1 00:00:02,381 --> 00:00:11,413 *36C3 preroll music* 2 00:00:19,215 --> 00:00:25,060 Herald: Okay. As you probably know, Julian Assange, as well as his colleagues and 3 00:00:25,060 --> 00:00:30,450 friends and associates, were extensively surveilled during his time at the embassy. 4 00:00:30,450 --> 00:00:36,680 And our next speaker, Andy, is going to talk about procedural and technical 5 00:00:36,680 --> 00:00:42,660 details of that surveillance, which is what we're really interested in, that's 6 00:00:42,660 --> 00:00:48,940 why the room is full. So, Andy, "Technical Aspects of the Surveillance in and around 7 00:00:48,940 --> 00:00:53,230 the Ecuadorian Embassy in London", please give him a warm round of applause. 8 00:00:53,230 --> 00:01:02,130 *applause* 9 00:01:02,390 --> 00:01:05,519 Andy Müller-Maguhn: Okay. Good morning, everybody. I'm holding this talk, 10 00:01:05,519 --> 00:01:10,650 actually, for the second time. The first time was on day one, but somehow the video 11 00:01:10,650 --> 00:01:17,460 recording got fucked up. I would say CIA, but at this early time of the talk you 12 00:01:17,460 --> 00:01:23,437 might think I'm paranoid, but I'm... well, we can discuss that after my talk again. 13 00:01:23,437 --> 00:01:26,787 *laughter* *applause* 14 00:01:26,787 --> 00:01:31,639 Andy: The two dis... oh fuck... 15 00:01:31,639 --> 00:01:35,832 *laughter* 16 00:01:39,694 --> 00:01:42,055 Herald: Anyone here who knows computers? 17 00:01:42,055 --> 00:01:44,597 *laughter* 18 00:01:54,009 --> 00:01:58,799 Andy: Let's try again. Does this work? 19 00:01:58,799 --> 00:02:03,690 *applause* 20 00:02:03,690 --> 00:02:07,020 Andy: OK. So, the presentation does cover 21 00:02:07,020 --> 00:02:13,579 some, but not... gosh, being awake on day 4... This presentation does cover some, 22 00:02:13,579 --> 00:02:19,970 but not all aspects of the surveillance. There is, of course, stuff happened on the 23 00:02:19,970 --> 00:02:27,310 wireless network, on the bound network. There was more things going on. There was 24 00:02:27,310 --> 00:02:31,489 an ongoing heat in the embassy, which made us think they might be using nanometer 25 00:02:31,489 --> 00:02:36,959 waves to look through the walls and from the ceilings above and below and so on. 26 00:02:36,959 --> 00:02:43,200 However, we are still getting documentation about other things. So this 27 00:02:43,200 --> 00:02:46,919 is like the state of affairs right now. I will probably make a long video of 28 00:02:46,919 --> 00:02:54,189 explaining things with also more details later this year. Second disclaimer, what 29 00:02:54,189 --> 00:03:01,370 I'm presenting is mostly stuff from a company called Undercover Global. They are 30 00:03:01,370 --> 00:03:09,540 subject to an ongoing lawsuit. The owner of the company and CEO has been accepting 31 00:03:09,540 --> 00:03:15,819 third party instructions and a lot of money and has been modifying the official 32 00:03:15,819 --> 00:03:22,000 product, cause and technology used. He's investigated for violating laws of 33 00:03:22,000 --> 00:03:29,150 privacy, secrecy of lawyer-client-attorney thingy, whatever the English term is, 34 00:03:29,150 --> 00:03:33,669 bribery, money laundering and so on. And also the Spanish justice has very 35 00:03:33,669 --> 00:03:39,349 officially started investigation for a spying foreign foreign intelligence 36 00:03:39,349 --> 00:03:44,919 service, namely the CIA. At the time of the presentation right today, however, he 37 00:03:44,919 --> 00:03:50,819 is not charged. So this is a subject of ongoing things. And of course, we don't 38 00:03:50,819 --> 00:03:56,790 have the material from other intelligence services who have been working around the 39 00:03:56,790 --> 00:04:03,569 embassy although we have some indications of what they have been doing. As this is a 40 00:04:03,569 --> 00:04:09,599 rather 80 slide plus videos presentation, I thought it's a good idea to give you a 41 00:04:09,599 --> 00:04:15,709 rough overview of what this is about. I'm trying to give you the big picture, the 42 00:04:15,709 --> 00:04:21,330 embassy overview, so that you understand the building, the rooms and so on. The so- 43 00:04:21,330 --> 00:04:27,110 called "Operation Hotel", that was the official task of the company at the time 44 00:04:27,110 --> 00:04:32,540 to protect the embassy against people intruding and so on, taking care of the 45 00:04:32,540 --> 00:04:37,680 guests, so they had their own terminology. The standard operational procedures in 46 00:04:37,680 --> 00:04:44,580 place, the modifications that, as indicated, David Morales instructed or got 47 00:04:44,580 --> 00:04:51,520 instructed from US intelligence to do. Overview of what they collected on 48 00:04:51,520 --> 00:04:56,840 visitors. Then, there was a special event in December 2017 when they went actually 49 00:04:56,840 --> 00:05:02,930 through the whole embassy to identify all kinds of objects. They documented every 50 00:05:02,930 --> 00:05:08,630 piece of furniture to see where they could include more hidden bugs and other things 51 00:05:08,630 --> 00:05:18,510 and upgrades to the security situation. A short thing about what Julian did to 52 00:05:18,510 --> 00:05:24,320 counter the surveillance and how they countered his countermeasures. And then at 53 00:05:24,320 --> 00:05:28,180 the end, something about the term "Actionable Intelligence", which becomes 54 00:05:28,180 --> 00:05:35,860 very plastic. The context is, of course, that Julian has taken the idea of the 55 00:05:35,860 --> 00:05:41,500 hacker ethic, said all information should be free, serious to an extent, and has 56 00:05:41,500 --> 00:05:46,010 been committed to that, that we can, of course, also say, well, he has won 57 00:05:46,010 --> 00:05:50,360 probably one of the highest journalistic prizes being carried out out of a 58 00:05:50,360 --> 00:05:58,680 protected embassy. That's quite a reward and quite a recognition that he and the 59 00:05:58,680 --> 00:06:03,340 people in power he exposed had the impression that they don't fit together on 60 00:06:03,340 --> 00:06:10,340 the same planet in this situation. However, the big picture is to make you 61 00:06:10,340 --> 00:06:16,280 understand the historic overview of events. So there was a initial phase when 62 00:06:16,280 --> 00:06:21,090 he got into the embassy when they were actually unprepared, of course, for him 63 00:06:21,090 --> 00:06:26,240 coming in there. And they actually