game, or is it real? Computer: WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE?

TEXT Prof. Robert Manne

La Trobe University, Melbourne

Robert Manne: Their struggle was against the state and they thought the triumph of intelligent individuals over the possibility of state surveillance - that's the heart of what they were doing. And Julian Assange, who at that point was a young hacker, got into that world...

More footage from War Games

STOCK David Lightman: We're going to show 'em, baby.

Robert Manne: ...and he became the central figure.

A photograph of Julian Assange as a teenager, with very long hair, holding a phone to his ear. It then shows the words "Mendax: Noble Liar" in ASCII art in green monochrome.

Note: Here Gibney fabricates the significance of one of Julian Assange's teenage screen names "Splendide Mendax" (from the classical author Horace). He does so throughout the film. The screen name is a joke. In Latin it means "Nobly untrue", but as a pseudonym it describes how handles protect an author's identity even though being inherently "untrue". It is a phrase which describes itself, not its author, just like the word "word". "Claims my teenage nickname was Mendax, “given to lying”, instead of Splendide Mendax, “nobly untruthful”, which is a teenage joke on handles being inherently untrue. It is self-referential, not a psychoanalysis 20 years ahead of its time!" — Julian Assange, Complaint to Ofcom regarding the Guardian co-produced Secrets & Lies documentary, January 9, 2012.



Source: Click here. Here Gibney fabricates the significance of one of Julian Assange's teenage screen names "Splendide Mendax" (from the classical author Horace). He does so throughout the film. The screen name is a joke. In Latin it means "Nobly untrue", but as a pseudonym it describes how handles protect an author's identity even though being inherently "untrue". It is a phrase which describes itself, not its author, just like the word "word".— Julian Assange, Complaint to Ofcom regarding the Guardian co-produced Secrets & Lies documentary, January 9, 2012. Narration by Alex Gibney: The group was called the International Subversives. Among them was Julian Assange, known by the online name of Mendax, short for a Latin phrase meaning “noble liar”.



Hackers in Melbourne were also suspects in the Wank worm attack but their involvement was never proven. Two years after the Wank worm Assange was implicated in another hack.

Footage from Australian news coverage of Assange's 1994 court case for hacking into Nortel. Assange walking from the courtroom, wearing shades and a ponytail, with his lawyer, carrying a brief.

STOCK Newsreader: Julian Assange allegedly accessed computer systems around the world through weak links in the internet system, meaning the whole computer opened up to him and he could walk around like God Almighty.

Stock footage of Ken Day, looking quite young, in the early 1990s.

STOCK Ken Day: Hackers have this belief that we are getting a police state, that information is being hidden from the broad community, that...

Editing abruptly cuts off.

Narration by Alex Gibney: Ken Day was an Australian expert on hackers and the first person to investigate Julian Assange as part of an undercover sting called Operation Weather.

Ken Day: It was a difficult case because it was only the second time we had done an investigation in this particular style, so we were still learning. What we did was capture the sound going across the telephone line so we could see what was typed and the signal coming back.

Montage of footage of the Pentagon, and US agency insignia, all overlaid with text, as if to convey the concept of "data."

Note: Julian Assange set out his group's Golden Rules as follows: Don’t damage computer systems you break into (including crashing them); don’t change the information in those systems (except for altering logs to cover your tracks); and share information. At his eventual trial, the judge recognised that Assange's actions had not been malicious, had caused no damage and had been motivated by intellectual curiosity.



Source: Underground: Tales of hacking, madness and obsession on the electronic frontier, by Suelette Dreyfus: Julian Assange set out his group's Golden Rules as follows:At his eventual trial, the judge recognised that Assange's actions had not been malicious, had caused no damage and had been motivated by intellectual curiosity.Underground: Tales of hacking, madness and obsession on the electronic frontier, by Suelette Dreyfus: Click here. Narration by Alex Gibney: The hackers had broken into the US Air Force, the Navy and the US Defence network that had the power to block entire countries from the internet.

STOCK Julian Assange: We had a backdoor in the US military security co-ordination centre. This is the peak security, or development of security, of mil.net, the US military internet. We had total control over this for two years.

Ken Day: The internet was a new frontier for people to go out and express themselves, that "I'm there, I'm the first, I'm the all-powerful". This is a common theme with people that are hackers. It was all ego-driven, I'm the best.

