avenues. we had a long waiting lists of people who wanted to come this evening we stayed here a kensington town hall. it is a good venue. the motion before the house this evening is "this house believes that whistleblowers makes the world a better place." it is a special issue of "the new statesman" on freedom of information. i amleased to say she is here with us. congratulations. [applause] i know you do not want to hear me speak in so i will introduce the speakers. each speaker will have no more than seven minutes to make his case. i shall encourage interactions between the speakers, interjections in the form of points of information in the

classics oxford union debate. could you step forward clayton fisher? [applause] julian assange. [applause] you must recognize that gentleman. [applause] opposing the motion, we have sir david richards. [applause] we have -- [applause]

and we have douglas murray. [applause] no heckling yet, please. hey few words from each of our speakers. clinton fisher is the head of transparent unit. he brought to be papers. [applause] our second speaker proposing the motion who needs no introduction, but i shall childless i'm. -- but i shall try out all the same julie. julian assange has facilitated more acts of whistleblowing than

any other individual, leavin. leading american politicians have called for his assassination. he has written an article which he describes wikileaks the intelligence agency of the people. i think that is a rather nice phrase. we have a senior editor politics. he writes about politics, economics, world affairs, and when he is not right thing, he tends to be speaking. you may have seen him on other political programs. before joining "the the new statesman," he worked for channel 4. writing aand your wed biography of mr. miliband. we have sir david richards opposing they motion.

30 years' service as a diplomat, in baghdad, brussels appeared in 2003, david returned to become the u.k. special representative to iraq. the head of defense and intelligence at the fo. he was director of defensive information warfare within the ministry or the department of defense. he was responsible for the security of more than 40,000 classified intelligence in 55 locations around the world. a journalist and recently moved to become assistant director of the henry jackson society, he is

also a ubiquitous media commentator. i think you do to be in new york this evening. is that right? i'm very grateful that you arrange your flight to be here this evening. can i ask you to come forward and speak? [applause] thank you very much. something that may be quite exciting to do before you speak, who of you here have a view of the motion? "in this house believes the whistleblowers make the world a safer place" is the motion. by a show of hands, those of you who would support that motion. "this house believes whistle blows with the world a safer place." only a few of you oppose it. you have a lot of work to change their minds. which you would like to abstain for now could there are just as -- for now?

>> it is a pleasure to be here in london. good afternoon could i have been asked to participate because, like my colleagues, i do believe like many of you in the value of whistleblowers. as speaking for myself and the aljazeera transparent unit, i believe that whistleblowing is a vital effort in this day and age now more than ever. we live in a time of and presidented -- of unprecedented government secrecy and wrongdoing. we have the phenomenon of an and toward collusion between the mainstream media organizations and government which have surrendered a lot of journalistic principles of keeping government in check and holding them to account, whether it be because of political leanings or they want to get invited to the next christmas party. i do not know why. many of you see this in the

reporting on television and in the newspapers. it is a distressing trend in this era of journalism. at the very issue of whether or not to support whistleblowers is the value and the principle of anonymous speech. i am representing aljazeera, but i am also in american. we have a very rich tradition of anonymous speech. at the beginning of our country, in discussion over the federalist papers, in discussing what form of constitution we should have, people posted critiques on the future that government should have. it did not want retaliation and they did not want people to hurt them for having public discourse. time and again, the u.s. supreme court in the united states has upheld the value of anonymous speech, recognizing that it

release inhibitions, break taboos, and come in fact, when it is very of using -- very amusing about using anonymous speech is that government has nearly perfected anonymous speech. let me give you a clear example. oftentimes, foreign government, the united states government, uses the media to help make policy go over well with the public. how many times did you see, in the run-up to the iraq war, a senior intelligence official speaking to this organization or talking about wmd? when it serves their interests, they have no problem taking a pay phone, calling the journalists, and it happens all the time, and passing along their information. why? because the powerful can. they make the rules, right?

