the obama how >> thank you for coming. we are very excited about this panel tonight. no four people are more conversant with the most up-to-date aspects of bradley manning case or the depth or complexity of the diplomatic cables that he released than our speakers tonight.

i'm excited to introduce the author of the passion of bradley manning. we will be selling copies after words. we are lucky to have ted hearn, a composer, composing an opera about manning and attended his article 32 hearing in fort meade and from chicago we have kevin gosztola who is known to a lot of people in this room as a blocker on the dissenter and has been to all of the pre-trial hearings and continue to attend them. starting this week with the actual trial beginning in september. just so you know, booktv is filming this to be aired so please be aware of the cameras and if and when you want to ask

a question during acquistion and answer please come to the microphone so they will get the audio of you for booktv. booktv is third on c-span2. i will give it to chase and we will hear from kevin and come back to new york. thank you. >> thank you, elise harris and everyone else. thrilled to be on the panel tonight with a first-rate necessary journalist, kevin gosztola on the tv monitor and with the team, mark doten and ted hearn who are giving the operating story to the treatment it deserves and i look forward -- i am an attorney and author of a new book, the passion of bradley manning. those of you who are here probably have come sense of who

bradley manning is. he is a 24-year-old u.s. army private first class from the small town of crescent oklahoma and accuse of being the wiki leaks source inside the u.s. military. the guy who supplied wiki leaks with the afghan war logs, with the iraq war logs. with the state department cables and guantanamo files and the collateral murder videos and helicopter gun sight camera video that shows a u.s. apache gunship opening fire on a crowd of mostly civilians in july of 2007. much has been written about bradley manning's motives for his alleged leak. why would he do such a thing? people rushed to attribute all kinds of psychological motives. that he did this because he is gay or thinking of trans gender

transition, an unhappy childhood. his motive is much simpler than all of this and it is in plain sight. i will tell the story what led him up to this alleged leak. bradley manning was in army intelligence in iraq and was tasked with looking into the arrest by the -- violent protesters handing out a pamphlet that looked into a corruption in the iraqi government. bradley manning was concerned about the rest of nonviolent protesters because the iraqi authorities have maintained longstanding haven't of torturing prisoners and detainee's even after the u.s. invasion and occupation. this is well documented in the iraq war log as a matter of fact. manning brought his concerns of

the chain of command what might happen to these nonviolent protesters who were detained by the iraqi federal police and his superior told him to shut up and get back to work round up more prisoners for the iraqi authorities and this brought >> reporter: of heart and a change of mind in the young private who believed operation iraqi freedom had something to do with iraqi freedom and his response was to start allegedly leaking things. he is very plain about his motives and the instant message chat logs, the guy who will later turn him into the authorities. he says i want people to see the truth regardless who they are because regardless you cannot make cannot make -- the lease will lead to, quote, of

worldwide discussion and reforms. i fail to see what is so objectionable about this spirit and what is so objectionable about the alleged acts that were motivated by this. i wrote a book about this. i am not a reader or a writer of one note protests books. one thing that attracted me to the subject is there is so much that is counterintuitive and surprising to left-of-center audiences and i will tell you quickly about three counterintuitive phenomena that are part of wiki leaks in the story of bradley manning. you have probably read or heard that bradley and these -- bradley manning are idealists, he was treated as an enemy

combatants. the disclosures uncover war crimes or evidence of war crimes. all fairly in on controversial. all three of these assertions are false and i will tell you why very quickly. the assertion that private first class manning and wiki leaks are on an idealistic and utopian quest for total transparency has gone a lot of play. the new yorker ran out profile of julian assange but couple weeks ago with the subtitle the quest for a total transparency and many american pundits and intellectuals take the debate and use it as an excuse to rail against the threat of total transparency and how this is crazy and utopian utopian in our political discourse being a synonym for euphemism for idiotic war more but our bradley

manning and wiki leaks leading us down a slippery slope to turtle transparency? is this terrible? have a come close to achieving it? i want to give you the lay of the land on secrecy and transparency in this country and that will answer the question. today washington classifies seventy-seven million documents a year. seventy seven million documents a year. we might ask ourselves are we close to something like total transparency if we are classifying seventy-seven million documents the year? declassification moves at a geological pace in our country. it was only last year that the national security agency finished declassifying documents from the war of 1812. that is a time lag of two centuries. i have to ask, is it at all

realistic for legitimate to freak out about the slippery slope to total transparency? i really think not. wet me put it into further perspective. what's bradley manning is alleged to have leaked is less than 1% of what washington classifies every year. i am going to repeat that. would bradley manning is alleged to have leaked is less than 1% of what washington classifies in any given year. we are really far away from total transparency or any kind of threat of too much transparency. not a single document he is alleged to have leaked is ranked top secret and only 6% are classified as secret. a great many of the leaks like helicopter video and more than half of the diplomatic cables

were not classified in any way whatsoever. it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to see the leakage of documents in some kind of utopian idealistic act. it is much more accurate to label these as a practical, realistic, problem solving act, solution to a foreign policy that has been a disaster over the past ten years if not longer offer and our foreign policy has been a disaster in large part because of the extreme government secrecy that has choked off important public debate. when your country has launched a foolish and destructive war caused by government secrecy, distortion and lies as the iraq war surely was massive leaks in the absence of any legal alternative are just simply a good and efficient way to get

the truth out. the iraq war is well over 100,000 iraqi civilians. over 400,000 u.s. soldiers and cost the u.s. treasury $3.7 trillion. these of the wages of the current regimen of extreme government secrecy. this is a system that has tremendous cost to it that have not been adequately weighed by pundits and intellectuals. to get information out on this scale is not utopian or particularly idealistic. just a practical way to avoid further disasters. about wiki leaks. their mission statement if anyone cares to read it is not a utopian manifesto. it quote from our bill of rights for supreme court decisions. there's nothing about any kind of global revolutionary uprising. there is nothing radical that i can see for better or for worse in their statement of purpose.

the wiki leaks crowd, 18th-century classical liberals are handy with computers. nothing to be afraid of. the idea that government should be as transparent as possible was not invented last year by julian assange. it is a very old part of the american political tradition. it was james madison himself who wrote that in popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it is a prologue to a tragedy or perhaps both. and knowledge will forever govern ignorance. people who need to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives. james madison for viewers just tooting in, james madison was not a teaching assistant in the summer of love. he was fourth president of the united states and primary author of the constitution. i am probably making this

subject a lot less sexy and more boring which is what intellectuals are good for but it is important to note that there is nothing utopian or particularly high-minded about what bradley manning is alleged to have done. second myth. we read that bradley manning has been treated like an enemy combatants after two years of pride -- pre-trial detention in the first nine months in solitary confinement serve. i certainly agree that this treatment has been abominable and unjust and long term solitary confinement like that is properly viewed as a form of torture. in 1890 the supreme court came within a whisper of declaring solitary confinement was cool and unusual punishment. people keep looking for foreign reference points in this treatment.

