the the . 2 2 for most national security whistle blowers, the most common and consequential dilemma is what to do when you become aware of waste, fraud, abuse, or illegality. but you know that exposing it will put you in legal jeopardy. this is a particularly tough question in the united kingdom, which has a draconian official secrets act. do you do what you know in your heart is the

right thing and go public. de risk spending the rest of your life in prison? or do you put your head down and just remain silent? i'm john kerry aku and this is the whistle blowers, the national security whistle blowers. catherine gun is quite literally a hero of gifted linguist. she was hired by britons g. c h q. to translate mandarin intelligence intercepts into english in early 2003, she read an e mail from the chief of staff in the american national security agencies regional targets division in which he asked for help in bugging the united nations offices of 6 countries that were members of the un security council, they were angola, bulgaria, cameroon, chile, guinea, and pakistan. and the purpose of the operation was to determine these countries

potential positions on an american invasion of iraq. the bugging contravenes the vienna convention on diplomatic relations and was thus illegal. catherine made a copy of the e mail, gave it to a friend who had access to the media and put it out of her mind until more than a month later, when she saw it on the front page of the observer, newspaper british authorities immediately began an investigation and a few days later, catherine told her supervisor that she was the source of the report. that's when her long nightmare began. we're pleased to have catherine gun with us on the show. catherine, welcome. a. hi st. john's. glad to be here. yours was some of the highest stakes whistle blowing possible. it was over the issue of war and peace. take us back to that day when you 1st saw that, and i say e mail. what was going through your mind? how was it that you made the decision so quickly to go to the media with the information? okay. wow. in around september 2002. i was

invited along with other was colleagues at g, c, h q, to go to the us for what conference and it was in san diego. and as part of the conference on one of the free days, we were invited to go on a us aircraft carrier and tour it. and while we were there, we store lots of action on, on both the aircraft carrier and lots of young marine navy personnel running around getting ready. and we said, i, you know, when i looked at these young guys and looks at my colleagues and i thought, wow, you know, they looked so young and even though we were not twenties, the guys looked really young. and i, i said to my colleague, i was like, what do you think they're up to? and so he asks them and they said, oh ma'am, we're getting the shit ready to set sail to the gulf. and we so really and they

said, yeah, we're going out to work some iraqi. yes. and i was just completely taken aback by that because you know, iraq, although it had just started to be mentioned in the news as a possible belligerent by the us and u. k, it was still kind of under the radar and it made it immediately made me pick up my is and from that point onwards, i started looking into it and paying attention to what was going on. and i went and bought a couple of books from a bookshop that outlines the whole story saga, iraq over the last previous 1020 is where it had been on the sanctions and so on. and where the un sanctions people had actually resigned in, um opposition to you know,

the genocidal sanctions and so on. and how there really wasn't any evidence that iraq was a belligerent tool or a threat to the us. and then you'd say, and there's no allies. and so i realized, you know, the media was lying, basically, everything was a propaganda. and so when i saw that email, it just basically pulled the curtains from behind, you know, and showed the background at the santa and i so wow they, you know, they really are serious about more. they don't actually want to paste, they want to invade iraq and they need a un sanctions to give them legitimacy. a, sorry un resolution to give them the just mercy. and the hope that email just shot me and get me and immediately was like a red flag. and i saw it. everybody knew about that. that was below the case open. you were arrested almost immediately and you spent

a night in jail. it took the government 8 more months to charge you with a crime and you were charged under the official secrets act, which in many ways is far more difficult than the american espionage act. tell us about the official secrets act and about what the penalties that you were facing. uh well the official secrets act has various inspirations and the most recent was drafted in 1999. and it deals with um, basically the intelligence services, the defense industry, all civil sevens basically. and anything really that is a classified or is assumed to be classified. and although intelligence and defense staff basically just by working for the government under the official secrets act, in fact, every one basically in the u. k, is under the assumption that if they expose any type of secret that is that

they could potentially be charged. however, that's not happened as far as i know, it's basically only intelligence staff and defend staff. and basically it's a restriction, it's a, it's a bit into for exposing anything, anything about the government, it's behavior activities and so on. the maximum penalty at the minute is 2 years and and although they are currently, it's still not very debated. it hasn't been debated at length, but there moves to to strengthen and actually make it even more more draconian. the official secrets act by potentially increasing the extent of joe sentenced to 14 years maximum sentence. and in addition,

there is an attempt to also include the handling of sensitive and confidential material even by journalists. so it would mean that they could potentially be tried for breaches of official secrets act as well, which, which would basically criminalize investigative journalism essentially you went to trial on february 25th, 2004. but within 30 minutes of the start of the proceedings, the case against you was dropped, because the prosecution refused to offer evidence against you. your attorney's intended to argue that trying to stop in illegal war of aggression outweighed your obligations under the official secrets act. but they never got the chance to make that argument. the government just dropped the case. what happened there was it that prosecutors were afraid to exp. busy as classified information and they decided just to cut their losses. yeah. well it's a mystery to,