now the attack the leaks and disclosures and the anonymous sourcing. it is wrong. this is the future of journalism, when we have the unprecedented wrongdoing and the inclusion of so many journalists organizations with these governments. they take massive amounts of information and put it out on the internet. at aljazeera, we recognize that trend. we set up, in recent months, the transparent unit because we want a way to receive these tips and have a channel, securely, for people to come to us and pass the information along if we're not able to obtain that information through traditional journalism. we're not a town crier organization. we do not publish immediately. we authenticated. we give it context and new ones. on tv, our challenge is to turn documents into television that informs the public to make

better choices for our viewers. we did that with the palestine papers in january turned we parted with "the guardian." there were 1700 documents of secret negotiations between israelis, palestinians, and the americans. we took a lot of heat for doing it. but we stuck to our guns. we faced our first challenge, which is what to withhold? what to do not put out there? we are under tremendous pressure by the british government to hold publication of an alleged mi officer to propose a sick rendition program to take mid- level home loss operatives and to in turn them with eu funding. this is a plan that is illegal under international law. we had a rigorous discussion inside about whether or not we disclose the individual's name.

he was disclosed thatas a britih consul. it turned out that he was semi-6 -- it was mi-6. when you get rid of "my country to is of the" objection that all journalists want to have, it is a liberating feeling. we put it out there and guess what. the world cup turning. no one was hurt. the end of -- the world kept turning. no one was hurt. nigh.nd was not people do not benefit -- is not of any benefit to put the information out there if you do not explain to people why it matters. like wikileaks, many are

journalists. i thought about what they have said about him in particular and about wikileaks and the impact it has had on our profession. i come away with two thoughts. one is sort of a more basic human critique, which is they are hitting on him because he got a scoop that they did not. if he was an american or an established organization, they would be talking about what awards they would be giving him and editors would have discussions about the appropriateness of what they put out there. a lot of the organizations, secondly, to get back to my earlier statement, they do not have the editorial cajones to publish. let me take you back to 2004 when "the new york times" came up with -- they found a new information that the bush administration was

surreptitiously eavesdropping on u.s. citizens. the bush administration asked them to hold publication until 2005 after he was safely reelected. the people will know what not to put out there. we see this in egypt, when the going to the ministry of interior. the people did not go put it out there because it violated privacy. the mass knows what to put it out there. we should be entrusted with that. >> thank you, clayton. >> thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you. [applause]

even before the vote, the preliminary vote, i realize that those of us who have been asked to oppose the motion have our work cut out. we will do our best. at the risk of making the opposition worse, at the outset, i conceded that come in certain circumstances, there is a place for whistleblowing. when other remedies that failed or there'd -- or there are issues of legality, whistleblowing is justified. many least not for wrongdoing, but for political advantage because they disagree with policy or because they believe that government is not in the business of keeping information secret.

there are genuine examples of whistleblowing that are buried in confidential material. the whole government to account, the public needs to be informed. most democracies have agreed to the need for greater transparency and offer public access for more information. the growth of judicial review has also played a huge part in the opening of the workings of the british government, including the most secret. what i would argue here is that there are good reasons why government wish and our duty- bound to maintain confidentiality in some areas of their work. freedom of information is not the same as information free- for-all and the right to all this not necessarily mean the right to know everything all the time.

it is worth recalling exemptions built-in to the freedom of information act, including national security, defense, international relations, and the formulation of government policy. these captions may be broughbro. it is not too far to realize why security and defense would require some secrecy. just as an important to our safety is the work done by the security and intelligence agencies. since 9/11, there has been one terrorist attack in britain leading to major loss of life. but those agencies have prevented a number of other tax which, in one case at least, -- of other attacks, which, in one case at least, would have led to others.

the work of these agencies have to be secret. they cannot work if their forces and methods are exposed to public view. to be effective, diplomacy, too, sometimes requires confidentiality. the leak of state department cables -- >> do you think the people in this room have the right to know that un diplomats were being bugged by the u.s.? [applause] >> there is a lot that i can say about that. having worked at the un, i know that if i want information from a u.n. employee, i go and ask for it. usually, that you an employee gives it to me. they made fools of themselves

over that. i would entirely agree. but you have picked out the only exception. [applause] the leak of the state department cables have not shown the u.s. government up to its neck in conspiracies and cover-ups. what has been revealed, by and large, is the normal traffic of diplomacy, information that governments decide to keep confidential. international relations will always be more difficult if the bargaining process becomes public. at the un security council, resolutions are public, attacks are public, explanations are public, but the negotiation itself takes place behind closed doors because resolutions would not see the light of day if that were the case.