manning's father compared his son's treatment to guantanamo. one pandit accused the government of kgb tactics in treating manning this way and you can see what. is treatment does resemble the way soviet political treatments were treated when they were put into psychiatric prisons in the 60s and 70s. many first-rate journalists have written manning is being treated like an enemy combatants and the war on terror is now being turned inward against u.s. citizens. there is some truth to this but all of these statements are missing something fundamental. something very big. what these people are missing is manning's treatment is not so x sectional. it is 100% normal in the united states where solitary confinement is not something we as exclusively on an exotic national security threats. it is something be used routinely here without controversy. there are 70,100,000 prisoners

in the american criminal justice system who are in some form of long-term solitary confinement and even free trial detection in solitary is not the norm. is something we do to prisoners often enough and usually without much scandal. the treatment of manning has been extreme and awful but we are kidding ourselves if we think is exception or aberration in an otherwise pristine and unblemished criminal justice system. i would love to be able to tell you right here that the treatment of manning goes against american values and the american way but in truth the treatment of manning has been all american. ..

>> largely an extension or can be seen as an extension of the war on crime, the war on drugs and that guantanamo is not the only legal black hole that we have created. most of the intellectuals making this point, not surprisingly, are black americans. former new york times columnist bob herbert, margaret kimberly and the web site black ageneral do report. and it's -- agenda report. as you probably know, black hurricane has an -- black america has a high incarceration rate. so this idea of american criminal justice and penal justice are basically okay and guantanamo and the treatment of bradley manning washes with these writers. last, you off read that bradley manning has uncovered evidence of war crimes. this makes some intuitive sense. i mean, look at the collateral murder video, the helicopter

gunship video. it's really a gruesome sight through the gun sight view of an apache helicopter a mile and a half up in the air, you see what happens when it opens fire on a group of unsuspecting people, mostly civilians, but a few of them were armed. and some of the civilians included a couple of reuters news agency employees. the helicopter shoots a lot of the wounded, and when an unmarked van comes by, that gets shot to pieces too, killing the dreier and wounding some -- driver and wounding some young children inside that van. so it's a massacre and slaughter. how can it not be a war crime? well, it turns out that the laws of armed conflict aren't exactly what we might like to think they are. there is international law on both sides of this massacre, and most of it turns out to be, i'm sorry to say, on the side of the

helicopter gunship crew. the laws of armed conflict here and often elsewhere are on the side of soldiers who open fire on civilians. that's just not my opinion alone, it's essential to note that after this video came out, and it's the most famous battlefield atrocity since -- [inaudible] massacre i would venture to say, the big three human rights groups responded with silence. amnesty international said nothing about this, neither did human rights watch, neither did human rights first even though their business is calling out violations of the laws of armed conflict. now, what gives? i talked to employees of all three of these organizations, and they told me, a couple of them sounded what embarrassed, that the reason they responded with silence is because this atrocity was perfectly legal under the laws of armed conflict as we though them. now, stay with me here, i don't mean this as a justification of the massacre or as an excuse for

it. but i think it's essential to note that the laws of armed conflict were not written by an angel choir or by a group of desert saints, they were written by the attorneys of great military powers. many intellectuals, particularly liberals, have this bizarre faith in international law in general and the laws of war in particular. i think it's time we lost some of our faith in this. we have this strange idea that war is amenable to regulation by law and can be turned into a surgical instrument of humanitarian therapy. most, if not all of the time this is false, and when civilians get killed in war, we like to think it wasn't actually the war that killed them, but it was war crimes, some deviation from the way war is supposed to be fought. that's not really the case. the slaughter of civilians as long as there's really any

semi-plausible military rationale that can be attached to it however weakly is most of the time perfectly legal under the laws of armed conflict. and that lesson is important as any other that the wikileaks you. [applause] >> kevin? >> we can't hear you. we're going to fiddle with the sound. [inaudible conversations]

>> can you hear me now? >> yes. >> all right. so thank you. it's an honor to participate in the forum, and chase gave a wonderful presentation to set up what i'm going to be explaining now. i've been traveling to fort meade to cover the proceedings since they began back in december when the whole process really became high profile, and i was tracking it. a lot of people say that the court-martial is yet to start, so i just want to clear up quickly that the trial is part of the court-martial process. when the charges were referred in february, the military

formally charged manning with 22 different counts. that was when the court-martial process began. and so i want to talk a little bit about how the, well, first let me share, and i'm a plaintiff and a law student. one of the issues we have with this case right now, i can share how -- [inaudible] the proceedings. i go up there, i show up, i sit in a center, and i get a feed. it's a video feed that shows what is happening inside courtroom. and inside the courtroom i can see, you know, i can see david -- [inaudible] i can see bradley manning. coombs is bradley manning's lawyer, and i see the judge, and this is how i view the proceedings. and people ask me why haven't you been inside the courtroom, because don't you think as a reporter it would good to be in the courtroom? i'm going to share with you

right now the penchant for secrecy that our government has is so bad, that we are not allowed to have access, court ordered, we're not allowed to access defense or prosecution motions, and that makes the job i'm doing as a reporter, it makes my job as somebo working to inform the public actually much more difficult because when i hear something in the courtroom, i have to -- i have one chance to actually put that information down and then get it to you. and after it's said by the judge, and she says this, mind you, they know the game they're playing. so the judge is feeding all these things into the record very quickly, and she does this because they don't want to release the documents. she reads all these documents really quickly, and i have to scramble, you know, like a lamster on a wheel -- hamster on a wheel to keep up. and i put this information down, and that's what i have to support. i put together my news stories

like everybody else in the room. and, so the thing of it is is that in the cases of the 9/11 terror suspects, you the public and people in the press, can actually go online, and you could see what happened that day, and you could read the transcripts. but in the cases of bradley manning, he doesn't even have that right, he doesn't have that right to transparency, and that complicates what i'm trying to do. so at this moment i have not been in the courtroom. and i just, i wanted to headache that clear to people, that this is a scale of secrecy that we have the government responding to with this case. now, charges against brad manning break down into three sets. you essentially have a number of charges, i think it's about 15 or 16 charges that happen to relate to offending the decorum of the military because, apparently, a military thinks that if you expose what they are actually doing, that it offends the decorum of the military. so that is what they have charged bradley manning with.

