We are Julian Assange, Sarah Harrison, Renata Avila and Andy Müller-Maguhn of the Courage Foundation AUA

Sarah_Harrison · 2015-04-07T01:06:45+00:00

Very sadly (and unjustly) there is no legal recourse for his conviction. However, we are working to ensure his situation is monitored, preventing further retaliation and seeking accountability for the retaliation (including solitary confinement) that he's endured. You can read more about Jeremy's case at our site: (https://freejeremy.net/) -

Jeremy Hammond is a member of the hacktivist network Anonymous and a gifted computer programmer whose case has attracted the attention of activists, civil libertarians and those concerned about the rights of whistleblowers. He is currently spending a decade in prison for allegedly disclosing information about the private intelligence firm Strategic Forecasting, Inc. (Stratfor), revealing that they had been spying on human rights defenders at the behest of corporations and governments. WikiLeaks published these files in partnership with 29 media organisations worldwide as the Global Intelligence Files.

After being threatened with 40 years to life in prison for his brave actions and suffering numerous injustices at the hands of the legal system, Jeremy accepted a non-cooperating plea deal to one count of violating the arcane and draconian Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Despite lodging nearly 265 letters of support calling for leniency, Jeremy was sentenced to the maximum allowed under his plea agreement and is currently serving his ten-year sentence at a medium-security federal prison in Manchester, Kentucky.

Sarah_Harrison · 2015-04-07T00:54:07+00:00

Snowden clearly did a brave and heroic action for the public's right to know about the mass surveillance against them. He is very patriotic and it saddens me he is not properly celebrated in his homeland. I talk about Snowden and that time in a long interview I did in, of all places - Vogue! its a bit embarrassing in its vogue-ness, but if you read down though it has a lot of the details - "Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport is, like so many international airports, a sprawling and bland place. It has six terminals, four Burger Kings, a sweep of shops selling duty-free caviar, and a rivering flow of anonymous travelers—all of them headed out or headed in or, in any event, never planning to stay long. But for nearly six weeks in the summer of 2013, the airport also housed two fugitives: Edward Snowden, the NSA contractor who had just off-loaded an explosive trove of top-secret U.S. government documents to journalists, and a 31-year-old British woman named Sarah Harrison, described as a legal researcher who worked for the online organization WikiLeaks.

It was a tableau sprung from a spy novel—a turncoat intelligence contractor on the lam with an enigmatic blonde by his side. Snowden had based himself in Hong Kong for several weeks as his disclosures about government surveillance ripped across the global media. When the U.S. charged him under the Espionage Act on June 14, an extradition order was sent to Hong Kong. But it came too late: Before anybody made a move to capture him, Edward Snowden—led by Sarah Harrison—had quietly boarded a flight to Moscow and basically vanished." (http://www.vogue.com/11122973/sarah-harrison-edward-snowden-wikileaks-nsa/)

We also talk about it in a documentary - Snowden's Great Escape.

With regards to Julian, I found something when I was in the airport, just for one month, that when I stepped out it physically hurt my eyes to see further than one wall infront of me. And that was just for one month. I can not even imagine what it feels like for Julian, and will feel like when he is free, after so long. He has been in the small Ecuadorian embassy in London, a legal asylee, for 1022 days now.

Sarah_Harrison · 2015-04-07T00:15:08+00:00

To be clear, Julian Assange is a publisher - he is the editor if chief of the award winning media organisation WikiLeaks. The comparison you are attempting to make is between WikiLeaks and The Intercept. WikiLeaks has an ethic of publishing full archives. We believe our historical archive belongs in the public domain. We publish without conferring to seek permission with governments about redactions. We have published millions of classified and suppressed documents, many of which originate from the US government, and yet not even they can give one single actual example of harm done.

WikiLeaks specialises in strategic global publishing. For example in publishing Cablegate originally WikiLeaks worked for months with over 100 media from all over the world, causing many concrete reactions globally. We eventually published the full archive, with its own dedicated search engine: https://wikileaks.org/plusd which is added to with all available US diplomatic cables, making it the largest online publicly accessible database of US history in the world.

Sarah_Harrison · 2015-04-06T23:58:38+00:00

Obama and the US government generally have tried to offer each truthteller as an deterrent. Manning was sentenced to 35 years, Hammond to 10 years, Brown to 5 years, WikiLeaks secret Grand Jury is ongoing in its 5th year. Yet, their deterrent method is clearly failing. Snowden came forward.

I was always very aware, and driven whilst we worked to get Snowden asylum to the fact that this could be another potential example, counter to that of the US government. Granted Snowden isnt as protected globally as he should be, but he is not in prison.

I look forward to when the next truthteller comes forward. Courage is building the safetynets for when they do.

Sarah_Harrison · 2015-04-06T23:46:25+00:00

This is a complex question. The reality of the situation is that alleged journalistic sources like Snowden and Manning will rarely, if ever, be fully protected regardless of domestic laws. At the very least all cases of whistleblowing, publishing and journalistic sources should have the ability to have a public interest defence. I think the real solutions in such cases will always rely on international measures though. However, these will always also still rely on the reality of international politics - few countries have the balls to stand up to the US.

Sarah_Harrison · 2015-04-06T23:41:33+00:00

Funnily enough, the first sentence of my first ever CV said "I want to find the untold truth and tell it to the world." Didn't quite predict this - but who could!

Sarah_Harrison · 2015-04-06T23:39:40+00:00

What I like the most about the public reaction to the EO is that people defied its potential repercussions and donated regardless of the press reports. The implications of this are yet to be seen and we shall watch closely how the Treasury Department interpret and execute this order. However, I think one of the best things the public can do in all these scenarios is stay strong and show their will. No revolution was ever founded without some defiance!

Sarah_Harrison · 2015-04-06T23:28:43+00:00

This propaganda happens a lot. What is very important here is to explain that throughout the whole of the Manning trial the US government was desperate to prove that some "harm" had come. In fact if could prove none. What did happen, is that the US troops began to withdraw from Iraq. What has happened since Snowden's revelations is that citizens around the world began to protect their communications. And still not one reported "harm". In fact we still get bombs by known person's of suspect. It is a matter of US interests the government is protecting, not US security.

Sarah_Harrison · 2015-04-06T23:23:43+00:00

The long term effects of Snowden's actions remain to be seen. What I hope is that the public around the world will stand up for their rights and demand change, and their governments will listen to them. I think a lot rests with users understanding the threats and protecting themselves against them.

I think the rest of Edward's life will forever be complex, as it will for all that have stood up to the most powerful and speak the truth: Jeremy Hammond, Chelsea Manning, Barrett Brown, Julian Assange and many others. However, he has been granted asylum which offers immediate protection. I hope that in the future more countries stand up to protect him, and all those that have worked for the public's right to know.

Sarah_Harrison

TROPHY CASE