We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks Page #14

Synopsis: A documentary that details the creation of Julian Assange's controversial website, which facilitated the largest security breach in U.S. history.
Genre: Documentary
Director(s): Alex Gibney
Production: Focus World
  Nominated for 1 BAFTA Film Award. Another 3 wins & 8 nominations.
 
IMDB:
6.9
Metacritic:
76
Rotten Tomatoes:
91%
R
Year:
2013
130 min
£158,932
Website
131 Views


business about handing people over.

They would hold to that perhaps

stronger than Britain would.

We think we've got a special

relationship with the United States.

NARRATOR:
Despite that

special relationship,

Assange desperately

fought extradition to Sweden

and lost every appeal.

PROTESTER:
Julian,

we are with you!

NARRATOR:
His legal battle

drained his finances

and trapped him in a family

farm for over a year.

Hoped for funding didn't come, and

WikiLeaks suspended operations.

His international organization

had blown apart.

In Berlin, Daniel Domscheit-Berg

quit the organization.

So did the mysterious figure who had

built the secret submission system.

Assange no longer had

a drop box for new leaks.

In London, journalist Heather

Brooke was leaked unredacted copies

of all of the State Department

cables by a WikiLeaks insider.

BROOKE:
There was the initial people

that Julian gave the information to

and then, how many people

did they give it to,

and then how many people

did they give it to?

NARRATOR:
Some of the cables also

leaked to a European dictator

who used them to target dissidents

and suppress free speech.

This is at the core

of where things went wrong,

and where ultimately

WikiLeaks has lost control

over the spread of

these documents.

NARRATOR:
In the end, all of the

cables leaked across the Internet

on mirrored versions

of WikiLeaks. org.

All Julian had left

was his celebrity.

[BEEPING]

How you doing,

Mr. Assange?

That's my personal

information

and you have no right

to know about it!

NARRATOR:
Julian extended his brand by hosting

a chat show for Russian state television.

Where are you?

In England?

lam in England, under house

arrest now for 500 days.

Five hundred days.

NARRATOR:
One of his guests was Rafael

Correa, the president of Ecuador.

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

Welcome to the club

of the persecuted!

Thank you, President Correa.

NARRATOR:
A month after

the program aired,

Assange sought asylum

from his former TV guest.

[CROWD CHEERING]

ASSANGE:
This morning the sun

came up on a different world,

and a courageous Latin American

nation took a stand for justice.

Embassy of Ecuador

London, England

NARRATOR:
It was

an ironic choice.

Ecuador had a record of

putting journalists in prison

and had been charged with

corruption in a WikiLeaks cable.

The United States must renounce

its witch hunt against WikiLeaks.

NARRATOR:
Despite no proof

of a US-Sweden plot,

Ecuador granted him asylum.

The British government pledged to arrest him

if he left the tight confines of the embassy,

so Assange prepared

for a long stay.

[CROWD CHEERING]

ANNA:
I saw the signs

"Free Bradley Manning"

and "Free Julian Assange, "

and I think it's ridiculous.

These two cases have nothing

to do with each other.

Julian, he's not

even imprisoned.

He has locked himself up

to avoid coming to Sweden

to answer a few pretty

simple questions.

BALL:
There is a phenomenon

called Noble Cause Corruption.

Essentially,

you do things which

if anyone else did you would

recognize aren't okay, aren't right.

But because you know

you're a good guy,

it's different for you.

I suppose you can't

accuse Julian

of not setting out from

the beginning what he may do.

Mendax by name,

Mendax by nature.

DAVIES:
The same

extraordinary personality

which conceived of

and created WikiLeaks

is also the same personality

that has effectively

destroyed WikiLeaks.

WikiLeaks has become

what it detests

and what it actually tried

to rid the world of.

We must get away from this understanding

that we see Julian as a savior,

as some new guru,

some new hero,

some new pop star

or whatever,

that's going to

change all of it.