they also have charged him with five or six counts, i believe, of unauthorized downloading, so this has to do with the software that he's accused of using to do the alleged leaks, the transfer of the documents to wikileaks. and he has one egregious charge, and that is the aiding the enemy charge which is a federal offense, and it comes with the death penalty, the possibility of charging him with the death penalty. of course, right now the government is saying that they will not attach the death penalty to him. they won't sentence him to death. we take the government at their word. and so let me just get into now several key issues that have arisen in the proceedings so far. so right now we have the issue of the withholding of evidence. there are 250,000 documents that

pertain to wikileaks that the government has in its possession, that they have identified and which they will, they are refusing to turn over to the defense. and as david coombs has been diligently working since at least since before the pretrial hearing in december, the article 32 hearing that was held, he's been working to get these released under a basic discovery of evidence rule, and they have been able to get very little. he's gotten a few pages, um, he's recently talked about having some documents that come from the fbi that are actually redacted and censored. and he believed that, of course, that information is being improperly censored. and so one of the things that they have struggled with is getting them to produce so that they can use them to formulate

the case. these damage assessment reports are reports who are known as original classification authority. and they are the ones who are tasked to make determinations of how to be sure it's the information and -- [inaudible] they would actually pose a risk to national security. but in the aftermath of an event like this, they can make a report and determination about whether there's, in fact, any harm done by the leaks. so this information seems, to me, to be the most critical information in the bradley manning case. anyone who saw the news knew that people in the pentagon and the u.s. government and u.s. pundits were going on about the sort of damage and risks that tt were being posed to potential informants who might be involved and people who were in on u.s. operations overseas. everyone was thinking that this is going to do some kind of

damage to national security. so to not have it be a part of the proceedings is very, very troubling, i think, if you're the defense. and the defense has even said you don't know what magic language we have to use to get you to turn these documents over. because anyone who's familiar with freedom of information requests might know that they're using sort of -- [inaudible] if you don't use the right term, we're not going to give you the information. so ciewms has becauseically -- coombs has basically has to make up language for paper and documents just so that he can be sure he captures and mentions everything that our government could possibly have in their possession that could help manning as a client in this case. they're hiding assessment reports, they're hiding investigator files. their claim is that if they're not done with an investigation, that he should not get it, and they say that they're not done

with any investigation. and this is a trick, because technically speaking the government's position is that there could be harm and 15, 20 years from now because there's going to be something -- [inaudible] that they say, well, that had to do because bradley manning released that information. so we have secrecy in the proceedings. we have the exception of the court-martial process where the judge, the prosecution and the defense go into their chambers and will spend hours deliberating over business that should be handled in open court, and they call this a conferencing session. in federal court it's usually only limit today scheduling and things that were considered administrative. but in this case we have them going into the chambers and secretly putting together things like -- they put together something called a creed

publicity order. this was about one information we're going to share publicly about the trial ahead, you know, ahead of the trial, what are we going to say, and what should people keep secret. and i didn't get to hear anything about what was deliberated when they were putting this thing together. the other thing i want to raise is that they're overcharging manning. that is something that was -- [inaudible] as he repeatedly works to get charges -- [inaudible] he has pointed out that if you read the charges, they are taking his alleged act, and they are separating different things, and they're charging leaks individually. so his thing is that -- [inaudible] and other documents might have been pued. the secret network that he got the information from, he might have pulled it at the same time. well, separating it and doing multiple charges.

and then this is important because while the aiding the enemy charge carries life, potential life in prison, if by some chance that were to be dropped, we now have about 20 or so other charges, and each of them carry the potential of up to ten years. so it becomes critical as to whether they're overcharging manning because this would determine -- [inaudible] the range that he would actually be inside of the -- [inaudible] it determines how long he would be there, and, of course, you know, if you're thinking of time served, just the fact that he was convicted is critical as the sortover charges that stick. -- sort of charges that stick. now finally i'd like to end here just talking about the -- [inaudible] which people -- [inaudible] as the most egregious charge that manning faces. i'll just read for you, i have the text before me, and i think it's important to hear what this charge is. the charge is any person who,

one, aids or attempts to aid the enemy with arms, ammunition, supplies, money or other things; or, two, without proper authority knowingly harbors or protects -- [inaudible] or communicate or core respond with -- correspond or hold any intercourse with the enemy either directly or indirectly. and it says this person shall suffer death or such other punishment, a court-martial or military aides -- [inaudible] he's charged under the second part of the aiding the enemy charge. and, of course, one of the things in this that's been very alarming is the way it seems to be an extension of the obama administration's war on whistleblowers in that it grants the military the power to come down on soldiers for sharing what is happening in their unit. not sharing troop operations,

but talking about things that they might want to share if they were having issues. like, for example, if they didn't have the proper military equipment for an operation and wanted the blow the whistle on that, would this subject them to aiding the enemy charges because they decided to share this information? would that, in fact, be considered intelligence, the way that they're judging this charge? because at this point they have not demonstrated -- [inaudible] intent. and, in fact, you do not have to demonstrate evil intenin order to charge manning with aiding the enemy. what they say is that bradley manning knew that wikileaks regularly -- the wikileaks web site, and having that knowledge which they have to demonstrate in order to charge him, but having that knowledge means he

aided the enemy. well, during a hearing in december the government showed a powerpoint presentation. and in that powerpoint presentation -- [inaudible] asked to produce because he had violated security procedures, he had not practiced information security and had put videos off facebook at -- [inaudible] that the government had to classify information, and southern. to -- in the presentation he made, he made a statement that says the enemy could go to get -- [inaudible] could help the enemy but wikileaks. now, i don't know if it's just the limit to what the government has to --

[inaudible] but if this is, this is what they're going, they're going off the back of bradley manning as an intelligence analyst who possessed the knowledge that wikileaks was being used by the enemy for -- and that al-qaeda was, in fact -- [inaudible] and they played an al-qaeda propaganda video during the hearing in december and showed and tried to make the connection that they are going there and using this web site and appreciate his alleged leaks because of what they are able to do. and i don't know because to this day there is not any attack or any sort of operation that they have been able to point to that sort of stems from reading this previously-classified information. so finally i just want to say that supporters of bradley manning's have had a lot of -- i think they've been conflicted

over following the court-martial process because many of them believe that it's a done deal, that bradley manning is, in fact, going to be convicted and sentenced. many of them have used language like he's going to be sent to a gulag and what exactly can you do to help him. and i just want to caution people who might get cynical, who might believe that the fix is in, the government has him, and there's nothing people can do. i think that's exactly what the government wants people to do. i think it's exactly the issue. i think the issue is that they want to complicate this process, they want to make it difficult for people to follow. they want people to get tangled in the legal cobwebs and not know what is actually being done when the defense complains about not having access to evidence, they want you to feel dizzy and not sure of what's exactly going on, whether it's right or wrong. it's up to people like me, the

journalists, the reporters trying to report to you to show you what exactly is going on. it's up to the artists, the people who understand what is going on to put this into some kind of a form that people can really get into and that begin to understand what is going on. because the government does not want the public to understand. the government also wants people to believe it's a done deal, this is going to be prosecuted. and, look, let's just remember, it was not a given that he would be transferred from quantico because of inhumane treatment to leavenworth, but he did get transferred, so i think the sort of activism, the sort of protests, the people actually raising their voice whether out in public or whether even in cyberspace actually will make -- [inaudible] confronting barack obama on the campaign trail.