had a surveillance camera for checking the 64 00:06:26,240 --> 00:06:32,180 visitors before they entered the building. But that was more or less it. Then in 2015 65 00:06:32,180 --> 00:06:37,620 this company got engaged and installed a lot of things. There was, however, three 66 00:06:37,620 --> 00:06:44,920 different phases which I want to separate here for you to understand when the first 67 00:06:44,920 --> 00:06:51,120 phase was under U.S. President Obama and the more left wing government of Ecuador 68 00:06:51,120 --> 00:06:57,120 under President Correa. However, right at the beginning of the engagement of 69 00:06:57,120 --> 00:07:03,530 Undercover Global for the Ecuadorian foreign ministry to protect the embassy he 70 00:07:03,530 --> 00:07:11,550 went to a security conference, or however, to Las Vegas and presented his little 71 00:07:11,550 --> 00:07:16,450 company and the one customer they had. So that's so much about the size of the 72 00:07:16,450 --> 00:07:19,720 company. He presented like the one customer, the one project they did that 73 00:07:19,720 --> 00:07:25,200 was taking care of the embassy and of course quickly found interested parties 74 00:07:25,200 --> 00:07:32,340 from the US security environment to boost up his career. And so his spying for third 75 00:07:32,340 --> 00:07:37,340 party started right away. At the beginning he received payments from a company called 76 00:07:37,340 --> 00:07:42,310 Las Vegas Sense that's owned by Sheldon Adelson. He was officially hired to take 77 00:07:42,310 --> 00:07:47,870 care of a yacht of Sheldon Adelson although that yacht already had a security 78 00:07:47,870 --> 00:07:54,460 team. So there's ongoing investigations also where the money came from and so on. 79 00:07:54,460 --> 00:08:02,900 However, in phase two, 2017, so after some publications had upset the US maybe even 80 00:08:02,900 --> 00:08:10,560 more and also the Ecuadorian government had changed in the midst of or the 81 00:08:10,560 --> 00:08:17,250 beginning of 2017. They started serious modifications of the protocol. Not only 82 00:08:17,250 --> 00:08:20,190 that he switched to encrypted communication with his employees, with his 83 00:08:20,190 --> 00:08:27,430 instructions. He also, like, pressured from his American friends, the wish to 84 00:08:27,430 --> 00:08:33,250 have covert audio bugs, higher resolution cameras, and also cameras in all rooms 85 00:08:33,250 --> 00:08:40,449 with audio. We can say pretty sure that this has been done on behalf of the US as 86 00:08:40,449 --> 00:08:45,720 the emails he sent to instruct this modifications - we have all those emails - 87 00:08:45,720 --> 00:08:49,329 the emails show the IP numbers they have been sending for, the lawyers have 88 00:08:49,329 --> 00:08:55,990 analyzed this. So we know that he has been in Virginia Arlington and in Las Vegas and 89 00:08:55,990 --> 00:09:01,230 other places, when he came with these instructions. Also his language, his 90 00:09:01,230 --> 00:09:05,580 English was not very good and technically, he was not very sophisticated, but he 91 00:09:05,580 --> 00:09:10,649 sometimes sent instructions in very good English with presentations and detailed 92 00:09:10,649 --> 00:09:17,640 technical details that clearly came not from him, which also was obtained. So we 93 00:09:17,640 --> 00:09:24,519 are pretty confident in these things that we claim here. And then there was something 94 00:09:24,519 --> 00:09:28,990 going on at the end of 2017, which I'll explain later. However, I want to point 95 00:09:28,990 --> 00:09:36,480 out a complete different thing, which might be or might have led to confusion. 96 00:09:36,480 --> 00:09:42,279 At April 2018 two things happened: The Ecuadorians, the new government of 97 00:09:42,279 --> 00:09:47,290 Ecuador, made a mutual legal assistance agreement with the United States in the 98 00:09:47,290 --> 00:09:53,839 investigation against Assange, as they justified it with the interference in the 99 00:09:53,839 --> 00:10:00,550 elections, so to give the Ecuadorians like a plausible reason to help them. The 100 00:10:00,550 --> 00:10:04,620 cooperation with UC Global was canceled because they were unsatisfied with their 101 00:10:04,620 --> 00:10:09,790 quality of their work. And they installed a second company called Prom Security, 102 00:10:09,790 --> 00:10:15,362 which is an Ecuadorian company made up by a former colonel of their local 103 00:10:15,362 --> 00:10:20,920 intelligence, which then did the surveillance. And probably that material 104 00:10:20,920 --> 00:10:26,700 could more easily be used in any legal proceedings as everything that happened 105 00:10:26,700 --> 00:10:34,899 before was plainly illegal. However, the material of that second company landed 106 00:10:34,899 --> 00:10:40,420 partly in an extortion attempt against WikiLeaks, against Julian, against... 107 00:10:40,420 --> 00:10:45,600 Kristinn met these guys with undercover Spanish police, so the current editor in 108 00:10:45,600 --> 00:10:50,869 chief of WikiLeaks, and that's subject to a lawsuit also. And there is also 109 00:10:50,869 --> 00:10:54,529 publications about that. But my presentation is mainly about this first 110 00:10:54,529 --> 00:11:02,110 phase until April 2018 to avoid that potential confusion. Also it's maybe worth 111 00:11:02,110 --> 00:11:07,199 to point out that all Julian's belongings, like his computers, his notes and material 112 00:11:07,199 --> 00:11:12,369 and so on, has all been confiscated by the Ecuadorians and directly given to the 113 00:11:12,369 --> 00:11:20,240 United States based on this agreement they made in April 2018. So here you get a 114 00:11:20,240 --> 00:11:24,450 rough overview of the embassy. It's not the whole building, it's just the flat on 115 00:11:24,450 --> 00:11:29,390 the ground floor here on the left side, going all the way down that little street 116 00:11:29,390 --> 00:11:35,319 on the left where actually Harrods, the shopping mall, Harrods has their delivery 117 00:11:35,319 --> 00:11:41,329 acceptance situation. So this is like from the side view. On the right side, you see 118 00:11:41,329 --> 00:11:47,329 the emergency exit of the embassy. Again, side view and on the right, you see the 119 00:11:47,329 --> 00:11:52,619 courtyard. This is the entrance situation, in the building there is more embassies. 