Thread by @JuanLPassarelli

John Goetz on the stand. He is the Senior Editor of Investigations for NDR which is German Television. He also worked at Der Spiegle. He worked investigating alongside WikiLeaks on the disclosures #Assange is being indicted for in this case.

Thread:
#AssangeCase

Goetz describes the partnership: We discussed that we would all be partners in researching the material but each outlet would do its own stories on the files. This was very unorthodox, it was fascinating and very unique at the time.
#AssangeCase

What did the Afghan War Logs contain? They were a fascinating insight into the day to day of war. I made a story on Task Force 373 which was a death squad in Afghanistan. In the documents you could follow their activities which was very new.
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Goetz: At that time I remember being very irritated by #Assange's constant insistent that we kept data secure, and secure communications, and encrypted chats and that everything was handled with absolute care. #AssangeCase

#Assange was concerned with the technical aspects of how to finding names on the material so that they could be redacted and that no one would be harmed. All the partners were on board with this.
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We interviewed #Assange on what the harm minimization process and all the steps that were taken to make sure no one would be harmed as a result of the publications.
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Goetz: The White House was contacted by the media partners and it was communicated that 15 thousand documents would not be published and that any extra help in harm minimization was welcomed.
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Goetz: There was a glitch in the publication process and Der Spiegle published first followed by the Guardian and the New York Times and finally @wikileaks published last.
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Goetz: The redaction process developed over time, in the Iraq War Logs were redacted to the point that the US government had released some documents with fewer redactions than those that WikiLeaks published.
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Goetz: describes how the WikiLeaks documents helped him to find the CIA kidnappers and torturers of German Citizen Khaled El-Masri and how these documents helped in the prosecution in the European Court.
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Goets: continues by saying there was also a Cable that said that the US threatened Germany to not prosecute this Khaled El-Masri case because there would the "serious repercussions" to the German-American relations.
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Goetz: David Lee and Luke Harding published a book where a password was mentioned. There was a breakdown in the relations the Guardian and other partners.

The password he is talking about is the password which lead to the publication of all the cables unreacted by a third party

Prosecution starts by asking that that WikiLeaks published all the unredacted cables.
Goetz: You have the chronology wrong. The cables were first published by third parties including a well known website called cryptome published the documents first.
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Lewis is arguing that a number of cables were published a week before.

Those cables were all classified unclassified.
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Lewis: Names were revealed.
Goetz: I don't know that names were published.
Lewis: yes but some of the documents had been labelled "Strictly protect".

As Lewis cannot prove anyone was hurt by the publications, he's trying to go for the National Security angle which is very week.

Goetz: WikiLeaks had invested a lot of resources, money, time, staff on another year of rolling out stories on all the countries in the world. They had a major effort to have controlled publications country by country.

They did not want to have them all published.
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Lewis: Regardless of intention, WikiLeaks had published all the documents by 2nd September.
Goetz: well they re-published what Cryptome had already published.
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Goetz: The statement condemning #WikiLeaks by media partners concerning the re-publication of documents was made before all the facts were known. The story that the Guardian published the password that lead to the eventual publication of the cables by Cryptome wasn't known.

Lewis: Did WikiLeaks ever publish the 15 thousand Afghan War Logs that were redacted?

Goetz: Not that I know of.
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Lewis is asking about #Assange's humour and him being a selfless father.

Goetz: Sure, he has a sense of humour, I didn't really focus on his humour. I have never seen him around children so I can't comment on that.

Lewis abruptly ends his questioning. Weird!
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Fitzgerald: Lets talk about the period when the cables being published in a redacted form. Were any names being published?
Goetz: No, there was a rigorous process of redaction that Wikileaks put in place. They had a year of publication planned on all countries of the world.

Fitzgerald: were all cables classified?
Goetz: No.
Fitzgerald: What does "strictly protect" mean? Were names marked strictly protect?
Goetz: I remember that it was for the cable, not for names.
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Fitzgerald: Were there cables marked Strictly Protect during the time of controlled release?
Goetz: Yes.
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Fitzgerald: In August, the week prior to all cables being published by Cryptome, were the cables released by WikiLeaks marked Classified or Unclassified.
Goetz: I believe that they were unclassified.
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Fitzgerald: Are you aware that anyone who has been hurt by the publication of these documents?

Goetz: I believe this was all covered in the Manning trial where it was concluded by the Government that no one was hurt by these publications.

Goetz: Cryptome published the unredacted cables first, I don't think that there is any dispute on this. WikiLeaks just republished it.
I was a witness #Assange's attempts to try that the unredacted material wouldn't get out.
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Jennifer Robinson is going to give evidence next.
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The defence and prosecution are discussing the admissibility of the evidence of the El-Masri. The defence argues that the prosecution accepted into evidence and the prosecution says that it never did.
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The prosecution is still attempting to suppress a statement on el-Masri -- he is a victim of CIA kidnap & torture.

Background here:
#AssangeCase
aclu.org/blog/national-…