[inaudible] you owe it to yourself to say something. you owe it to bradley manning to say something because he has nobody. he's held in isolation, he's been in a cocoon, and he needs people to speak up. it could have an impact, it could start -- [inaudible] and that could be the difference in the future of bradley manning. [applause] >> hi, thanks a lot to bill and elise and the protect forum for having us here. it's quite an honor to be sharing the stage with chase and kevin. we're doing the hard, important, necessary work that makes our

more dilettantish and areafied areafied -- rarefied pursuits possible. >> i'm ted hearne, by the way. i don't know if this is on. am i on? i'mhead hearn, i'm a composer. >> and i'm mark doten. >> we're going to start, we're going to play a short song for you, talk a little bit about the piece and about our experience attending the first day of bradley manning's article 32 hearing, and then i think we'll close out with just a snippet from a second song. >> and before you start, i just want to bring up something you said earlier about transparency. you're absolutely right. i totally agree that the quest for transparency and demanding transparency is not, um, is not insane, is not a radical act, it's not new at all. 18th century liberal, you said,

right? and part of what inspires us to write a piece about someone like bradley manning is to connect him to how normal that really is, you know? and especially since, um, we are all so connected to information all over the world thousand because of the internet, and the changes in technology have put everything at our fingertips. what bradley manning did is so not insane, is so not radical. and part of why we feel that we should put his story to music is to connect us as americans. what he did was all american in a way, it really is. and that's why he's an inspiring figure to us. so i'm going to play what i think, i mean, we're writing a piece about manning, and it's been called an opera. i wouldn't call it an opera because i think of operatic

singers and an opera house, and this is definitely not a piece that will be there. i wouldn't say musical because it's not broadway either. and i wouldn't even say that we're telling his story through a traditional narrative at all. um, so we're not really sure what it is exactly. we were going to use only primary source text until we went to the article 32 hearing and saw manning in person. and by the way, kevin wasn't able to get in because he's an actual journalist, but if you're a composer, you can get into the actual courtroom, so i was there. i still didn't get very much information from the government on that. but i did get to see manning in person, and that is something that really changed the way i thought about him. and since then we have decided that, um, that maybe mark who's a brilliant writer, and until then he was compiling texts and reading through so many of the war logs and chat logs and trying to come up with primary source.

we decided he should actually write, compose himself some original text which is text that inspired us having seen manning and having, dealing with him as a person. >> the first one you're going to hear is this -- when we actually staged this, the elaborate video stuff going on that will capture long twitter runs and various, you know, media sources of all different types. that's not ready yet, and this song is actually a little simpler. it only has text from adrian lambeau, the hacker who i'm sure a lot of you are familiar with, who outed bradley manning after chatting with him, more or less pledging confidentiality. he then, you know, turned him in to the government. and i was going to try to hold these up, but i doubt that they would be legible on tv or in the background. so the lyrics are you rediscover

the web i'm mapping, i know what it's like to be 22, scared and in shackles, i hope none of you have to make a choice like this. i didn't get manning arrested, he got himself arrested. and, finally -- >> i outed brad manning as an alleged leaker out of duty. i would never and have never outed an ordinary decent criminal. there's a difference can. [laughter] yes. and by the way, these are all tweets. the first one he tweeted before -- >> before he met manning. >> before he met manning. it says you rediscover the web, i'm napping. and there's this link to a picture of his laptop with a little, little logo that says rediscover the web. that's the logo and slogan. and it has two sleeping pills

next to the laptop. and this was just something on his twitter feed. i can't believe i opened the whole show with this because what we're doing, what we'd like to do is we want to place manning at the center for struggle of the freedom of information. and part of that is really brick out through -- bringing out through music and how we receive so much through tweets and blogs, our focus level has changed and the way that we receive information has changed. so a tweet that will link to another picture, you know? so, okay. [inaudible conversations] >> what ted said off mic is this is a demo, it's just computer

midi music, i guess, and the orchestrations and voices and so on will change for the actual. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ i've been there -- ♪ ♪ >> you can't come back down to -- >> what's the answer? >> i want to know why the universe exists. ♪ now i know who i am. ♪ oh, the shark has -- [inaudible] ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ ♪ i outed brad manning. ♪ i would never have ever, never outed an ordinary criminal.

♪ there's a deference -- difference. >> so i just want to explain a little bit about why we made that before we go on. i know it's very disorienting because of all the different source material, but the idea is that each one of those clips comes from something that was released in the media during the time, during the day of that tweet. so you have a bunch of different -- oh, sorry. i'm just talking. use the mic. okay. so you have a bunch of different clips that come from that time. so, um, one of them -- the thing that opens it which is very fitting, i think, is a clay aiken song, he did a cover of

"mack the knife" which, of course, is brecht -- [inaudible] so he's just saying, oh, , the shark. and you're left to determine what that means. each one of these clips might be accompanied with a flash of video, the nba finals was going on then, there was an interview with stephen hawking that was aired on abc at that time, that's when you hear him say i want to know why the universe exists. and, you know, a million -- the daily show at that time or whatever. to place you in sort of the mindset that your in when you are reading tweets or when you are experiencing information because there is so much, and it's flattened in a way, you know? so that's where that comes from. and i don't know if there's any questions about that one clip, because i know it's disorienting to hear without any video. or we could just go on. >> yeah, you know, i think ted was, you know, talking about how

we're trying to capture sort of the way we experience media and the world now, and i think there's a quote from david foster wallace where he's talking about the -- [inaudible] and really wanting to capture what he said, the way that, you know, life in this contemporary world feel on your skin. and that was sort of our starting point was, again, today all this challenging of primary source texts and try to capture the noise that is, you know, global communications networks. then when we went to fort meade for the first day of the article 32 hearings last december, i found that experience -- i think we both found it, you know, very interesting and surprising, and i think one of the things that i found interesting and powerful was i think as chase, as chase

talked about, like, a lot of the media portrayal of manning is that he's unstable, possibly, you know, crazy, very erratic. and, indeed, you know, he did behave quite erratically in a number of situations, you know, striking a superior officer. and so on. but the person i had expected to see as fort meade from all of those descriptions, the person who would be, you know, unstable and at the breaking point was not who i saw. you're nodding because i remember you were there as well. he was, bradley manning seemed on that day, and i'd be interested to hear from kevin, like, what his state has seemed like since this then, but he was extraordinarily composed, and i want to say i'm probably projecting a little bit, he