120 00:11:52,619 --> 00:11:57,470 The Colombian embassy is right on the right side, for example. There is one more 121 00:11:57,470 --> 00:12:02,100 which I don't recall which it is, however you see here the entrance door of the 122 00:12:02,100 --> 00:12:08,119 embassy and here the entrance situation from a different camera perspective. Here 123 00:12:08,119 --> 00:12:14,829 you would have an overview of the installed cameras before the upgrades in 124 00:12:14,829 --> 00:12:22,490 December 2017. So most important is maybe this "Sala de reunion" on the upper left 125 00:12:22,490 --> 00:12:27,010 side, not on the left corner, but once to the right, that's the meeting room. And 126 00:12:27,010 --> 00:12:31,830 here you see that there was only until then one camera. This is where most of the 127 00:12:31,830 --> 00:12:36,410 meetings with visitors, with lawyers and so on took place. However, all the green 128 00:12:36,410 --> 00:12:41,400 areas do not only indicate you where video surveillance took place, but all the 129 00:12:41,400 --> 00:12:47,629 interior ones are exactly the areas Julian was officially allowed to like use, 130 00:12:47,629 --> 00:12:52,769 including the kitchen on the right side on the very right bottom "Habitacio n 131 00:12:52,769 --> 00:13:00,279 Huesped" that's his kind of small sleeping room where he had his bed and things. And 132 00:13:00,279 --> 00:13:05,480 you would see the entrance situation there. Outside they also had some cameras, 133 00:13:05,480 --> 00:13:11,310 which they had one 8 megapixel 360 degree monster, which actually made me think I 134 00:13:11,310 --> 00:13:20,560 want that as well. This is the more harmless cameras on the sideways. But you 135 00:13:20,560 --> 00:13:28,610 see here the idea of that camera. That's pretty good. It even catched some events 136 00:13:28,610 --> 00:13:35,449 which I will indicate you later. So you get the idea. Harrods is right next. And also 137 00:13:35,449 --> 00:13:42,940 right left is this entrance delivery situation. "Operation Hotel" was the code 138 00:13:42,940 --> 00:13:48,860 name of the official security situation. So they had their own terminology: 139 00:13:48,860 --> 00:13:53,579 "Director" was the ambassador, "Guest" was Julian Assange, "Hotel" was the embassy. 140 00:13:53,579 --> 00:13:58,779 They, of course, had specific processes in place, how regular, how visitors would be 141 00:13:58,779 --> 00:14:03,689 accepted. They sometimes in most of the times needed to be signed off by the 142 00:14:03,689 --> 00:14:07,709 ambassador. So the ambassador had to allow someone getting into the building in the 143 00:14:07,709 --> 00:14:12,629 first place and how that would be treated, how their passports would be checked, 144 00:14:12,629 --> 00:14:17,319 their electronics would be taken and so on. There was an official representative 145 00:14:17,319 --> 00:14:25,610 of the Ecuadorian intelligence titled the second secretary of the ambassador called 146 00:14:25,610 --> 00:14:31,069 Gabriela PAIZ. She was working in the embassy and officially in charge of taking 147 00:14:31,069 --> 00:14:37,439 care of the company's contract and their work. However, she got bribed, according 148 00:14:37,439 --> 00:14:43,660 to statements that are subject to this ongoing lawsuit, with 20,000 USD in cash 149 00:14:43,660 --> 00:14:49,680 per month. She had to travel with her husband to some funny places to collect 150 00:14:49,680 --> 00:14:54,569 the money to not violate European regulations with carrying cash and not 151 00:14:54,569 --> 00:15:00,089 declaring it and so on. So this gives you roughly an idea and for that money she 152 00:15:00,089 --> 00:15:05,180 like not only accepted the modifications and made it look like that modification of 153 00:15:05,180 --> 00:15:10,279 the protocol were on behalf of Ecuador and not on behalf of the Americans, she also 154 00:15:10,279 --> 00:15:16,679 spied sometimes herself, as we have seen her with a handbag, with a microphone and 155 00:15:16,679 --> 00:15:22,649 all that kind of funny behaviors. The original Standard Operational Procedures 156 00:15:22,649 --> 00:15:29,670 in place, as I said, was defined helping against intrusions. Visitors would arrive 157 00:15:29,670 --> 00:15:34,839 at the door, show their passport, then would be searched with a metal detector 158 00:15:34,839 --> 00:15:38,589 and they would have to leave their passport and all electronic devices at the 159 00:15:38,589 --> 00:15:44,070 security counter under the lobby. They would sign in into some kind of a diary 160 00:15:44,070 --> 00:15:49,249 with name, passport number, date, time of arrival, later sign out with time of their 161 00:15:49,249 --> 00:15:53,410 departure. The guards would bring the visitors afterwards in the conference 162 00:15:53,410 --> 00:15:59,959 room, close the door and then copy the passport while the visitors wait. And also 163 00:15:59,959 --> 00:16:04,629 there would be daily, monthly and special incident reports written by the security 164 00:16:04,629 --> 00:16:10,799 company delivered to the SENAIN, to the Ecuadorian intelligence. So, from the 165 00:16:10,799 --> 00:16:16,329 visitors, what they would have is like who invited them, for what, what date, what 166 00:16:16,329 --> 00:16:21,269 time frame, the copy of their passport. Later then, that one had modifications, 167 00:16:21,269 --> 00:16:25,779 that was that all of their pages with entry stamps and visas would be 168 00:16:25,779 --> 00:16:31,889 photocopied as well. The exact time when they really came, the description by the 169 00:16:31,889 --> 00:16:37,130 security guards how they appeared: maybe if they came alone or with someone or it 170 00:16:37,130 --> 00:16:42,230 was anything. Video footage of the entry situation, the meeting and the departure 171 00:16:42,230 --> 00:16:48,949 situation. And as I said, extra incidents. So we would have a lot of material of 172 00:16:48,949 --> 00:16:57,259 passport copies. And this is an example of the entrance situation from November 16. 