this is based on the strategic arms reduction treaty and they wanted to find a way to the difficulties that thefaced. they wanted the chance to talk frankly and to build trust. they needed the chance to talk frankly and build trust. that is impossible if confidentiality cannot be respected. without frank speaking, the quality of information on which governments must base their decisions deteriorates. that is not, in my view, the recipe for a safer world. the public needs to be properly informed. the government's need to kp some aspects confidential to protect its citizens and

function effectively. if the right balance is not being struck, the democratic way to address this is not by whistleblowing. in some exceptional circumstances, it must be justified. we should improve the democratic and constitutional processes. parliament, the media, the courts, and rights of individual citizens operating within the framework established by law. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you for that. this talk is about not whether sometimes information should be kept secret by those tasked to

do so. of course it should. the question is whether whistle- blowerand their actions make the world a safer place or not, or to rephrase the question, with the absence of whistle- blowers make the world a more harmful place? we just heard this last speaker saying that when considering a balance between the desire of certain groups and iividuals for secrecy and those that coerce individuals at the point of a gun, then the rights of us to know what our government is doing, this is a matter for the

courts. this is a matter for the democratic process. this is something to be ironed out between us and cast into law. how would we know whether the secrecy process is working for us or not? the only way we can no weather information is legitimately kept secret is when it is revealed. all systems of censorship have that problem and coded within them. because of that original sin of censorship, they all must be held to outside account. the way that has been traditionally done is by courageous individuals who are privy to information that they

believe the public is interested in. they are putting it out at substantial personal risk. the public bend, if b. media -- the media is an honest conduit, the public decides whether to report those actions or not. perhaps we should talk about some of those actions. if we are no talking about what actually happens in the world, what are we talking about? we are talking about myths that exist in our own heads and hypothetical. i want to look at some situatns in history that have led to war and perhaps have

stopped war. a war between people certainly does not make the world a safer place. the absence of a war or prevention of a war must be the old met in making people safer. a war was triggered by the gulf of tonkin incident. a lie about a u.s. boat off the coast of vietnam, which the unit states government claim had been attacked by the vietnamese. that claim was a lie. there were people privy to that claim that knew it was a lie that came forth in the past 10 years to talk about how it was a lie.

if it had come forth and broken the interpretation of what national security secrets are, bradley manning is alleged to have done, that war may never have happened. similarly, the disaster that has been the iraq war, we all found out about dr. evidence, -- doctored evidence. when did we find out? the war had already started. why did we find out after? was there no one concerned in the planning who felt that it was wrong? of course there were. the fears that these individuals had, the fears of bei imprisoned and jailed for revealing that information to you, kept them secret until

later on in the process. much later on. this year in great britain, we are seeing an inquiry into that process. the chilcutt inquiry. wikileaks released a cable on this inquiry. this was telling the u.s. ambassador at the time of the inquiry, do not worry we are going to protect all of your interests here. similarly, there was a time in 2007 when there were serious moves afoot to get up to war with iran. most of you rember th feeling. -cons were pushing

through their mouthpieces in america and the united states, pushing for that war. people can afford and said, do not do what i did. he was the leaker of the pentagon papers. do not do what i did and wait four or five years until after the vietnam war had started. do not wait to come forward until this war starts. sources did me forth. sources who saw the planning for that war. as a result, there were moves against it. the sources have n been exposed. they did their best.

they may have changed history and they went back to their jobs and continued on. that is that model that we want to promote as much as possible. whistle-blower's based difficulties. it is rare that they end up in prison they often lose their jobs and their employment prospects. when they can speak anonymously, they can change history. they can be proud of themselves and their acts and continue on. in008, the u.s. military classified rules of engagement for iraq. the rules for the u.s. army and its air support have to use when conducting battles in iraq. we went to the "the new york times" to get that out.

one section of it spoke about how the u.s. military could crossover the border of iraq without senior authorization at the commander lovell when chasing someone in a vessel or suspected terrorist or a number of other suations. most wars have started as a result of border disputes. a soldier crossing over into another country's territory. you could see the alleged fabricated gulf of tonkin incident as one of those. the iranian foreign ministry held a press conference and said that this was unacceptable. that this was unacceptable.