seemed almost accepting. and, you know, engaged without, i don't know, a kind of just very accepting energy about him that made me feel like this character who, you know, the media had created was not who he was and that there's something at the center, at bradley manning's core that he is a very strong person. and i know talking to some of the manning act vuses -- activists, i know that he, you know, he does draw strength from the effect that his actions have had -- alleged actions -- have had on the world, and, um, it was definitely something to behold, and that is when i think we decided to shift from a more assange or more generally-focused piece to

something that would track more closely with manning hiption. himself. >> so maybe we'll just close with a little bit, a little bit more music. um, this is a piece that the words mark wrote. this is something that was inspired by the idea of manning in solitary confinement, sort of reflecting upon what's happened. and so some of the source material that we used, that i used for the audio comes from things that took place while he was, while he was in quantity toe in-- quantico including like the royal wedding, for instance. and i like also using sports events. there was, there was the night that osama bin laden, where they announced that he was killed, there was a baseball game. and so people started chanting

usa at that. and i think -- i liked using the sporting events and the royal wedding because of the, because of the potency of using audience sounds and big crowd noise with someone who is in the opposite of that situation. and then also we used, um, audio from protests around the spring because, you know, as you know, the documents that were leaked -- especially diplomatic cables -- very much led to -- >> it's not led, they certainly had a strong influence and particularly in tunisia which is where i think this crowd sound noise comes from are. >> be yeah, yeah. >> okay.

♪ this life -- [inaudible] ♪ it disappears, it was never really here. ♪ [cheers and applause] ♪ ♪ it disappears, it was never

really here. ♪ ♪ [inaudible] ♪ ♪ it disappears, it was never really here.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [applause] >> thanks, thanks. and i just want to say again thanks so much for having us here. i'm humbled to be on a panel with actual journalists and scholars. so thank you. >> okay. we'll open it up the --

[audio difficulty] come up to the mic, and that's to accommodate c-span. we want to thank c-span for being here. come up to the microphone. >> hi, my name is jim, and -- [inaudible] in december -- can you hear he? >> [inaudible] >> i think one of the extraordinary things -- [inaudible] the physical presentation of bradley manning, and you actually touched on -- [inaudible conversations] >> okay? what you see when he comes into the courtroom, i, too, shared the same feeling of not knowing what was going to come into the

courtroom, a man living in solitary confinement, stripped naked for almost a year. he's a very tiny man. he's a very small, frail man. he's also very strong in that the body in itself is strong. and i think it's important to understand the way i do as a gay elder that this, in fact, is the spirit of gay spirit, of harry hay through the generations of what the best of gay male energy is about. it's about truth, it's about horn, it's about -- it's about honor, it's about peace. and bradley manning, for me, is the good soldier. and we should celebrate him as the good soldier, the peacekeeper, the person who tells the truth. now, understand that his defense are military people, and a lot

of this stuff about his homosexuality and about his gender identity has come up because of some of the things they have said in the context of a military trial. they are not considered positive, they're considered excuses for maybe why he did what he is alleged to have done. and i will tell you, if you're 5-1 and weigh what he weighs, and you are in the bastion of masculinity, expression is probably going to be perceived by all those other men and women as quite different. but internally, this is a strong person who stood up to the government. julian assange's lawyers were also there. they were not given any special privileges, as you know. they were sitting in the courtroom because they felt that this was a setup when julian assange would finally be put on trial, that they were going to

break this young soldier, and he was going to speak against him. and what we all saw and what you all need to tell your friends is this young soldier was not broken. how many of you could have done a year in solitary confinement, stripped naked, no contact and being demonized in the media as crazy, disturbed, dysfunctional? this is the way it was reported on pbs. you look at that ""frontline"" story which is really disgraceful reporting. anyway, i just wanted to frame it out even more. the most important thing is not his sexual orientation, but he is a whistleblower who told the truth and, therefore, should be a hero to all people. i was shocked to be in that demonstration outside of the courtroom after the day was over

that ron paul people were there. and it was very hard for me to to have this discussion with ron paul people. and i videotaped some of it. it was very strange. but, in fact, they got the basic, the basic reason that they were there is that this is freedom of expression and transparency, and that's what we all need to unify around. not about these other things that the tabloid media picks into sensation -- makes into sensational items. thank you. >> we have a few copies of chase madar's book, "the passion of bradley manning," in the back, they are $15. next person? i think -- >> all right. steve -- [inaudible] during the -- i served in the u.s. navy during the cold war in the vietnam era, and i was suspected of passing secret

documents. alternate identity obtained during the soviet on a naval base in california at san diego. and i can understand what bradley manning has gone through in terms of what you said, 18th century philosopher who said there's always going to be -- what'd he say, that this is the same thing wrapped up in a different package throughout the centuries. and the point is, there's always going to be people who go against the grain, speak truth to power, and there always will. and while they didn't find anything on me and i, i've been in prison, in solitary almost in the same conditions he has, and i don't compare myself to him. he's done a far greater thing than i have, and, um, there are times when you have to speak truth to power, okay? and, um, basically what i was doing in the navy, again, was

painting alternate identity documents just to get in under another name. they thought i was a benedict arnold traitor. but there's people in the audience who can identify with these, but, see, we didn't come in on the same ship, but we're still on the same boat together in terms of our experience. so if you have an idea for the bog or the -- blog or the web to aid in what he's doing, in understanding, okay, then welcome to it. thank you. >> thank you. i have a question about the play. i don't think it's at all airy fairy to do this. i think it's a way to communicate to people who are not in the choir, to people who could care less about it. but might really hear what you've done which is to create

the cacophony that we live in. and i think it's going to be brilliant t. but my question, my question is as you go through tons of material, what's the line that you go for when you try to put together the words, and you chose one hine -- line for that last song really, and then all the stuff around it. how do you just even start with the piles of information? is there something that you really, is driving through the story? >> well, i've done this kind of thing once before. i wrote a piece called katrina ballads because that was a very hard time for me, during hurricane katrina and afterwards, to watch what happened and not be there. so i took primary source texts from the media around that. and that -- so i'm trying to go

for the same kind of thing which there's so much more text here, and there's not -- hurricane katrina that and after that, you know, you saw these things in the media, and that was a small amount of time. and this is something that stands out over years and years. so it's more difficult. we've struggled with how to do that. because -- and that's a part of the piece too, you know? that's another thing, i was always surprised because when these war log came out, there is such a whole lot of damning information in there. and you think that stuff is out and, okay, people are now going to mobilize. of course that's not going to happen. but also it's just too much information for anyone to read. and, you know, like, um -- and so we rely on like the new york time or whatever to cull through it, and that's another -- >> [inaudible]