173 00:16:57,259 --> 00:17:03,620 This is one of the lawyers arriving. And you would see, he just rang the door, he 174 00:17:03,620 --> 00:17:15,760 came in, showed his passport, got briefly checked. And funnily, in the upper left 175 00:17:15,760 --> 00:17:20,950 corner, you see one of the guards doing some upgrades on the cameras. Same time, 176 00:17:20,950 --> 00:17:26,750 but that's just how it was, there was ongoing upgrades. So I don't have to show 177 00:17:26,750 --> 00:17:31,900 you the whole video, but here you get the idea. He's being searched, his phone he 178 00:17:31,900 --> 00:17:36,940 needs to give them. The guard also briefly checks his bag if there's maybe a 179 00:17:36,940 --> 00:17:41,510 recording device. So this was also to prevent that visitors would bring any box 180 00:17:41,510 --> 00:17:50,050 or recording devices into the meeting. So it was meant to to do also like protect 181 00:17:50,050 --> 00:17:57,990 Julian on behalf of them. This is like a meeting documentation. This is myself, 182 00:17:57,990 --> 00:18:01,480 actually, but this is a little boring and also I'm not a fan of insinuating myself, 183 00:18:01,480 --> 00:18:05,590 so I brought you the other one, which is the only positive slide I have. 184 00:18:05,590 --> 00:18:09,070 *laughter* That's "missing in action" (M.I.A.), she's 185 00:18:09,070 --> 00:18:13,390 a rapper from - lives in the UK - Is originally from Sri Lanka, but here you 186 00:18:13,390 --> 00:18:19,100 have a cat, so that's of course more lovely than meeting boring data 187 00:18:19,100 --> 00:18:26,190 journalists, hackers, whatever. The third party modifications for the access to the 188 00:18:26,190 --> 00:18:32,810 whole thing started mainly in begin 2017, after also he switched to encrypted 189 00:18:32,810 --> 00:18:37,850 communications. Actually, the switching to encrypted communication might, by the way, 190 00:18:37,850 --> 00:18:42,910 also have to do with a regime change, so to say, in the United States. As the Trump 191 00:18:42,910 --> 00:18:47,550 administration was taking in power and they were scared that different 192 00:18:47,550 --> 00:18:52,380 departments would interfere with each other. So it became a little complicated 193 00:18:52,380 --> 00:18:58,160 in their own thread modeling / paranoia, however you want to call it. They started 194 00:18:58,160 --> 00:19:02,100 to pick up in the mid of the year the original hard disks from the network video 195 00:19:02,100 --> 00:19:07,240 recorder every two weeks and bring them first to their office in Spain. Later, 196 00:19:07,240 --> 00:19:11,840 Morales would then fly once a month, roughly, to the United States. We have his 197 00:19:11,840 --> 00:19:19,110 flight patterns and all the emails and so on. And he would, yeah, deliver them, as 198 00:19:19,110 --> 00:19:25,830 he explained to the staff, to his American friends and sending new instructions. Then 199 00:19:25,830 --> 00:19:32,350 in December, they made this new cameras installation thing with sound and they 200 00:19:32,350 --> 00:19:39,660 also started to optimize things. For example, there was issues with the audio 201 00:19:39,660 --> 00:19:43,320 filters and the cameras, as Julian had used this white noise generator, which 202 00:19:43,320 --> 00:19:49,210 will later be a little bit explained, they needed filter configurations. Also, the 203 00:19:49,210 --> 00:19:55,460 Americans demanded to have direct access on the streams coming into the office in 204 00:19:55,460 --> 00:20:01,331 Spain. So they installed it already in the embassy in a way that there would be two 205 00:20:01,331 --> 00:20:07,360 different access layers, one not visible to the Ecuadorians and one only for the 206 00:20:07,360 --> 00:20:12,790 Americans. We have... this is the one email I have there, I don't even speak 207 00:20:12,790 --> 00:20:18,570 Spanish, but where he clearly speaks about the access to the video stream, one for 208 00:20:18,570 --> 00:20:23,930 the Ecuadorians, one for themself and one for "party X". So the party X is how he 209 00:20:23,930 --> 00:20:32,590 called in the references the American intelligence he worked for as well. And 210 00:20:32,590 --> 00:20:37,250 then they started to do other things that they, for example, installed a door phone 211 00:20:37,250 --> 00:20:42,210 at the door, so you couldn't just ring the bell and the guy would open the door, you 212 00:20:42,210 --> 00:20:47,720 had to actually speak your name. So, and also the guard, which was... there was a 213 00:20:47,720 --> 00:20:54,600 little guard desk in the lobby area of the building, there would sit a guy. So he would 214 00:20:54,600 --> 00:20:59,350 hear your name. They would have your voice sample in the electronic transmission 215 00:20:59,350 --> 00:21:03,170 between this little door phone and the counter more or less right behind the 216 00:21:03,170 --> 00:21:09,490 door. That was something they did. Then the guards would start to just open the 217 00:21:09,490 --> 00:21:15,460 door to take your passport. Take it in. Close the door again. You would wait 218 00:21:15,460 --> 00:21:20,150 outside and then, in that time, he copied your whole passport with all pages and 219 00:21:20,150 --> 00:21:25,780 waited for further instructions, then leave you in. They would... the guards 220 00:21:25,780 --> 00:21:32,400 would start to photograph or note all IMEIs and IMSIs of mobile devices that 221 00:21:32,400 --> 00:21:37,020 they took during your visit. And they would also sometimes take whole bags of 222 00:21:37,020 --> 00:21:42,210 visitors and search them and photograph all items. So I have like three examples 223 00:21:42,210 --> 00:21:48,050 of this: This is the most harmless maybe. National security correspondent of The 224 00:21:48,050 --> 00:21:52,370 Washington Post, Ellen Nakashima's little collection of devices. It's my own 225 00:21:52,370 --> 00:21:56,710 collection with some crypto phones and a camera. And this is Italian journalist 226 00:21:56,710 --> 00:22:01,660 Stefania Maurizi who, for what reasons, wherever she travels with all her USB 227 00:22:01,660 --> 00:22:04,260 stick collections and ... *laughter* 228 00:22:04,260 --> 00:22:09,350 I redacted this a little bit, but you can clearly see they took the SIM cards out to 229 00:22:09,350 --> 00:22:16,260 photograph the IMSIs of the cards and so on. So they wanted all that. Here you get 230 00:22:16,260 --> 00:22:29,170 an idea of the meeting documentations from December 17th on with the new cameras, 231 00:22:29,170 --> 00:22:34,630 which had also audio. You get the idea that the quality has drastically improved. 