'We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks' - a review that is much more than just a review

A Review of Alex Gibney's'We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks' 

by Alexa O'Brien

They labeled me an enemy of the state, conducted character assassination, engaged in the politics of personal destruction. - Thomas Drake, NSA Whistleblower

Interviewed twice, Drake was not in Gibney's film.

After transcribing the last pre-trial session of the legal proceedings against Bradley Manning at Fort Meade on Tuesday, I attended a viewing of Alex Gibney's latest film, "We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks" in Washington, D.C..

For a year and a half, I've produced the only available transcripts of Manning's secret prosecution. I've provided some of only analysis available on his case, a forensically reconstructed appellate exhibit list, witness profiles, and a searchable database of the available court record.

Because of my familiarity with the proceedings and investigative work, I've been able to 'un-redact' aselection of court documents, which I have subsequently published on my web site.

I have also been at work compiling a database, to launch shortly, containing a data map of the U.S. Government's investigation of WikiLeaks-- the largest criminal probe ever conducted into a publisher and its sources.

I was recently awarded a generous grant by the Freedom of the Press Foundation for my work covering Bradley Manning's upcoming trial, which begins June 3. My work was short listed for the 2013 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism, the most prestigious journalism prize in the United Kingdom-- for which I am unspeakably grateful.

I am aware of the escalating war by the U.S. Government on the First Amendment. As a result of my work as an independent journalist covering the Global War on Terror; the 2011 revolutions across the Middle East and North Africa; and my extramural activities helping to organize the original occupation of Wall Street in New York and five other American cities on September 17, 2011, the U.S. Government and private security contractors attempted to falsely link me and a campaign finance reform group, which I helped found, to Al Qaeda and 'cyber-terrorists'.

I subsequently became party to a lawsuit brought against the Obama administration for Section 1021(b)(2) of the National Defense Authorization Act FY2012 with author Chris Hedges and five other plaintiffs. Section 1021(b)(2) allows for the indefinite detention without trial or charges of anyone, who by mere suspicion alone are deemed by the Executive to be terrorist sympathizers.

My testimony and submissions were central to U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest's ruling granting a permanent injunction on Section 1021(b)(2). In June, the 2nd Circuit is expected to rule on the Department of Justice's midnight appeal of Forrest's September 2012 injunction.

Transcripts not Hollywood Scripts

We need public transcripts and in depth reporting on the prosecution of Bradley Manning-- a trial with wide ramifications on the First Amendment-- a trial which is being conducted in secrecy and managed obscurity by the Military District of Washington in the U.S. Army's First Judicial Circuit.

The public needs an accurate accounting of the "facts" concerning the Manning's prosecution and the criminal probe into Julian Assange and WikiLeaks-- certainly more than we need Hollywood scripts by documentarians, like Gibney, or the former editors of major newspapers, like theGuardian and the New York Times, who haven't bothered to show up to the legal proceedings, which are underway for more than a year and a half-- proceedings, I might add, which are now the subject of their creative fancy and economic enterprise.

If "We Steal Secrets" or the subsequent Q & A with director, Alex Gibney, revealed anything, it's that the filmmaker is quite uninformed about the trial of Bradley Manning. He can barely speak on the topic or on that of the largest criminal probe of a publisher and its source in history.

Which begs the question: What was Gibney relying on for his costly 'string of pearls' reportage, beyond his hackneyed entourage of unexamined glory-boats, bearing witness on the silver screen to their privileged punditry-- that is, talking about themselves amongst themselves for their own benefit-- certainly not the public's-- or future generations?

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'Wanton Publication'

Gibney's notion of Assange as "transparency radical," unversed in the "ethics of journalism"-- or the world-- and the WikiLeaks organization as a ragtag team of foolish and idealistic nobodies, belies an incredulity about the shifting political and socio-economic landscape of the Internet age.

If Gibney thinks he serves Manning's cause maligning and scapegoating Assange or WikiLeaks, I can tell him, he doesn't. In fact, Gibney's characterizations are at the heart of prosecution's case against Manning for the newfangled offense of "Wanton Publication."

Incidentally, the phrase, the "ethics of journalism", was similarly employed by the spokesperson for the Military District of Washington, while lecturing the press pool about the audio leak of Manning's recent statement onto the Internet. "This media operation center is a privilege not a requirement," said the MDW spokesperson, "Privileges can be taken away."

When I asked the 'legal subject matter expert', how MDW defined the "ethics of journalism," he would not speak to the question.

The language of "wantonly cause to be published on the internet intelligence belonging to the U.S. government, having knowledge that intelligence published on the internet is accessible to the enemy" is an unprecedented charge in military law, and not tied to an existing federal criminal violation or punitive article of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Manning's defense calls it, a "made up offense." Gibney doesn't appear to know it exists.

"Wantonly cause to be published" does not mean that Manning has to be the proximate publisher. The offense, however, is intended to proscribe and chill whistleblowers and publishers empowered by the Internet's low cost, accessible means of distribution-- something any Hollywood director today understands.

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WikiLeaks and Manning do not spring from a vacuum or a pathology. They belong to us. They are our future.

When the notion of property applies to the genes in our bodies and the ideas in our heads-- then an 18th century philosophy, 19th century institutions, 20th century outlook, and 21st century problems present many of us with a vision we cannot afford to bank on, build on, or believe in. In fact, it is leading us into the dark ages.

This is a reformation for the secular age of information; old media, like Gibney, have exposed themselves as priests selling favors.

The reformation underway will not be led by organization like Apple or IBM (see the film's transcript) or by Hollywood directors, like Alex Gibney.

This so-called reformation is being led by disruptive innovations like WikiLeaks. It is being led by the bravery of publishers like Julian Assange. It is being lead by the acts of conscience afflicted young whistle-blowers like Bradley Manning. It is being lead by a multitude of individual actors and hard working nobodies.

Asymmetry isn't merely a threat, it is our only opportunity.

Alexa O'Brien's work covering Bradley Manning's trial was recently short-listed for the 2013 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism, the most prestigious journalism prize in the United Kingdom.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/05/26-4