to everyone on that day really because, you know, i can fast i to can fast and um, so basically that, you know, they had case closed, more or less. um i think there was a multitude of reasons. firstly, there was an election coming up in the u. k. so in 2005, it was a, a general election. and tony blair actually got re elected or the labor party one at any rate. and tony blair was once again prime minister and, and so i think they were very, very concerned about a highly political trial that would put the iraq rule at center stage of the trial . and tony blair's specifically tony pledge involvement and

secondly, i think that was still classified pieces of informational confidential pieces of information which had yet to come out, such as the attorney general's legal advice, which we had actually the legal team had asked for as part of the bundle of information that we wanted the government to expose in order for us to make my case . and because the legal advice had changed, the attorney general's legal advice had changed prior to him presenting it to parliament. and that didn't late until a full year off to my case was dropped. and you know, i think there are other reasons as well as such as potentially and my case actually, you know, the jury potentially finding the not guilty. and then that would create

a process precedent and the little web by the official secrets act would have a potential defense because currently as it stands, there is no public interest defense. there's no, we're still blowing kind of protections for the official secrets act breaches. and so the only defense which could potentially have been opened would have been on the you know, a successful case had my case, been successful in finding me not guilty. katherine, i'm interested in what the year 2003 was like for you for many of us who have blowing the whistle on national security issues. the period between arrest and trial is a nightmare. tell us about the pressure that you were under and how did the british government treat your husband during this period? he was not a government employee and he had nothing to do with your whistle blowing. yeah, that's right. it was very difficult time actually for for me i was yeah,

i was quite young. i was in my mid twenties. we recently just got married. my husband is attack is code and he had applied for assign them in the u. k. but it had been rejected by the british government that was prior to we got married. and so when we got married it was partially the reason was to enable him to stay in the u. k with me without being deported. however, you know, we were told, even at that time, the marriage only delayed the process of deportation and that eventually, at some point a would be ported. and that actually happened while i was still waiting to hear whether or not actually no, it was off to, they charged me after they actually um, charge me

a breeching official secrets, act that uh, that they did try to, to, to port him from the country which um, it was actually a silver lining to this whole case because had i not actually been facing criminal persecution with my passport confiscated and so on. i think he probably would have been deported. so it was, it's kind of ironic situation, but the, my criminal case actually prevented him from being deported, although they did try and, and just being sort of out of whack at the, until i was actually charged. i was anonymous. so nobody knew what i done and so i felt very lone and i didn't know who to turn to. and i really yeah, as you say, it was a sort of limbo where i just didn't know how to get on with my life basically until

they charged me. and then that sort of hung over me for about 4 months until they dropped the charges. so it was a very peculiar social case. we're speaking with british national security was a blower, catherine gun. stay with us. we have a lot more coming up. 2 2 the look forward to talking to you all that technology should work for people. a robot must obey the orders given by human beings except we're so shorter is that conflict with the 1st law show alignment as a patient. we should be very careful about visual intelligence, and the point obviously is to trace a trust rather than ship the various job with

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the welcome back to the whistle blowers, i'm john carrie alco were speaking with british national security was a blower, catherine gun, who revealed that the american n. a say was bugging the phones of united nations security council members to try to determine their position on a potential invasion of iraq in 2003. catherine, thanks again for being with us. thanks. as soon as you went public with your revelations, you guard support from some big names in the united states, including the reverend jesse jackson, the godfather of national security whistle blowers, daniel ellsberg, and congressman dennis percentage did any of that help your situation. and what about in the u. k. what was your support like there are definitely definitely help me. um,

because as soon as my name was out as soon as i been charged and i was more or less a public sega and i got a huge amount of support, particularly from the us. so yeah, i down alice but reached out to me personally. and um, and it was just an amazing um, amazing support for me. um and uh, and lots of people the institute for public accuracy including journalists who say any and norman solomon, they um, you know, they really campaigned on my behalf and helped to get a lot of people interested in my case. so i got hundreds and hundreds of supports of emails from people in the us. all basically, you know, um yeah, hailing me for what i done. and so it was, it was really good. you know, i was just overwhelmed by the,

the support i got from the us that wasn't the same type level as co ordination in the u. k. and i, and i didn't actually feel like i was getting any support from people in the u. k. um no, as far as i, i know, no political figure, no public. so i guess stood up and you know, publicly spoke up in my defend um and so yeah, it was, it was principally from the u. s. and the fact that i got my, the most support, one of the things that is often surprising for national security whistle blowers is that the mainstream media are not supportive of our whistle blowing despite the fact that in many ways they're the ones who are the recipients. of the information, the observer published your information. how did the observer and other british outlets treat you as a whistleblower where they support is? did they help you in any way? is you prepared to go to trial about it was the guardian group,

the observer being parts of the guardian group. so that broke the story. and um, so at one point they did suggest that they would pay for a pay for my lawyers. basically, this was before i had decided on who you know, who would represent me. i had several offers. one of them, as i say, was a and also by the guardian to pay for my lawyers. but, you know, i, i didn't want to be such a tied by the apron strings to a newspaper group. so, and i did end up going for liberty, which is a campaigning organization. much like a c, l, u, and the us. and they were absolutely enough of fantastic. they were really great.