232 00:22:34,630 --> 00:22:40,260 And here I would say if you would zoom in, you could even read the notes of what they 233 00:22:40,260 --> 00:22:46,690 were writing. But well, we'll know that later. However, that was not enough for 234 00:22:46,690 --> 00:22:52,730 them. They had issues, as I said, with the white noise generator he installed for 235 00:22:52,730 --> 00:22:59,060 critical meetings. And they wanted improved audio quality, as when you didn't 236 00:22:59,060 --> 00:23:03,800 speak loud enough, these cameras being mounted under the ceiling were not good 237 00:23:03,800 --> 00:23:10,620 enough. So they made this survey to identify all kinds of options for 238 00:23:10,620 --> 00:23:17,510 additional hidden microphones and also off-the-network equipment. So here you see 239 00:23:17,510 --> 00:23:21,960 actually where they ended up later. This fire extinguisher played then the main 240 00:23:21,960 --> 00:23:29,490 role. He has this PVC button thingy. They put some of the plastics out and installed 241 00:23:29,490 --> 00:23:34,970 a bug in there. That was working beautifully as it was also like from the 242 00:23:34,970 --> 00:23:39,450 room level next to the heads of the people speaking in that part of the room. The 243 00:23:39,450 --> 00:23:42,700 only issue they had is that it was a battery driven model and they had to 244 00:23:42,700 --> 00:23:47,840 replace the battery and SD card, which they did then every twelve hours, 26 245 00:23:47,840 --> 00:23:53,940 minutes actually. That was the capacity of that thing. But you get the idea. They 246 00:23:53,940 --> 00:23:58,070 looked into all of the things here on the left side, by the way, you see the noise 247 00:23:58,070 --> 00:24:03,660 generator, but they looked at all the art objects or the kitsch stuff to see what 248 00:24:03,660 --> 00:24:08,410 could be suitable before they identified it. If I distinguish, it's just the best 249 00:24:08,410 --> 00:24:17,500 thing to do here. Here you would see that Julian also installed a loudspeaker next 250 00:24:17,500 --> 00:24:23,720 to the window. So there was not only one loudspeaker above the table for the white 251 00:24:23,720 --> 00:24:29,910 noise generator, but also directly at the window. Here you see very briefly on the 252 00:24:29,910 --> 00:24:34,820 top the loudspeaker over the table, but they're also opened during the survey, like 253 00:24:34,820 --> 00:24:40,220 all the electrical wiring things, the light switches and so on, to see if there 254 00:24:40,220 --> 00:24:45,730 would be any suitable places. And they also did that in the bathroom number two. 255 00:24:45,730 --> 00:24:51,780 Bathroom number two was originally the woman's bathroom, which also had a shower. 256 00:24:51,780 --> 00:24:56,590 It was then later, more or less Julian's personal bathroom, where he also made the 257 00:24:56,590 --> 00:25:01,760 most critical meetings with his lawyers and and associates while running the 258 00:25:01,760 --> 00:25:09,130 shower, as you would see it in every better spy movie. However, what they did 259 00:25:09,130 --> 00:25:14,750 was, behind the rubbish that you would see here, these boxes above the cabinet and 260 00:25:14,750 --> 00:25:20,670 slightly behind that cabinet, they had an electrical wiring for the light. So they 261 00:25:20,670 --> 00:25:24,410 installed a bug there and that didn't require any battery change or whatever 262 00:25:24,410 --> 00:25:30,640 that brought ongoing good audio quality. They also went through the kitchen objects 263 00:25:30,640 --> 00:25:35,770 and at this point they must have been infected by the WikiLeaks house humor, 264 00:25:35,770 --> 00:25:46,320 however they would bark at that kind of thing. The other aspect that Morales 265 00:25:46,320 --> 00:25:49,810 discussed with the staff working in the embassy once when he came back from his 266 00:25:49,810 --> 00:25:55,860 travels was that he asked them if they could think about a way where they would 267 00:25:55,860 --> 00:26:02,110 accidentally leave one of the doors open so that the Americans could come in and 268 00:26:02,110 --> 00:26:08,760 kidnap him. He also discussed if they could put into some poison into the food 269 00:26:08,760 --> 00:26:14,330 or how that... what options there would be to poison Julian. However, the sting with 270 00:26:14,330 --> 00:26:18,540 the leaving the door accidentally opened, next to the fact that that, of course, 271 00:26:18,540 --> 00:26:22,940 would be completely legal, like in an embassy of another country to kidnap 272 00:26:22,940 --> 00:26:27,370 someone from, but well, this is the Central Intelligence Agency or someone of 273 00:26:27,370 --> 00:26:32,980 the United States, what do they care about laws? So what they did was provide 274 00:26:32,980 --> 00:26:38,520 documentation of all the doors, all the locks. They went through the whole thing 275 00:26:38,520 --> 00:26:43,770 to think about how such a kidnaping take place. They even made a little video 276 00:26:43,770 --> 00:26:49,150 showing, like, the way they could move from this emergency exit or from a window 277 00:26:49,150 --> 00:26:58,820 and get in. So I have this little video and you get here the idea of the way it 278 00:26:58,820 --> 00:27:05,319 could work. And yes, the reflections allow us to identify the person who did it. So 279 00:27:05,319 --> 00:27:09,380 this is actually just one of three videos we have about this. They also did this for 280 00:27:09,380 --> 00:27:14,890 the rooms in the back and so on, as they also considered maybe going through in one 281 00:27:14,890 --> 00:27:23,200 of the windows, which would be more easy for them to leave open a door. So this is 282 00:27:23,200 --> 00:27:33,860 still part of that plan. I can name all the doors, windows, identify some kind of 283 00:27:33,860 --> 00:27:41,940 rain tube or whatever, which they could use to maybe come from above. Label all 284 00:27:41,940 --> 00:27:48,450 the windows, to get an idea. So what they did in 2017 was then these two bugs, the 285 00:27:48,450 --> 00:27:54,010 hidden microphones and recording devices in the fire extinguisher and in this... 286 00:27:54,010 --> 00:27:59,570 behind, above this storage cabinet and the bathroom. And they did installation of 287 00:27:59,570 --> 00:28:05,320 high resolution cameras plus the microphones. They, however, also discussed 288 00:28:05,320 --> 00:28:11,020 that they wanted one more room. That's the front room where Julian had... it's the 289 00:28:11,020 --> 00:28:16,870 former library, where he had a bit of a room not for visitors, but to work with 290 00:28:16,870 --> 00:28:24,020 himself and with his staff. That room was a little bit hard for them to target. They 291 00:28:24,020 --> 00:28:27,180 would have to be going through the ambassador's room, which was corresponding 292 00:28:27,180 --> 00:28:34,170 to it. So they looked into stetographic - excuse me - steto-whatever, steto- 293 00:28:34,170 --> 00:28:42,210 microphones to watch through the, no, to listen through the wall. In order to do 294 00:28:42,210 --> 00:28:47,010 that, the Americans also asked them to take like a spoon or a knife and bring 295 00:28:47,010 --> 00:28:51,910 them some scratch some parts of the wall so that they could identify the material 296 00:28:51,910 --> 00:28:56,610 from which the wall was made in order to identify which drilling machine they would 297 00:28:56,610 --> 00:29:01,490 have to use. They have extremely slow drilling machines, which you put in a 298 00:29:01,490 --> 00:29:06,751 suitcase next to a wall. And it takes eight hours for three centimeters, but it 299 00:29:06,751 --> 00:29:12,210 makes no noise. Okay. And that's the way they would have used this kind of things. 