>> go ahead. >> i think we've had that problem, and i think there's a number of kind of rejected song lyrics that haven't worked. but, like, looking to the iraq war logs, online you can find it at google fusion, a chart that has every single death in iraq, and it lusts where it was -- lists where it was, how many people were killed, whether they were iraqi enemy combatants, coalition forces, etc. and, i mean, i was using, at that point i was just trying to cut through using geometric patterns and pull stuff out based on that. i mean, mathematical progressions because there's simply no way -- i mean, you know, i read many thousands of those, but ultimately part of the -- i think one of the central things of the leak is the sheer size --

[inaudible] ability to comprehend it. and glenn greenwald hits this pretty awesome on his bog or did at the time -- blog, for the media it's much easier to turn it into a personality-driven narrative, is assange a bad guy or a really bad guy instead of considering what is contained in those war logs and what is the, what are the, you know, moral and ethical dimensions and what does it mean about the united states and what we're doing over there. >> with yeah. so i think for us, ultimately, it's going to come down to a cross section between something that shows the breadth of the information and how we process it and the very words and phrases that, like, just move us as artists, you know? and we -- yeah. i'll leave it at that. i don't want to go on too long.

>> [inaudible] >> the first time i heard the music, i was a little bit taken aback, i wasn't sure what to make of it, the second time as i gave it more thought, it was like the collective, collective consciousness and that all these things are going on and that more than one person is going to have these ideas, more than one person not just bradley manning is going to have, wants to tell the truth, and it comes out in different ways. so it's interesting, what you're doing. but i'm actually here tonight because i'm a paralegal on the case of jeremy hammond. i have an article that talks about bradley, assange and jeremy, who they are, why you should care. he's in mcc new york right thousand. what we are trying to do as a

legal team is to establish -- we can't do the defense committee ourselves, but people, you people can. and we're also trying to maybe put together a bail package of some or sort or people that woud be interested in thinking about how we would present something to the court. jeremy's a young man who, although he does have a prior record for hacking, is a nonviolent young person who should be able to be out on bail and fight his charges. so i've got my card attached to some literature here, people to take, get in touch with me, and we'll send a network and try to not just do something for jeremy, but that's my main goal, to work on his behalf. educate the public and just bring us all together around this. so i appreciate what you're doing and thanks for hearing me. >> thank you.

>> um, i'm directing a play about bradley manning, and i wanted to ask about using primary sources, and i kind of wanted to ask the chat logs because when you were talking about quoting manning's sort of awakening of conscious in iraq, that's straight from the chat logs, and from what i understand it's kind of what the government has to go against manning. so the veracity of the chat logs and how that -- i mean, i personally don't feel like having a gender identity issue makes you crazy or anything. i think that it's an interesting characteristic, the chat log has so much information. and like you said about, um, being a gay spirit and being

strong as well, i mean, he says in the chat logs i'm not brave, i'm weak. and it's just i wanted to ask about how to approach the chat logs. and, you know, i don't want to help the government convict manning, but, you know, how do we talk about that? because it seems strange. like, it doesn't help their case, does it? people think it's a done deal, and they say, oh, he said this, this is -- he is this guy, and this is all true. so that's my question as an artist, because i find it dramatically quite compelling, but how do we approach it legally? and i have information about the play if anybody's interested. >> is that directed to me? i can give an answer.

>> yeah, please. >> i think that the most important thing that people need to know about the chat logs in this proceeding is that they began on a date in may around the 22nd, 23rd, i believe, and can they go on for five or six days, and then he's arrested. and what you need to know is that the hacker who is chatting with him named adrian lamo actually goes to the authorities after talking to him for only about a day, i believe, and turns bradley man anything and lets them know that he's talking to somebody he believes is in the military who is going to release classified information. now, what happens then? the federal authorities go and arrest him, and that's how it goes down? no. actually, he spends the next three or four days chatting bradley manning up and trying to get him to incriminate himself and talk about the different sets of documents that he might be releasing.

so some people have said this ts sort of amounts to entrapment. and i don't want to be a total conspiracy theorist here, but let's just say that in the sort of -- [inaudible] that we have seen the fbi use informants and infiltrators in cases over the past 10, 15 years for terrorism cases, let's just say that the sort of people who are using these cases usually fit the mold of people like adrian lamo who have mental efficiencies, histories of having -- [inaudible] let me just clearly state there's no evidence that this is a set-up by the government, but let me also just say that the person involved in helping to turn in bradley manning was very much on the radar of the government and had been a convicted felon. and so the government really knew what he was doing. and, in fact, there's a lot of debate as to how involved, you know, these chat logs and the

wired magazine and what's the role of editor kevin coulson in all of this, and what exactly is going on in and, in fact, i should mention that at some point during the hearing in december adrian lamo did say something that the feds believed was a lie or inaccurate, and i do believe ha in some way they were -- that in some way they were moving forward to impeach him as a witness. and that's one of the new aspects of the case that is incredibly weak s that when you put adrian lamo on the stand to talk about the chat log, the defense starts to -- [inaudible] and actually have a little bit more ground to challenge the government and hope, you know, when the government is just, you know, talking about what happened in the brig, their case sounds solid, but it's the part where he was turned in where it becomes suspicious. ..

so that the government can possibly use it to prosecute manning at this point. because the -- person asking the question said, this is a key part of the government case and without the chat logs, the cases is a lot more -- [inaudible]

[inaudible] >> he's asking if chase would comment on the chat 0 blogs. >> i don't have anything to add to what kevin said. i would tell you, i wouldn't worry about using the chat logs even though they have not awe tent candidated in court yet. i wouldn't worry about using them how you're hurting bradley manning chances at freedom. it it depends how you using them and portray badly manning. it sounds to me like you're a fair minded person. >> i'll also say one of the things i admire most about the book is the extreme artfulness he used the terms allegedly and verify.

any time anyone discussions -- manning gets used to . >> i have two quicks for probably chase or kevin. number one, how in commune cad dough is bradley manning. does he have visitors, newspaper, how much information does he get from the outside world. it this a possible future reality he's convicted of anything. how what is the next step? how is it different than the civilian court. is that the end of the line or is there something afterwards? >> well, are you going take it, chase? do you deposit the first one or take the first stab at it? i'll go next. >> okay. >> well, so i know that he was asking about whether he's being

held incommunicado it sounds like he's in a lot better conditions since he's been moved. i know, some people say he's been unhumanly treated. i don't have any evidenced to show he was abused. we should be happy about that. we conceal the way they handle prisoners. the lawyer hasn't raised any issues. let's presume that he is being treated pretty fairly. and i can quickly answer the second question, which is to say that case has the possibility of being appealed, and moved on to the supreme court at some point. but and maybe chase would have more to add about all of this. >>, you know, about court martial and how the system might differ from the civilian trial in the regular federal court system, i know many people have

expressed concern that because this is in military court it cannot possibly be fair, the infor instance being it would likely be more fair in a civilian courtroom. i don't think that necessarily the case. in the past ten years, we have civilian courts hand down harsh draconian sentences when it's related to national security. the holy land to dedication. the kid who was a student at brooklyn college who got bust for materially supporting terrorist because he was storing socks and raincoats in the apartment in london that so called friend of his who turned out to be an agent asked to be store these at the parking lot on -- apartment on the way he said it was going to be al qaeda training facility. the kid who said sure got twenty years.