The screen displays the "Mendax" ASCII art again, and then displays another black screen with the text "I HAVE TAKEN CONTROL".

Footage of the young Assange, in ponytail and shades, walking into the courtroom.

Narration by Alex Gibney: Julian was charged with 29 counts of penetrating, altering and destroying government data. The defence asked the court to be lenient because Assange had lived a difficult childhood, continually moving from city to city with no lasting relationships.

Montage of photographs of Assange as a child, with a dog, and playing on a bicycle.

Mark Davis: His only constant connection with the outside world was the internet.

More footage of Assange as a teenager, talking to the reception desk in the court room.

The text of the charge sheet against Assange appears on the screen.

TEXT COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA



Crimes Act 1914



FORM FOR THE PURPOSES OF SECTION 16BA



Director of Public Prosecutions

200 Queen Street

MELBOURNE VIC 3000



To: Julian Paul Assange



You are charged with the following federal offences:

1 count of obtain access to data relating to the enforcement of a law of the Commonwealth contrary to subparagraph 76B(2)(b)(iii) of the Crimes Act 1914;

1 count of obtain access to data relating to commercial information on a Commonwealth computer contrary to subparagraph 76B(2)(vii) of the Crimes Act 1914;

1 count of insert data into a Commonwealth computer contrary to paragraph 76C(a) of the Crimes Act 1914; To: Julian Paul AssangeYou are charged with the following federal offences:1 count of obtain access to data relating to the enforcement of a law of the Commonwealth contrary to subparagraph 76B(2)(b)(iii) of the Crimes Act 1914;1 count of obtain access to data relating to commercial information on a Commonwealth computer contrary to subparagraph 76B(2)(vii) of the Crimes Act 1914;1 count of insert data into a Commonwealth computer contrary to paragraph 76C(a) of the Crimes Act 1914;

Note: In fact, the judge said: There is just no evidence that there was anything other than sort of intelligent inquisitiveness and the pleasure of being able to — what's the expression — surf through these various computers. Source: Click here. In fact, the judge said: Narration by Alex Gibney: After a five-year investigation and trial, Julian pled guilty to 24 hacking offences. He was sentenced to 3 years on probation.

Suspenseful music. More text from the charge sheet.

TEXT The Queen

v

Julian Paul Assange



SUMMARY OF CHARGES

Ken Day: He believed that what he was doing was not wrong and probably rues the day that he pled guilty.

Assange's signature from the conviction is shown.

TEXT Julian Paul Assange

Ken Day: Julian does not like being judged. His rationalization is yeah, I've been convicted but it was unjust, it's unfair, I'm a martyr. He didn’t accept it.

Mark Davis: Julian once had quite a rigid political view. He's always believed that there's these secrets that need to be discovered, and at 17, 18 Julian was looking at stuff that he couldn't quite understand – it's all in acronyms, it's descriptions of movements here and there, of weapons or of troops. He wasn't ready to do anything with it. Indeed, he waited 20 years to see it again and when he saw it again he knew what to do with it this time.

Youtube in a browser window, with footage of Julian Assange speaking at 2009 convention playing as the video.

Narration by Alex Gibney: Months before he received the helicopter video, Assange was trawling through hacker conferences looking for leaks.

Footage of Julian Assange speaking at 2009 convention.

STOCK Julian Assange: Why am I talking to you guys at all? Well you know, you haven't captured a flag in the contest here but we have our own list of flags and we want to capture them, and so if you google for WikiLeaks' Most Wanted 2009 you will see a list of documents...

The screen shows the "WikiLeaks Most Wanted 2009" page again, and then fades to a photograph of Bradley Manning in the common room at FOB Hammer, wearing headphones.

STOCK Julian Assange: ...that if you are in a position or you know someone who's in a position to get this material, you get it, give it to us, no questions asked, and you will help change history.

Narration by Alex Gibney: One month into Manning’s deployment, WikiLeaks published the 9/11 pager messages. Manning took notice.

TEXT bradass87: they released the 9/11 "pager messages"



recognized they were from an NSA database and i felt comfortable enough to come forward...

Narration by Alex Gibney: Only days later he saved Julian Assange’s contact information to his computer.

The screen shows a Mac OS X screen, with a text window open, showing WikiLeaks contact info. It then scrolls to a browser window, showing the "Most Wanted Leaks" page open. The mouse cursor highlights the text "CIA detainee interrogation videos. The footage is intended to depict Manning's computer screen, but has been created by Alex Gibney. The footage depicts events that - according to trial testimony - never happened.