300 00:29:12,210 --> 00:29:18,430 Here again, it's just the places that hidden microphones. And here is some, as 301 00:29:18,430 --> 00:29:23,860 they documented their work, here is some video documentation or photographic 302 00:29:23,860 --> 00:29:30,440 documentation of the installation of the upgrades of the camera with audio. So this 303 00:29:30,440 --> 00:29:37,840 is the upgraded diagram of the camera installation. You would see all the 304 00:29:37,840 --> 00:29:44,620 interior cameras are four megapixels now. And the conference room has two. So in 305 00:29:44,620 --> 00:29:50,540 both corresponding sides to cover really the whole room. So I don't switch back and 306 00:29:50,540 --> 00:29:53,750 forth now between the other slides, but you would have seen that there would still 307 00:29:53,750 --> 00:29:58,340 have been small areas of the room which were not covered. This was like full room 308 00:29:58,340 --> 00:30:05,930 coverage of wherever he would be allowed to go to. So this noise generator however 309 00:30:05,930 --> 00:30:11,470 that Julian installed, made them quite some headache, it worked pretty well. 310 00:30:11,470 --> 00:30:18,360 However, other people pointed out to me also, and it is true, if you sit in a room 311 00:30:18,360 --> 00:30:22,930 with this white noise generator, you get headache. It's not nice. I mean, yes, it 312 00:30:22,930 --> 00:30:30,320 works and it prevents them bugging it, but it's also pretty tough to do that for one, 313 00:30:30,320 --> 00:30:37,530 two hours. However, the American friends had issues with it and they already had 314 00:30:37,530 --> 00:30:46,800 started to bug the embassy from the outside with laser reflecting microphones, 315 00:30:46,800 --> 00:30:52,700 meaning the vibrations on the glass or the windows would be used. But as his white 316 00:30:52,700 --> 00:30:56,840 noise generator had a loudspeaker directed to the window, they needed to deal with 317 00:30:56,840 --> 00:31:01,260 that. And they instructed to install special stickers which will be - there 318 00:31:01,260 --> 00:31:06,030 will be actually in the next days a police situation, the Ecuadorians have allowed to 319 00:31:06,030 --> 00:31:09,690 take one of these stickers. They have a kind of foam on the one side and a 320 00:31:09,690 --> 00:31:17,640 reflecting blank side that allowed them to do it anyhow. So you would have this thing 321 00:31:17,640 --> 00:31:22,010 here and here. Unfortunately, I do not have, at this point, a very good picture 322 00:31:22,010 --> 00:31:27,550 of this sticker itself. But you would see here their documentation that they 323 00:31:27,550 --> 00:31:31,240 installed in every window, not only that of the conference room, one of these 324 00:31:31,240 --> 00:31:37,400 stickers that allowed them to deal with a laser on site. And actually their 325 00:31:37,400 --> 00:31:41,880 outside camera, the 8 megapixel monster I mentioned earlier, catched once the 326 00:31:41,880 --> 00:31:47,680 Americans on the other side of the street when their curtain was a little bit to the 327 00:31:47,680 --> 00:32:01,760 side here with their laser machine. So you get the idea, that is not a camera. There 328 00:32:01,760 --> 00:32:06,250 is, of course, other things that happened as well. This slide is more actually for 329 00:32:06,250 --> 00:32:11,970 your entertainment after a rather depressive technical text. They also did 330 00:32:11,970 --> 00:32:23,460 sometimes normal things. It was not only spying on behalf of the Americans. But 331 00:32:23,460 --> 00:32:30,380 most important and most impressive is actually what happened on end of 2017. End 332 00:32:30,380 --> 00:32:36,170 of 2017 the government of Ecuador - the new government - had already been elected, 333 00:32:36,170 --> 00:32:41,850 but the new government was not in office. So as one of the last steps of the old 334 00:32:41,850 --> 00:32:47,000 government to solve his situation, they gave him, they gave Julian Ecuadorian 335 00:32:47,000 --> 00:32:52,990 citizenship. They made him a diplomat. And they had pre-agreed with some countries, 336 00:32:52,990 --> 00:32:59,950 which he could choose from, to actually appoint him as a diplomat to one of their 337 00:32:59,950 --> 00:33:07,150 other embassies where he would not have that hostile environment surrounding it. 338 00:33:07,150 --> 00:33:12,620 On the 21st of December he met in the embassy the head of the Ecuadorian 339 00:33:12,620 --> 00:33:18,100 intelligence Romy Vallejo. I have one picture from that meeting. The meeting, of 340 00:33:18,100 --> 00:33:25,350 course, was completely intercepted. The Americans were on high alert and actually, 341 00:33:25,350 --> 00:33:31,890 after he used a white noise generator and located himself with a guy slightly away 342 00:33:31,890 --> 00:33:39,210 from the fire extinguisher, by knowing or not knowing about it, the guards even were 343 00:33:39,210 --> 00:33:47,309 asked to like stand in front of the door and listen through the door and stuff. The 344 00:33:47,309 --> 00:33:51,570 same night, actually, so this was, as you could see at the time, it's like 3, 4 345 00:33:51,570 --> 00:33:55,790 o'clock at night, it went on for some time. The next day, they issued the 346 00:33:55,790 --> 00:34:01,100 international arrest warrant against Julian. They inform the British and the 347 00:34:01,100 --> 00:34:05,930 British informed the Ecuadorians that they would not accept the appointing of Julian 348 00:34:05,930 --> 00:34:12,619 as a diplomat. And so the whole plan was dismissed and massive police came, like 349 00:34:12,619 --> 00:34:18,520 standing in front of, like, on this little side street right from it. So this is 350 00:34:18,520 --> 00:34:22,601 where the term actionable intelligence has like a direct meaning that you can 351 00:34:22,601 --> 00:34:30,190 actually talk to your coffee cup and next moment shit happes, so to illustrate that. 352 00:34:30,190 --> 00:34:37,040 At the end, I brought you some resource links. This is, as I said, ongoing cases. 