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Some of you have powerful memories of Daniel Ellsberg. You remember the incredible impact he had on the way Americans thought about the war in Vietnam when he leaked the Pentagon Papers back in 1971. My memory is different. It’s from just four weeks ago, when—in hospice care, knowing he had only weeks to live—he comforted a young whistleblower who’d come to conclude her act was pointless. You could have heard a pin drop, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that moment since I learned of Ellsberg’s death last Friday.
Ellsberg was a speaker at a conference, the Logan Symposium on Investigative Reporting, at the University of California, Berkeley. (You can watch the whole thing here.) He towered over the room on a giant Zoom screen, calling in from his home just a couple of miles away. On another screen was Reality Winner, who, as a twenty-something National Security Agency translator, leaked classified documents about Russian interference in the US election, and was sentenced to prison time for it. Now out and barred from traveling without the government’s permission, she sat in her living room in Corpus Christi, Texas, wearing a T-shirt that read “Grow Food, Love Hard,” and a weary expression.
It was clear from the outset that this was not the kind of panel where journalists congratulate each other for the great work they do. Ellsberg started it off noting,...
A serious legal fight has now started, and it is pulling big names into the spotlight. Brian Harpole, who once handled security for Charlie Kirk, has filed a defamation lawsuit against Candace Owe...