The credit is undue.

Everybody celebrating Julian

as a whistle-blower.

He's not.

Bradley Manning might

have been a whistle-blower,

and, if he was,

he is the courageous guy.

He is the one

that took all the risk

and in the end now has...

ls suffering.

[PROTESTERS CHANTING]

Free Bradley Manning!

NARRATOR:
After his arrest, Manning

had been held for two months

in an eight-by-eight

foot cage in Kuwait.

Then he was transferred to the Marine

Corps brig in Quantico, Virginia.

Though Manning had not been

tried for any crime,

he was kept in solitary

confinement for nearly a year.

Shame! Sit yo' ass down!

PANELIST:
Bradley Manning, the alleged

leaker is currently sitting in prison

2010 Hackers on

Planet Earth conference

and he could be locked up

for the rest of his life.

How do you feel about that?

[AUDIENCE MEMBER SPEAKING]

He could be tortured.

I think that it's

a little bit ludicrous

to say that Bradley Manning's

going to be tortured.

We don't do that

to our citizens.

[CROWD JEERING]

PROTESTERS:

Free Bradley Manning!

NARRATOR:

A high-ranking general

authorized Manning's placement in

solitary confinement on suicide watch

against the protest

of prison doctors.

His clothes and blankets

were taken from him.

Lights in his cell

were always on.

When he questioned his treatment,

guards took away his glasses

and forced him to stand naked

during morning roll call.

At night, guards kept him

cold and woke him frequently,

a practice that recalled the sleep

deprivation program at Guantanamo.

Manning's supporters

speculated

that the U.S. government

was trying to push Manning

to turn on Assange

and implicate him in a crime.

INTERVIEWER:
What was

your reaction about

Bradley Manning's

treatment at Quantico?

It seemed to me that

sleep deprivation and nudity,

these were what I would call

"enhanced interrogation techniques."

They were being practiced on an individual.

[LAUGHS] No.

Look, I don't know

the specifics.

I don't know the rules

of confinement

for the Marine brig

at Quantico.

But Bob Gates is an

incredibly honorable man.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mike

Mullen is an incredibly honorable man.

I defer very much

to their judgment

that whatever was done

was appropriate.

[PROTESTERS CHANTING]

CROWLEY:
The treatment that

he was receiving at Quantico,

the level of solitary

confinement,

the fact that his clothes

were taken away at night,

it was inconsistent with our

values and our interests.

It was making Bradley Manning

a far more sympathetic figure

than I see him.

When I was asked about it

in a forum at MIT,

I gave a candid answer.

JAKE TAPPER:
State Department

spokesman P.J. Crowley

said the treatment of Bradley

Manning by the Pentagon

is "ridiculous and

counterproductive and stupid,"

and I'm wondering

if you agree with that.

Uh...

I have actually

asked the Pentagon

whether or not the procedures

that have been taken

in terms of his confinement

are appropriate

and are meeting

our basic standards.

They assure me

that they are.

I was appalled at that.

I was appalled at that with respect

to the President's responsibility

as Commander-in-Chief.

Any commander...

Any commander knows

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Alex Gibney

Philip Alexander "Alex" Gibney (born October 23, 1953) is an American documentary film director and producer. In 2010, Esquire magazine said Gibney "is becoming the most important documentarian of our time".His works as director include Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief (winner of three Emmys in 2015), We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks, Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God (the winner of three primetime Emmy awards), Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (nominated in 2005 for Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature); Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer (short-listed in 2011 for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature); Casino Jack and the United States of Money; and Taxi to the Dark Side (winner of the 2007 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature), focusing on a taxi driver in Afghanistan who was tortured and killed at Bagram Air Force Base in 2002. more…

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Submitted on August 05, 2018

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    "We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 Dec. 2024. <https://www.scripts.com/script/we_steal_secrets:_the_story_of_wikileaks_23164>.

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