WikiRebels: The Documentary Page #3

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for the failed Kaupthing Bank.

It was essentially all of the regulators

had been derelict in their duties.

All of the bankers had been lying

about the actual state of affairs.

The bank's management react in panic to the revelations,

and, in a desperate move,

force the Icelandic judiciary to resort to extreme measures.

I was the first one, actually, to break that story.

But the bank reacted in a manner that was quite interesting.

They got a gag order on the state television.

Actually, the first and only one

in the history of Icelandic state television news.

The leak lays bare the disastrous effects

of the cronyism inherent in Iceland.

We had failed as a country

because we had not been sharing the information that we needed.

We were in the middle of an information famine.

That sort of eventually led to this just,

"Let's get the WikiLeaks people here."

And then, when they were here, we just went,

"Hmm, OK, um...is there anything you want us to do?"

And obviously there was.

-Welcome to this program.-Thank you.

You mentioned to me the dream that we in Iceland,

we should become a "Vanguard of publishing freedom".

Absolutely, absolutely. So, we see...

They were presenting this idea

which they called 'Switzerland of bytes',

which was basically to take the tax haven model

and transform it into the transparency haven model.

Why doesn't Iceland become

the centre for publishing in the world?

Because it's going to be global...

Julian and I, we were just throwing that idea out.

Just declaring on national television that we thought

this would be the next business model for Iceland.

So that felt pretty weird.

Then realising the next day

that everyone wanted to talk about it.

Iceland has seen some of the problems that happen

when society becomes too secret.

WikiLeaks gave us

the nudge that we needed.

We had had this idea,

but we didn't know what to do with it,

and they came and told us.

And that is an incredibly valuable thing.

WikiLeaks now team up with

Icelandic activists and parliamentarians,

and together draw up a proposal

that would transform Iceland into a haven for journalism.

Herbert and I and Birgitta Jonsdottir

and Rop Gonggrijp and Julian Assange,

the five of us sat in this hotel room

for about four or five hours

and wrote the entire proposal from scratch.

The proposal is adopted unanimously by Iceland's parliament.

Just getting a bill accepted in the parliament

is nearly impossible.

And this is actually

a huge victory for the parliament

to have a proposal of this nature

pass through the parliament

with everybody saying yes.

It's also a victory for WikiLeaks,

who are now not only using disclosures as a weapon

but also directly influencing freedom of expression laws.

The entire hacker world behind WikiLeaks

is growing increasingly confident

that their visions will lead to an improved society.

I think people that are dealing with systems,

and technologically oriented people who are dealing with systems,

they understand systems pretty well.

And if you look at society,

that's just yet another system.

The people involved with WikiLeaks

are exactly the same as me and the other people

who are fighting this fight,

in that they are information activists first and foremost.

They believe in the power of information

and power of knowledge,

and the importance of allowing everybody to have both of those

Perhaps it's similar convictions

that prompt a young former American hacker

to make one of the most crucial decisions of his life.

Bradley Manning, serving as an intelligence analyst

with the US Army in Iraq early 2010,

has, just like millions of other Americans

in the military or civil service,

access to a massive database of classified information.

He discovers indications of crime and corruption,

and tells another hacker, Adrian Lamo, about it.

Manning writes that he sent hundreds of thousands of

military and diplomatic reports to WikiLeaks -

the biggest leak ever.

Manning puts his faith in WikiLeaks.

Manning Bradley E

However, Lamo reports their chat to the military.

Manning now risks a 52-year jail sentence.

Many of the facts are still unclear.

One thing is certain.

At this point in time, WikiLeaks receive documents

with the same material that Manning is charged of having leaked.

We make a commitment to our sources

that we will represent their material to the public

to the best of our ability.

And achieve maximum

political impact for the risks that they take.

WikiLeaks are in possession of explosive material -

too big, in fact, for them to handle alone.

Assange decides to stake

all of his resources in one move.

We were sitting at a cafe in Reykjavik

and he basically just flipped over his laptop

and told me,

"You gotta see something very interesting."

I was quite shocked.

This was something I recognised instantly

as extremely important and strong material.

This is what the crew of an American attack helicopter see

while out on patrol in Baghdad.

See all those people standing down there?

There's a group of men on the street below.

Two of them work for the international news agency Reuters.

The driver Saaed Chmagh,

and the cameraman Namir Noor-Eldeen.

What annoys me the most

is when people abuse their power and harm innocents,

and they didn't actually need to do it.

Hotel 26. This is Crazy Horse 18.

I have individuals with weapons.

Request permission to engage.

Roger that.

We have no personnel east of our position.

For me, personally, somebody that had spent so much effort

into trying to stop this war,

that at least if this would be shown to people

that it might give people enough...motivation

to try to stop the next one.

Right, we'll be engaging.

Roger. Go ahead.

I can't get them now 'cause they're behind that building.

What shocked me with the video

was how the high resolution, the quality of it,

the excessive use of force

to shoot people with hollow 30mm bullets

that are designed to penetrate armoured vehicles and tanks,

basically shot to pieces.

Let me know when you've gathered before shooting.

Line them all up.

Come on, fire.

Roger.

Keep shooting.

Shooting.

Different people argue that it was right for the United States

to be in Iraq, or wrong to be in Iraq.

But, nonetheless, in this incident...

..Even if you argue that it was right

for the United States to be in Iraq,

even if it was right for them

to be in that suburb at that time,

with a helicopter,

overlooking this wounded man crawling in the street,

it was not helpful for the United States

for that wounded, crawling man to be shot.

We got one guy crawling around down there,

but, yeah, we definitely got something.

-We're shooting some more. -Roger.

The Reuters employee, Saaed Chmagh, has been seriously wounded.

-He's getting up. -Does he have a weapon on him?

No, no, I haven't seen one yet.

It is very important to offer a voice to the voiceless.

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