and i think a military jury might be more serious about the duties when it comes to aiding the enemy charges and perhaps even be more ready to dismiss them for the nonsense they are. so i'm not entirely pessimistic about the fact it's a marshall. there has been undue command when barack obama declared him guilty. he shouldn't have said that. i don't think it's going to have a giant impact to be perfectly frank on how the jury deliberates. >> thank you. there is so many things about the trial that are completely disgusting and outrageous from the abuse of technology and jacking up of charges against the young man. the thing that -- i commended you for using your creativity to

get some popular, you know, concern up because he's floating under the radar in spite of the fact that the national lawyer guild and the center for constitutional rights is trying to draw attention to the trial which should be call admits trial and military justice is proving itself to be completely unjust. what i don't understand is that they're turning this into a side show and personality and president obama is right there in the front. he dismissed him. the way the young man being treated is pointless and stupid. it is. what i don't understand is his attorneys are not descrawing some attention to the fact that both the wars in afghanistan and iraq are completely ill loam and that according to the army field manual, somebody in military service not only has the right but the responsibility to expose illegal orders he's been given, you know, he's not only been put in a position to pass on the

so-called intelligence that has to do with breast breast -- blay assistantly illegal action. he is probably kicking himself for waiting so long to expose it to the public. but he finally brought it to the public light is his duty as a soldier. i don't know why he's not being given a defense he's acting legally but responsibly instead they're trying to make it seem like he is personally defective for acting the way he. that is completely outrageous to me. i don't understand it. it keep goings on and on. it seems that the powers that be, you know, have the fingers in dikes and, you know, whatever that, you know, that is going to get them. i really think that it would be worth everybody's while to bring some attention around to the material, you know, which is more important than even bradley

or julian and although they are martiers in the case, i think the material needs to be brought to the forefront because just in the last two days, you know, how many drone strooj strikes happens in pakistan. they were experiencing in supplies. they were droning them while drowns. i'm totally baffled by the way this is going. i'm glad you're doing something to bring some attention to him. thank you. >> kevin you want to take a first whack? >> it seems like little responsibility here to inform why the defense has taken the strategy so far and also share a little bit about what has happened which isn't that the defense hasn't had an opportunity make case. so i didn't really get into it because i was talking about the

process right now. in december what happened is called a article 32 hearing. and this is what every soldier who has charges gets to have basically puts a responsibility on the prosecution or government to prove that it has evidence for each of the charges that it wants to bring against you. so in the case of bradley manning, there were 22 charges on the table and in the december the prosecution presented all the evidence that it wanted to prove to that these 22 charges should be referred to a court marshall. they succeeded. in the process there was also an opportunity over the defense to call witnesses and to have people come and testify and they were supposed to be able to have an opportunity to do discovery and find evidence to help defend bradley manning in the future court marshall process. what happened is that the judge or the presiding investigative officer last name was almanza.

he decided that the majority of the witnesses being requested, we're talking about about 20 or 30,s that were on the list that the defense wanted to have. he decided that they could not be compelled to testify. it would take too many resources, the military didn't want their expense, these people couldn't be brought to testify in maryland. that was actually preposterous, there were two people on the list who were actually stationed at the fort there. they could have been made to come testify during the hearing. the factsd is the government didn't want them testifying using illegal maneuvering to prevent the defense being able to make a case. how many people testified? go people. only two defense witnesses came and made a case. but now there's actually an argument to be made this is an okay outcome because in the

hearing, the whole entire responsibility was on the prosecution. so the defense actually might benefit from not laying all candors on the table and showing what it has in presenting the conduct about the government and presenting maybe different evidence they have about how he was mistreated in guantanamo. how he may be reduce the sentencing. he may want to argue whether they want to argue different evidence about getting charges dismissed. this is something you might want to save until the trial process. it comes to the trial process so far, the defense has done a lot to argue on behalf of bradley manning. i also want to say that i think that what he is doing is just maybe smart. it's more restrain. i recognize that supporters have an issue with the way that he's not out there and being a showman and talking up the wars and everything. i also don't think it means that

he's barely representing bradley manning and admitting that bradley manning did the act because he's a whistle blower. in fact, during the hearing in december in the closing argument one of the few times we actually had straightway from the evidence in the case and talk about bradley manning as a person. he basically gave a summary and said that here was a young man with a strong moral compass and also added that in the early '20s you believe you can make a difference that's a good thing in your early 20s when your president says yes we can you believe that. and he read a quote and talk about the how sunshine is the best -- [inaudible] reading the [inaudible] he talks about transparency being the hallmark of a democracy, the ability democracy to be open with the public as a hallmark of our democracy and said history would ultimately be the judge of bradley manning his

client and read martin luther king jr. which i'll read in full. individuals that breaks a law that conscious tell him unjust and willing accept the penalty of prison and -- [inaudible] of the community over the injustice in reality expressing the highest respect for the law. now i don't believe that you read this quote in the middle of military court proceeding if you don't actually believe your client has contributed to whistle blowing and actually help people understand the truth of what has been going on. previously, saying in closing in my remarking here that the thing about the personality is something that i don't actually think works. i don't think it's going go very far. i don't believe that you can make the crazy gay defense and

the military will by it as a defense. i i believe that part of what he was trying to demonstrate that he did have mental health issues. which is not surprising. given the sort much people have this been enlisting in the military. we have a lot of working class men and women who are coming from background who are joining the military. they wanted to be able go to college and have a future. bradley manning fits the model. he has a background of issues with his family, of having trouble with the father leaving the united states to go live with his mother in the u.k. coming back here and trying to find a jog and struggling and finding a a future he could be satisfied with. his dad puts him up to the idea if you can get civility by joining the military. when he joined he department get any more stability than he had before. he didn't feel any more better

as a person than he did before he joined the military. he still had trouble with the being. now he was in an organization that made him hate the sexual orientation made him hate being somebody who actually many have said is possibly the a transgender person. he did not feel secure. he had outburst in the military he needed somebody he could talk to and confide in. that is not the place for somebody who has mental health issue in the military. no officer has time for that. the military is for killing people and going and launching military operations and being engaged in combat. you don't have time for the sensitive issues that are -- raised we see it with the soldier in the clad really a murder video who superior officer after he saved two

children he basically had to get the sand out of have vagina. and get the sand out of his pussy. this is the sort of attitude. the thing that was problematic for bradley manning as a person. this thing about personality, this is, by the way, a liberal argument. a right-wing argument is that bradley manning leaked classified information has violated security and transparency is something we can't have because government needs to exist in secrecy in national security. we sport it but he had mental health issues and probably shouldn't have been in the military in the first place. it is condescending toward bradley manning and other people in the military who may be grappling with the issues and may want to blow the whistle on something they have seen.