Note: This is false. Alex Gibney claims that Bradley Manning took "a cue from the WikiLeaks Most Wanted List." He also creates footage that "reconstructs" Manning's computer screen, showing him working from the list.



This is an allegation

Defense: Now, you spoke about your examination on the 22 machine and the 40 machine and you did a complete scrub of those machines, correct?



Witness: No, sir.



Defense: You spoke about some of the machines you were looking for. You were also looking for what's known as the WikiLeaks most wanted list, correct?



Witness: Yes, sir.



Defense: Something that when you were going through both the 22 and the 40 machine, that's something you were looking for?



Witness: Yes, sir.



Defense: And let's talk about the 22 machine first. As you went over that bite by bite and bit by bit you never found any evidence that PFC Manning had seen that, correct?



Witness: Sir, I apologize, I don't remember exactly what was on the entire list. Do you have that --



Defense: I guess let me clarify, I'm sorry. The actual list itself?



Witness: Right. Oh, no, sir; I did not see the list.



Defense: So there was no evidence that on the 22 machine a user had viewed that list?



Witness: Correct.



Defense: No evidence that a user ever had saved that list?



Witness: No, sir.



Defense: Or printed it?



Witness: Yes, sir.



Defense: Or done anything with it?



Witness: Correct.



Defense: And the same would be true for the 40 machine as well, correct?



Witness: Yes, sir. There could be no more biased authority on Manning's alleged actions than the body that is prosecuting him. Rather than regarding its claims with skepticism, Gibney reports them uncritically and carelessly, as if they were fact. His narrative of Bradley Manning's alleged actions is the prosecution's narrative. It has since been shown to be false, but will continue to misinform the public long after Manning's trial is over.



Source: This is false. Alex Gibney claims that Bradley Manning took "a cue from the WikiLeaks Most Wanted List." He also creates footage that "reconstructs" Manning's computer screen, showing him working from the list.This is an allegation brought against Bradley Manning by the US government in his trial . The claim has no other source. It is false. The government's witnesses as to this claim fell apart under cross examination during Manning's trial. The government is unable to produce evidence that Manning ever even saw or read the "Most Wanted List."There could be no more biased authority on Manning's alleged actions than the body that is prosecuting him. Rather than regarding its claims with skepticism, Gibney reports them uncritically and carelessly, as if they were fact. His narrative of Bradley Manning's alleged actions is the prosecution's narrative. It has since been shown to be false, but will continue to misinform the public long after Manning's trial is over. Click here and go to p. 88. Narration by Alex Gibney: Then, taking a cue from the WikiLeaks’ Most Wanted list, Manning began searching for CIA detainee interrogation videos on the classified networks to which he had access. Like other whistleblowers, he felt a moral obligation to leak specific information the public should know.

Note: No evidence has been adduced in the Bradley Manning proceedings to prove the person Manning was allegedly communicating with was Julian Assange. Despite this lack of evidence, in pre-trial hearings the US government prosecutor continually refers to Julian Assange as being the person allegedly communicating with Manning. Julian Assange has been denied formal legal representation in the Manning proceedings. His legal representatives at the proceedings have been denied the ability to object to the US government’s unsubstantiated allegation. Gibney repeats this allegation without supporting evidence.



By using the term “or he was persuaded” the film tries to implicate Wikileaks in a conspiracy to obtain classified material from Manning. The film makes this suggestion without basis – and it has since been proven to be factually incorrect: Manning makes clear in his pre-trial statement that no one at WikiLeaks pressured him into giving any information and that he made his own decision to send documents: From Bradley Manning's plea statement, February 28, 2013: No one associated with the WLO pressured me into giving more information. The decisions that I made to send documents and information to the WLO and website were my own decisions, and I take full responsibility for my actions." Source: Click here.



Throughout the film, Gibney propagates the idea Assange had been “fishing” for the leaks or that Manning had been “persuaded” to leak. This is factually incorrect but also buys into the dangerous proposition that journalists and publishers can be conspirators by virtue of their interaction with confidential sources.



Source: Click here.

