Whistleblower Dan Ellsberg joined us after the Justice Department charged WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange with 17 counts of violating the Espionage Act for publishing U.S. military and diplomatic documents exposing U.S. war crimes. Assange is locked up in London and faces up to 175 years in prison if extradited and convicted in the United States. Ellsberg died in June, and as we remember his life and legacy, we revisit his message for other government insiders who are considering becoming whistleblowers: “My message to them is: Don’t do what I did. Don’t wait ’til the bombs are actually falling or thousands more have died.”
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Two years later, in 2019, I spoke to Dan Ellsberg a day after the Justice Department charged WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange with 17 counts of violating the Espionage Act for publishing U.S. military and diplomatic documents exposing U.S. war crimes. Assange is locked up in the Belmarsh prison in London. He faces up to 175 years in prison if extradited and convicted in the United States.
DANIEL ELLSBERG: Yesterday is a day that will be — live in the history of journalism, of law in this country and of civil liberties in this country, because it was a direct attack on the First Amendment, an unprecedented one. There hasn’t actually been such a significant attack on the freedom of the press, the First Amendment, which is the bedrock of our republic, really, our form...
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