353 00:34:37,040 --> 00:34:41,000 There will be more material and it will probably make us a little bit of a case 354 00:34:41,000 --> 00:34:46,869 study out of it published at bug planet. If you are interested or willing to 355 00:34:46,869 --> 00:34:52,740 support his legal and other situations at Wau Holland Foundation, which I am a board 356 00:34:52,740 --> 00:34:57,070 member, and that's also what brought me to all these meetings, we do collect money 357 00:34:57,070 --> 00:35:04,740 for Julian's defense and also for ongoing aspects of WikiLeaks publications. Okay. 358 00:35:04,740 --> 00:35:11,130 That's for me, from my side, for now. We have a bit of time left for questions and 359 00:35:11,130 --> 00:35:14,780 answers. If I just knew how much, like 20 minutes or so? 360 00:35:14,780 --> 00:35:19,110 Herald: We have about 20 minutes. We will be taking questions and we have three 361 00:35:19,110 --> 00:35:24,080 microphones in the room. So please line up behind them and we take questions from the 362 00:35:24,080 --> 00:35:26,640 Internet as well. The signal angel is (...). 363 00:35:30,260 --> 00:35:37,250 Andy: The sticker. Oh, yes, sorry, I forgot to mention that the stickers on the 364 00:35:37,250 --> 00:35:46,040 windows were saying, like, this building is under CCTV, under camera surveillance. 365 00:35:46,040 --> 00:35:50,190 And Morales had told his people that, oh, the British law has changed and they would 366 00:35:50,190 --> 00:35:55,791 require to have the stickers now, which is, of course, completely ridiculous. Also 367 00:35:55,791 --> 00:36:01,210 watching the cover frame of their outside cameras, like there would have to actually 368 00:36:01,210 --> 00:36:05,010 go all over the place there and tell them, oh, by the way, your're under 369 00:36:05,010 --> 00:36:09,204 surveillance. So, yeah, that was indeed remarkable. Awesome. 370 00:36:10,593 --> 00:36:15,380 Herald: Thank you. Let's give a round of applause. 371 00:36:15,380 --> 00:36:23,672 *applause* 372 00:36:24,143 --> 00:36:25,510 Herald: Thank you again for the very 373 00:36:25,510 --> 00:36:32,800 insightful talk. We are taking questions, so stand behind the microphones. Please go 374 00:36:32,800 --> 00:36:37,210 ahead. We have questions from the internet. 375 00:36:37,210 --> 00:36:41,620 Andy: At this case I would not only be open to questions, but also to ideas, how 376 00:36:41,620 --> 00:36:45,270 to get him out of Belmarsh Prison, but just to have it said. 377 00:36:45,270 --> 00:36:50,370 Herald: OK, you can have that, you know. We're gonna take a question from the 378 00:36:50,370 --> 00:36:52,440 Internet. Signal Angel: Yeah, just one brief 379 00:36:52,440 --> 00:36:59,160 question from the Internet: What is that laser with sticker technology. And 380 00:36:59,160 --> 00:37:02,600 furthermore, what's its purpose? So why are they needed? 381 00:37:03,140 --> 00:37:07,369 Andy: Okay. Maybe I wasn't making it clear enough. The stickers would have a 382 00:37:07,369 --> 00:37:14,400 reflecting surface to the outside, but the way they're glued to the window would 383 00:37:14,400 --> 00:37:23,270 somehow detach them from the inside noise. I don't know how it works at this point in 384 00:37:23,270 --> 00:37:27,570 that detail. We will have one of these stickers in the next weeks and we'll be 385 00:37:27,570 --> 00:37:32,750 able to study it. But it somehow seemed to help the Americans with their laser 386 00:37:32,750 --> 00:37:40,660 technology to take the audio from the vibration of the voice generated or 387 00:37:40,660 --> 00:37:43,860 transported through the glass out the window. 388 00:37:44,910 --> 00:37:50,700 Herald: Thank you. It appears we have no more questions or everyone's too scared to 389 00:37:50,700 --> 00:37:54,890 ask one. We are distributing face masks if that's the case. 390 00:37:54,890 --> 00:37:59,130 Andy: Maybe I want to... Herald: There is there someone. Hi. You're 391 00:37:59,130 --> 00:38:03,990 brave. Go ahead. Q: Can you hear me? Hello? 392 00:38:03,990 --> 00:38:07,860 A: Yes Q: OK. Without revealing your source, how 393 00:38:07,860 --> 00:38:12,280 did you even get all this information? So the video surveillance cameras and all 394 00:38:12,280 --> 00:38:16,930 these details? A: Well, subject to lawyers advice, my 395 00:38:16,930 --> 00:38:20,550 answer is that I'm an investigative journalist and I don't talk about my 396 00:38:20,550 --> 00:38:27,390 methods and sources, but I leave it up to your fantasy as I said this material is 397 00:38:27,390 --> 00:38:32,100 subject to an ongoing lawsuit. So it is also in the hands of the Spanish 398 00:38:32,100 --> 00:38:38,980 prosecutor. And maybe just very little comment because I discuss this also with 399 00:38:38,980 --> 00:38:45,990 Julian and others. I would have to say it. Let's say before I went all too deep into 400 00:38:45,990 --> 00:38:53,150 this and actually looked at this material for hours and hours and days, I would, of 401 00:38:53,150 --> 00:38:59,680 course, also have called Julian and myself paranoid people. But after I did this, I 402 00:38:59,680 --> 00:39:03,420 would call it, well, we had a good situational awareness, because that's the 403 00:39:03,420 --> 00:39:08,590 more precise terminology where we are into. 404 00:39:08,590 --> 00:39:18,060 *applause* Herald: Next question, same microphone. 405 00:39:18,060 --> 00:39:23,682 Q: In the beginning, you said there are multiple embassies inside the building. My 406 00:39:23,682 --> 00:39:28,810 question is: The hallway, is it actually part of Great Britain or is it some 407 00:39:28,810 --> 00:39:34,180 neutral area? A: Well, no, it's part of Great Britain. 