Source: Click here. No evidence has been adduced in the Bradley Manning proceedings to prove the person Manning was allegedly communicating with was Julian Assange. Despite this lack of evidence, in pre-trial hearings the US government prosecutor continually refers to Julian Assange as being the person allegedly communicating with Manning. Julian Assange has been denied formal legal representation in the Manning proceedings. His legal representatives at the proceedings have been denied the ability to object to the US government’s unsubstantiated allegation. Gibney repeats this allegation without supporting evidence.By using the term “or he was persuaded” the film tries to implicate Wikileaks in a conspiracy to obtain classified material from Manning. The film makes this suggestion without basis – and it has since been proven to be factually incorrect: Manning makes clear in his pre-trial statement that no one at WikiLeaks pressured him into giving any information and that he made his own decision to send documents: From Bradley Manning's plea statement, February 28, 2013:Throughout the film, Gibney propagates the idea Assange had been “fishing” for the leaks or that Manning had been “persuaded” to leak. This is factually incorrect but also buys into the dangerous proposition that journalists and publishers can be conspirators by virtue of their interaction with confidential sources. In that context, he first offered up a military video. But in online chats with WikiLeaks, Manning’s thoughts changed – either he decided or he was persuaded – that he should capture more flags; a lot of flags.

TEXT WASHINGTON, D.C.

JANUARY_2010

Shaky footage of Washington D.C. at night. The dome of the Capitol looms white against the sky. Traffic in the rain. Grey skies as industrial parks float by the window of a train.

TEXT bradass87: i went on leave in late january / early february...



99.9% of people coming from iraq and afghanistan want to come home, see their families, get laid...



i...wanted to try living as a woman



i rode the train...from DC to Boston cross-dressed, full on... wig, breastforms, dress, the works

An extreme closeup of Manning's face, contorted into a pouting expression.

Narration by Alex Gibney: While Manning was playing with a new identity, he was also imagining a new role for himself. He visited his boyfriend in Boston and went to a party at a college hacker space, where he was caught on camera.

Footage of Manning at the party in Boston, standing among hackers with lockers and cubicles behind him, drinking from a paper cup, looking at the camera.

TEXT bradass87: i'm quite possibly on the verge of being the most notorious "hacktivist"...



i wouldn't mind going to prison for the rest of my life



or being executed...



if it wasn't for the possibility of having pictures of me... plastered all over the world press...

Text becomes huge.

TEXT bradass87: as a boy.

Note: The selection of US news clips used here shows carelessness towards the facts.



The materials allegedly leaked by Bradley Manning were all at the level of Secret or below, comprising low-level classified or unclassified military reports, emails and cables to which up to 4 million federal employees or contractors had the same access. The reference to Top Secret information in the clips obscures this fact.



Source: Click here.



The video of the Apache helicopter gunship attack - now known as Collateral Murder - was found to be unclassified, yet these clips used by Gibney twice state that it was classified material.



Source: Click here. The selection of US news clips used here shows carelessness towards the facts.The materials allegedly leaked by Bradley Manning were all at the level of Secret or below, comprising low-level classified or unclassified military reports, emails and cables to which up to 4 million federal employees or contractors had the same access. The reference to Top Secret information in the clips obscures this fact.The video of the Apache helicopter gunship attack - now known as Collateral Murder - was found to be unclassified, yet these clips used by Gibney twice state that it was classified material. Tense music stops. The opening from NBC's Today show plays. STOCK NBC Today Host: Good Morning. Him? How would an army private allegedly gain access to Top Secet Information? Now Katie Couric reporting on CBS Reports. STOCK Karie Couric: The army has detained a US soldier in connection with the leak of this classified US Video The sound from another report plays as the footage changes to stock footage from Mark Davis' documentary of Julian Assange in London working on the Afghan War Logs.

STOCK Newsreader: The prime suspect is 22 year old army Private Bradley Manning for allegedly leaking this classified gun camera video of an Apache helicopter attack...

Assange shaking his head and calling people on a cellphone, looking worried.

Note: Human rights lawyer, Renata Avila Pinto, who knows Mr Domscheit-Berg, has stated that when she contacted him to alert him about the arrest of Mr Manning, which had been made public, Mr Domscheit-Berg, despite being made aware of the gravity of the situation, said he was busy on holiday and didn't want to deal with the matter.