they sort of, they were my p r team. they were my basically, um, legal advice team and, and they blocked any type of unwanted attention that i may have had from people who just wanted to say horrible things to me. i the media apart from the guardian. yeah, i mean, as i say, i didn't get any sorts of outspoken political support from the u. k. at that point, even from and he will groups and it's possible they may have reached out and i rejected them because i think at the time i was very wary of becoming a sort of a light thing point for any type of um,

campaigning or pressure group i, i didn't want to be a so once of about to would use by anybody else for the alteri and motives. however good. they may have been so so yeah, i maybe did actually push away support this height. i could have had and one way or another way. a highly regarded feature film was made about you and your case starting keira knightley. a book was written about you called the spy, who tried to stop a war catherine gun and the secret plot sanctioned the rock invasion. daniel ellsberg said that your whistle blowing was more important than his revelations of the pentagon papers. that's all very high praise. but how is the british government treated you in the intervening years? and were you ever able to establish a career again? uh, well, i think the british government has essentially wiped me, you know, of the us out of the boats in terms of the eros. so i was

never consulted, i offered to give evidence that the child caught inquiry and that was 10 down. so my evidence was never presented at the ciocca ciocca inquiry into the illegal invasion of iraq am. and subsequently it just doesn't come up. it doesn't come up a tool in any type of a rocky timeline. you know, it's just, it's, it's a non, a non event. it's almost like it's been wiped up, wiped off the, you know, the history folks that it didn't occur. and i think this is very disturbing because in fact that email the iris revealed, you know, a lot of people sort of a very blessed day about these sorts of things said, oh wow,

this goes on all the time. you know, what's the big deal? everybody knows the u. n is spied on, you know, but i think there was a lot of angles. you could go into that email to a lot of digging. they could have gone into the background of that e mail. i'm a why and how when, who and basically none of that was done no further investigations were done into it . um, and it seems like it was the whole thing was a cover up basically it was uh they, they needed to shut it down and they did, they did by dropping the charges against me. they, they did shut it down. what advice would you give to somebody considering blowing the whistle within the national security community, especially in the u. k, where they would have to contend with the official secrets act? that's a very, very tricky question. um uh, because you know,

things are very different from today then they was even when i blew the whistle, you know, 20 years ago, i did it with absolutely no idea of what i was getting myself into. i was not a politically motivated person, a total. i never dreamt of becoming a whistle blower and i just did it in a sort of instant and one moment of a kind of zeal with no real thoughts to what, what was going to come next. i didn't seek any type of legal advice or, or any a, get anybody on board who i knew i took rely on. and i think that's, that's a very risky thing to do. so i think nowadays there's so many groups and people that you can find in various ways.

um, who will protect your identity? well, um give you the advice um, i mean look at cmo hash for example, you know, i mean he has these leaks such as the, the in from us and, you know, stream bombings and, you know, nobody is aware of the way his source is coming from so he's protecting his sources, guessing the information out. and i think really in the u. k, that's your only option these days because as us intelligence or defense whistle blower, there is no legal defense for your whistle blowing. and it's an absolutely appalling stage of us, as i'd like to thank our guest catherine gun for joining us and thank you to our

viewers. one of america's founding fathers, james madison said that, quote, freedom may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power and quote, he was right when he said that nearly 250 years ago. and those words hold true today. that's why we need people like catherine gun until next time. thanks for joining us. 2 the voltage to such as was for the right. so see what's printing was are out there. so some douglas, just so basically of course we need the last name was needed. read it 1st. and when we used

to imagine we have some more more than one by us or someone. what was this? we went to the the yes or no. both countries got to call the the european agenda is dave about the, to the change of the, the 1st section of the security in europe. but now they can see their invest security on the basis of the confrontation. that was not to say plastic phones. the main idea about the western counselors to until the 20 ethical, the

never be of victory for russia, slaves, and see where you're still waiting for them. but to locate me of this as a war between russia and the united states made it comes to the name of the forces are and you're not in your russian forces. american forces are here to defend nato allies. nato escalates even more indiscretion, military operations becoming more bills of sounds like the social is much to see if i see the us custody is scheduled to be a live so easily issue a unique and east of me the most then let's

finish the sewage there. i see the prominence russian rights and politicians a copy left and is wounded and his driver killed in a compliment in western russia so far as he just called a sat roadside. also this hour the did say to the streets of london in protest against the monarchy and with the coordination of king charles at the assist 100 of children and the case former culminate nigeria . so if i'm record rates of non nutrition supporting to of worrying you reports the sunday evenings here in moscow.