>> okay. were there any other commenteds? okay. one quick one on wick question -- wikileaks. follows on to what i said earlier in my case, about u.s. navy leaked secret documents during a cold war, a blog will be contraction of the words wikileaks called -- [inaudible] same thing has a spin-off in terms of this and related issues. in other words once the word gets out and [inaudible] said in the memoir will. once the tooth paste is out of the tube it's hard to get him back in again. like the man said there's multiple sources of information that cannot be in a networking that is to say being stopped or, you know, work from shall we say, you know, stop from

promoting and once it -- [inaudible] you have the person that can never unlearn it again. okay. thank you. >> would any panelists want to do a final summing up? >> okay. one more quick comment and then we'll close. i think it's important that the public realizes how the military has embraced many soldiers, many veterans, have come out and supporte bradley manning as a soldier, as a good soldier. in chicago recently when the military, the iraq veterans against the war through back their medals two or three of them. it's on youtube. it's a powerful statement. they mention bradley manning. the issue of transgender, or

gender expression why can't a good soldier who's gender expression be john wayne. i think it's a diversion. we should stop by playing into their hands without talking into it. i say it respectly to you, kevin. we get distracted with the tabloidization of who bradley manning is. he is a whistle blower and a hero. >> okay. once again, we have copies of the book the passion of bradley manning in the back for $15. we have three more sessions each monday this month. 18th and 25th spread the word. we hope you can come out. thanks so much to kevin gosztola, chase, and ted hearne. [applause] thanks to c-span for filming

this too. >> is there a non-fiction author or book you'd like to see featured? send us an e-mail or tweet us at twitter.com/booktv. here are the best selling non-fiction books according to u.s.a. today. a list reflects sales for the week of august 9. mary writes about the kayaking accident that almost took her life "to heaven and back." cheryl recounts the 11 mile hike along the pacific coast and explains how the travels changed her life and mental health. "forks over knives." followed by pop star one direction who recount their rise to fame in one direction dare to dream. the newest version of gallop strength assessment strength finder 2.07 at number five.

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cell phone laboratories. the book is about innovation, how it happens, why it happies and makes it happen. it is about why innovation matters and not just the scientist, engineered and corporate executives. the story about the lab even more specifically about life with the labs between the 1930s and 1970s isn't a coincidence. in the decades before the minds began my grating west many came east to new jersey where they worked in brick and glass buildings located on grassy sam us. s. at the peak of the reputation, they employed about 15,000 people including some 1200 ph.d. the ranks including the world's most brilliant and great men and women. at the time before google it -- it was worth a future where is now what we happen to call the

present was conceived and designed. for a long stretch of the 20th century the lab was the most innovative scientific organization in the world. >> many many ways we like to think happened here within the just a stone throw of this building, is it fair to think of the bell labs as silicon valley before silicon valley? >> i think so. i mean, it did all happen here. it happened there. it happened there a little bit before it happened here. and i think so. i mean, some of the things you see now in the valley, i think that the kind of freedom given engineers and researchers the small teams and attacking big problems within larger ecosystems that could support them with advice with money, with all sorts of other things. i think a lot of that goes back to the kinds of forwill of bell labs the near term thinking and long-term thinking as john said in the introduction and giving

an ton my to people who are capable. >> give us some sense that came out of the bell lab in the glory years. john mentioned the thicks here at the museum. but the list is impressive. rattle off if you would some of the things that grew out of that experience. >> sure. bell labs began in 1925, the research development wing of the telephone company. a lot of my book is focused on the post war years. the hay day began in 1947 with the the invention of the transistor. pretty soon after bill came up with the junction and the host other kinds. it gets after that a lot happened very quick succession. there was a silicon solar cell in 19 hay which is a precursor

for solar panels today. there was digital communications, information theory. looking at coding and channel capacity. commune indications satellites were originally designed and begun at bell labs the first was the echo satellite what was a passive satellite and tell star when was an active communication saturday lite. operating systems. c language came out of there. the ccdship which is the coupled device which is the fundamental unit for digital photography in the cell phones. the theory of the laser. a lot of semiconductor room temperature lasers came out of which are still essential to fiberoptic communications they're in every dvd player. it was a big list. >> pretty big list. [inaudible] and how did that happen to come out of bell? what's the significance of the

name? you know, what's in the name? how did that matter that would lead to that trail of all of those things you described. >> sure. a little bit of history probably helps. the bell labs was formed after the phone company had been around for about 45 years. at&t was a monopoly they controlled 90% of the telephone service in the united states. they were vertically integrated. they owned one of the largest manufacturing in the world. western electricity as well inspect the early years in the beginning of the 20th century. western electricity had the own engineering department and at&t the parent company had the own engineering department. there was a bit of tension between the two. in 1925, they agree they would create the stand alone lab bell laboratories as the sort of bottom box on the vertical stack of the company.

ideas would come out of bell labs, ideas and development. they would transfer to western electronics the manufacturing part of the company and eventually they would be deployed by at&t which controls the long distance lines as well as about 2 either parts or whole of the operating telephone companies. >> o. problems they had to -- you write a lot about it being a problem-rich environment. i want to spend some time talking about that. give us some sense about the early problems. there wasn't a dial tone. there were very basic problems. >> right. >> that had to be solved. >> everything. they use batteries. there was no dial to bees or ringers. there was no hang up things. the amount of detail that went into designing the operating headsets for the women at switchboards. teams of people would work on these for years. teams of chemists would work on the sheathing for cables. other teams work on the

insulation. there was a level of detail and amount of work that was pretty much endless. the problems kept proliferating. was it sort of a first time when science was deployed to solve those sorts of product problems? there was. there was small research department at the beginning. bell labs was not a huge -- people in one big department. there was about 10 to 15% of them working in basic research and applied research. the vast majority were working in development. they were looking at near term. mostly engineers where most of the science ph.d. were in the research department. it started out very small. in the book i talk about how it's great success with the repeater tube. the early vacuum tubes that could amplify phone signals in the early part of the 20th