Source: Click here. Human rights lawyer, Renata Avila Pinto, who knows Mr Domscheit-Berg, has stated that when she contacted him to alert him about the arrest of Mr Manning, which had been made public, Mr Domscheit-Berg, despite being made aware of the gravity of the situation, said he was busy on holiday and didn't want to deal with the matter. Daniel Domscheit-Berg: Really in the first few days after we heard of this problem with Private Manning, I mean it felt like the worst possible scenario. At that time not really understanding what it means for us and what the hell was actually going on?

Footage of Adrian Lamo typing.

STOCK Journalist: Private First Class Bradley Manning, he found a former computer hacker in Sacramento, California and that former computer hacker was growing increasingly alarmed, eventually turning him in.

Note: In fact, as the alleged chat logs make clear, Manning had already lost his security clearance, his access, and was being discharged from the US Army in relation to another issue. Despite this and Lamo's promises of confidentiality, Lamo not only became an informer, but immediately pushed the story out through WIRED magazine, issued nine press releases, gave dozens of interviews, and campaigned for Assange's extradition.



Court records show that Lamo actively attempted to inform on other people well after the Manning arrest, including Jason Katz, a physicist at Brookhaven National Laboratory, who he alleged helped WikiLeaks decode the encryption on a US Air Force massacre video. Katz was fired and swept up into the ongoing FBI investigation against WikiLeaks as a result of his alleged contribution to uncovering a war crime. People close to him were forced to testify against him at the WikiLeaks grand jury. None of this is covered by Gibney.



Source: Click here.

Source: Click here.

Source: Click here.

Source: Click here.

Source: Click here.

In fact, as the alleged chat logs make clear, Manning had already lost his security clearance, his access, and was being discharged from the US Army in relation to another issue. Despite this and Lamo's promises of confidentiality, Lamo not only became an informer, but immediately pushed the story out through WIRED magazine, issued nine press releases, gave dozens of interviews, and campaigned for Assange's extradition.Court records show that Lamo actively attempted to inform on other people well after the Manning arrest, including Jason Katz, a physicist at Brookhaven National Laboratory, who he alleged helped WikiLeaks decode the encryption on a US Air Force massacre video. Katz was fired and swept up into the ongoing FBI investigation against WikiLeaks as a result of his alleged contribution to uncovering a war crime. People close to him were forced to testify against him at the WikiLeaks grand jury. None of this is covered by Gibney. Adrian Lamo: He needed a friend and I wish that I could have been a better friend. There was a responsibility to the needs of the many rather than simply to the needs of Bradley Manning.

Photos of Lamo appearing when he gave testimony at Bradley Manning's pretrial hearing. He is smiling and giving a thumbs up to the press from the door of a van.

Narration by Alex Gibney: Lamo met with federal agents and gave them a copy of his chats with Bradley Manning. He also gave a copy to Kevin Poulsen...

Kevin Poulsen's Los Angeles Police mugshot from 1991

Narration by Alex Gibney: ...a friend and former convicted hacker who was now the editor at Wired.com.

Kevin Poulsen: I had just done a story about Adrian being institutionalised.

Kevin Poulsen: While he was institutionalised they had adjusted his medications.

TEXT Kevin Poulsen

News Editor, Wired.com

Kevin Poulsen: I almost had kind of a suspicion that maybe these medications weren't agreeing with him and this was kind of A Beautiful Mind situation, that he was imagining all this.

A photo of Adrian Lamo and Kevin Poulsen smiling together, leaning against a car. Lamo has his arm around Poulsen.

Narration by Alex Gibney: Lamo gave Poulsen the ok to publish the story and days later Wired.com broke the news of Manning’s arrest.

The WIRED story headlined " U.S. Intelligence Analyst Arrested in WikiLeaks Video Probe " assembles out of shining computer animated pixels.

Timothy Webster: Nobody wanted Adrian to go to the media but apparently it was already done and, well, he ended up approaching a lot of media after that. It just sort of exploded.

Footage of Adrian Lamo BBC interview. Presenter and Heather Brooke sit in studio, while Adrian Lamo is projected onto a wall.

STOCK Interviewer: Did it make you feel patriotic when you turned Manning in? Adrian Lamo: It made me very sad that I could not have interdicted this leak.

Footage from a CNN interview.

STOCK Adrian Lamo: I believed that his actions were endangering lives

Kevin Poulsen: Adrian lives his life as though he's writing it like a novel. And every novelist wants to rewrite.

Photo of Adrian Lamo lying in bed with a laptop, wearing a white baseball cap with the word "SNITCH" printed on the peak. The camera slowly zooms in while Lamo speaks.

Adrian Lamo: It's my job to play this role that I'm cast in to the very best of my ability, the same as any other actor. You can't possibly be yourself in the public eye. All the little things that make us human don't stand up under the scrutiny of the camera.

STOCK Adrian Lamo: I'd like to also point out that I think that this marks the end of WikiLeaks’ ability to say that they have never had a source be outed.

Stock footage of Julian Assange interview filmed by Mark Davis, in a car. Funereal piano music plays.

STOCK Mark Davis: So, what's been the update on Manning? Gimme the news, it's only two days old. Julian Assange: So, he has been charged with espionage, the allegation being that he has transferred at least 50 classified cables to another party, and the other party is not named.

Mark Davis: After Bradley Manning was arrested, attention shifted very much to Julian. It was no longer a secret. The pressure during this period was intense. Julian won’t say where he got that material but he had the material – there was no question about that.

STOCK Julian Assange: We try extremely hard to never know who our sources are. All our encryption technology is designed to prevent us knowing who our sources are.

Note: Gibney's rhetorical questions reveal his malicious agenda and poor research. The answers are easy to find: The full phrase is "Splendide Mendax" and it was never used by Assange in this manner. The phrase is a literary joke. In Latin it means "Nobly untrue", but as a pseudonym it is a a witicism about how pseudonyms, which are "untrue", protect the author's safety.



Source: Click here. WikiLeaks' system uses the Tor onion router across multiple servers in multiple jurisdictions, stripping out submission metadata at each Tor node, meaning anonymisation occurs early in the process and long before information reaches WikiLeaks web servers. WikiLeaks does not keep logs, hence logs cannot be seized. Source: Click here. (02:56:46 PM) bradass87: he knows very little about me

(02:56:54 PM) bradass87: he takes source protection uber-seriously

(02:57:01 PM) bradass87: “lie to me” he says

(02:57:06 PM) info@adrianlamo.com: Really. Interesting.

(02:57:34 PM) bradass87: he wont work with you if you reveal too much about yourself. Source: Click here. "Our technology does not permit us to understand whether someone is one of our sources or not, because the best way to keep a secret is to never have it." Julian Assange. Source: WikiSecrets, PBS Frontline documentary.

Full transcript: Click here. Gibney's rhetorical questions reveal his malicious agenda and poor research. The answers are easy to find: The full phrase is "Splendide Mendax" and it was never used by Assange in this manner. The phrase is a literary joke. In Latin it means "Nobly untrue", but as a pseudonym it is a a witicism about how pseudonyms, which are "untrue", protect the author's safety.WikiSecrets, PBS Frontline documentary. Narration by Alex Gibney: Was it really possible that Julian didn't know that Bradley Manning was his source? Or was saying so the old Mendax tactic: telling a lie for a noble cause?

Stock footage of Julian Assange in the Frontline Club watching a Channel 4 news report on a laptop.

STOCK Stephen Grey: Private First Class Bradley Manning is now said to have confessed to passing more than 260,000 documents to WikiLeaks. Julian Assange: [speaking over the news report] That's not true. Stephen Grey: If he's the leaker that implies there's much more to be released. Stephen Grey, for Channel 4 News. Julian Assange: Thanks, Stephen, thanks. Now I have every fucking gun pointed at me.

Assange smiles at the cameraman nervously in the stock footage and goes back to working on the laptop.

Note:The question instead is fourfold: Would halting publication set a precedent that would lead to the "hostage taking" of other people alleged to be WikiLeaks sources?

Would halting publication be interpreted as substantiating allegations that Manning was a source?

Would halting publication be a betrayal of WikiLeaks' promises to publish?

Would halting publication also halt political support for Manning? The question instead is fourfold: Narration by Alex Gibney: Julian knew how much more there was. But now that Manning was arrested the question became would WikiLeaks put Manning in greater jeopardy by continuing to release his materials?

Note: Human rights lawyer, Renata Avila Pinto, who knows Mr Domscheit-Berg, has stated that when she contacted him to alert him about the arrest of Mr Manning, which had been made public, Mr Domscheit-Berg, despite being made aware of the gravity of the situation, said he was busy on holiday and didn't want to deal with the matter. Julian Assange later suspended him.



Source: Click here. Human rights lawyer, Renata Avila Pinto, who knows Mr Domscheit-Berg, has stated that when she contacted him to alert him about the arrest of Mr Manning, which had been made public, Mr Domscheit-Berg, despite being made aware of the gravity of the situation, said he was busy on holiday and didn't want to deal with the matter. Julian Assange later suspended him. Daniel Domscheit-Berg: It's certainly a very problematic situation. This is about as serious as it can get.

Stock footage of Julian Assange walking along a train platform in Norway, while his voice taken from another clip speaks over it.

STOCK Julian Assange: We have a situation where there's a young man, Bradley Manning, who is alleged to be a source for the Collateral Murder video. We do not know whether Mr Manning is our source or not, but what we do know is that we promised the source that we would publish everything that they gave to us.

Stock footage of Julian Assange on the train in Norway again, his feet on the seat opposite, and his rucksack on the seat beside him. He looks out the window.

Narration by Alex Gibney: Even though his potential source had been arrested, Assange was undeterred from WikiLeaks’ mission. And the hundreds of thousands of leaked US government secrets he possessed were burning a hole in his pocket.

Footage of Assange wearing shades and sitting on a windowsill. Radiohead's "Jigsaw Falling Into Place" plays.

Narration by Alex Gibney: Julian travelled around Europe plotting his next move. In Brussels, he was tracked down by investigative journalist Nick Davies.

Nick Davies: My pitch to Julian was instead of posting the secret material on the WikiLeaks website, he shared it with an alliance of the Guardian and other media groups including the New York Times...

TEXT Nick Davies

Investigative Journalist

The Guardian

Nick Davies: ...who (a) have the impact of reaching millions of people instantly and also have natural political connections in their own jurisdictions. So we were trying to give him a kind of political immunity so that he could do this - clearly provocative and somewhat dangerous thing - in relative safety and with an assurance of success.

The stock footage of Assange wearing shades on a windowsill again. The music continues to play.

Note: It was not Davies’ suggestion that WikiLeaks partner with other media: WikiLeaks had worked with journalists at the New York Times and at the Guardian many times previously. WikiLeaks first Guardian front page, on Kenyan corruption, was as early as 2007. WikiLeaks had already brought in Der Spiegel and the New York Times and the Guardian were next. That is why Assange agreed to meet with Nick Davies.



Full interview transcript: Click here. It was not Davies’ suggestion that WikiLeaks partner with other media: WikiLeaks had worked with journalists at the New York Times and at the Guardian many times previously. WikiLeaks first Guardian front page, on Kenyan corruption, was as early as 2007. WikiLeaks had already brought in Der Spiegel and the New York Times and the Guardian were next. That is why Assange agreed to meet with Nick Davies. Narration by Alex Gibney: Recognising that WikiLeaks could benefit from a louder megaphone, Julian agreed to Nick’s proposal.

Nick Davies: So, how am I going to get the documents back to London? There was a little bit of a risk that if the authorities were monitoring his communications, as they might well have been, they would be aware of my involvement with him, they would arrest me as I came back into the United Kingdom and take the material if I had it on a laptop. We thought about a memory stick - maybe they might not spot that. He came up with a much better solution. He said that he would create a website.

A user name/password dialogue box takes shape on the screen, forming in glowing neon blue out of a swarm of computer animated pixels, against a black background. Into the username box, letters start being typed: "Nick_Davies".

Nick Davies: In order to access the website, I would need a password. So he took a paper napkin that was on the table in the café where we were talking in Brussels and he hooked together several of the words in the commercial logo and wrote: No capital letters.

More stock footage of Assange sitting on a windowsill in shades, talking, nodding, but Davies voice continues to speak over the footage.

Nick Davies: I stuffed it in my pocket. In the event that I was arrested people would assume that it was something I was going to blow my nose on - and so it was I travelled back to the United Kingdom and, as it happened, nobody stopped me so it was all cool.

Footage filmed at night, driving, in London. Motorcycles in rear-view mirrors.

Narration by Alex Gibney: Julian would also team up with the London-based Bureau for Investigative Journalism. In a pre-arranged drop point in central London, Julian met Iain Overton.

Iain Overton being interviewed in a bar in London

TEXT Iain Overton

Former Managing Editor

Bureau of Investigative Journalism

Iain Overton: We turned up and Julian was there wearing a bullet proof vest and we had a Middle Eastern meal, and he revealed that he had the largest-ever military leak of documents in the history of leaks.

Narration by Alex Gibney: In th