408 00:39:34,180 --> 00:39:42,640 So the hallway was just shared among the building tenants, but all of the 409 00:39:42,640 --> 00:39:47,750 apartments so to say in that building are private property. So it was like a shared 410 00:39:47,750 --> 00:39:52,430 thing of the building. There's maybe a better English term, which I don't know. 411 00:39:52,430 --> 00:39:58,490 But the diplomatic police, which is the maybe better educated part of the British 412 00:39:58,490 --> 00:40:08,110 hit and run job police guys would not be allowed normally to step in the embassy. 413 00:40:08,110 --> 00:40:13,544 But in the hallway, they sometimes were in the hallway right in front of the door. So 414 00:40:13,544 --> 00:40:18,250 they would also listen to the dialog when you were talking to the guard about coming 415 00:40:18,250 --> 00:40:24,500 in or whatever. And of course, there was in the first months of his stay or even 416 00:40:24,500 --> 00:40:28,720 years, there was this ongoing police situation. It was actually the police had 417 00:40:28,720 --> 00:40:34,468 sometimes, in winter, they must have got a bit cold and installed a van there, saying 418 00:40:34,468 --> 00:40:40,200 "police conference", which was probably suitable for 12 people, had fancy antennas 419 00:40:40,200 --> 00:40:44,690 and cameras all over it. So they had this ongoing police conference right in front 420 00:40:44,690 --> 00:40:47,587 of the building. *laughter* 421 00:40:47,587 --> 00:40:51,010 Herald: Thank you. We're going to take a question from the Internet next. 422 00:40:51,010 --> 00:40:57,250 Signal Angel: All right. Have you been approached by the CIA or the MI5 or met 423 00:40:57,250 --> 00:41:01,740 the police and been asked to cease and desist from talking about their operation 424 00:41:01,740 --> 00:41:05,120 against Julian Assange and the embassy itself? 425 00:41:05,120 --> 00:41:10,270 A: Not in a direct way that they talk to me, but I've been subject to what I would 426 00:41:10,270 --> 00:41:15,211 call "intimidation surveillance". So there is covert surveillance, that's when they 427 00:41:15,211 --> 00:41:20,519 are hiding their stuff and you see maybe a camera at a border point or whatever. 428 00:41:20,519 --> 00:41:24,869 Intimidation starts for me when I'm, for example, coming in the early morning hours 429 00:41:24,869 --> 00:41:31,276 to airport London-Heathrow, come to the immigration counter, the guy takes my 430 00:41:31,276 --> 00:41:35,070 passport, sees something on the screen, starts to ask me actually the same 431 00:41:35,070 --> 00:41:40,090 question three times, but he doesn't even listen to my answers. Like, where are you 432 00:41:40,090 --> 00:41:44,900 going? What's your occupation? He's asking it again and I'm like, am I talking to a 433 00:41:44,900 --> 00:41:49,000 moron or what's going wrong here? But at some point I identified as it happened 434 00:41:49,000 --> 00:41:53,920 again and again and again that after some minutes you got this go material, this go 435 00:41:53,920 --> 00:41:58,730 blink on his screen. And so the guys outside were standing ready to follow me 436 00:41:58,730 --> 00:42:03,901 the whole fucking day. And that's what I would call intimidation surveillance. It's 437 00:42:03,901 --> 00:42:11,300 not meant to like watch me. It's mainly meant to let you know that you are not 438 00:42:11,300 --> 00:42:16,090 liked here, that we are have you on our eyes, that we know you are a friend of 439 00:42:16,090 --> 00:42:21,180 Julian and so on. So, yeah, that was not the pleasant part of my life. 440 00:42:21,180 --> 00:42:28,020 Herald: Thank you. Microphone one. Q: Yeah. First. Thank you. Nice talk, very 441 00:42:28,020 --> 00:42:33,590 dystopian. I'm just following up on what you just said. I mean, chances are high 442 00:42:33,590 --> 00:42:38,050 that you are under surveillance as well. What are the personal countermeasures 443 00:42:38,050 --> 00:42:40,760 you've taken? Did you check your fire extinguisher? 444 00:42:40,760 --> 00:42:47,780 A: Yeah, actually, I could and should probably at some point in the next month 445 00:42:47,780 --> 00:42:55,119 hold a separate talk about that. I found a physical bug in one of my phones. I have 446 00:42:55,119 --> 00:43:00,530 all kinds of funny incidents. I was able to actually create traffic jams in one way 447 00:43:00,530 --> 00:43:06,230 streets in European cities at three o'clock in the night and that's quite an 448 00:43:06,230 --> 00:43:12,940 interesting experience. *laughter* *applause* 449 00:43:12,940 --> 00:43:18,190 A: And at some point, you maybe get used to it. You think, well, ok, that's how it 450 00:43:18,190 --> 00:43:28,570 is. But of course, it is a bit of a loss of quality of life. And also, you are 451 00:43:28,570 --> 00:43:34,430 becoming a little bit different in your behavior towards other people. But as I 452 00:43:34,430 --> 00:43:39,940 said, unfortunately it's situational awareness, so you can't be careful enough 453 00:43:39,940 --> 00:43:46,560 in such a situation. Basically, if you look at it from a balance of budget or 454 00:43:46,560 --> 00:43:54,859 balance of measures or options point of view, they have an endless astronomy 455 00:43:54,859 --> 00:44:05,920 military budget. We have encrypted e-mail, OTR and may be crypto phones. So basically 456 00:44:05,920 --> 00:44:10,780 my assumption has become that they know what I'm doing and I'm not doing anything 457 00:44:10,780 --> 00:44:16,270 illegal anyhow. But the whole case against Julian and after you have studied all this 458 00:44:16,270 --> 00:44:20,700 material, which includes the pictures of the bathroom, right, there was an audio 459 00:44:20,700 --> 00:44:26,050 bug also in the bathroom area and so on with these cameras. And I think for me, 460 00:44:26,050 --> 00:44:31,850 it's pretty clear this is not about him having violated any laws. This has nothing 461 00:44:31,850 --> 00:44:37,817 to do with law enforcement. This is a political case. This is intimidation. And 462 00:44:37,817 --> 00:44:41,900 it is that they want to set that precedent, that they want to actually hang 463 00:44:41,900 --> 00:44:45,730 him on the highest tree. And let us all aware: Don't try to connect the Internet 464 00:44:45,730 --> 00:44:51,640 with the secrets as we don't like that. But actually, on the positive side, 465 00:44:51,640 --> 00:44:58,840 speaking as I said, he has shown with WikiLeaks that it is possible the Internet 466 00:44:58,840 --> 00:45:07,290 is quite suitable to deal and to provide more aspects of information and knowledge 467 00:45:07,290 --> 00:45:14,782 on government secrets actings to all of us. So, yes, it comes at a price. 468 00:45:14,782 --> 00:45:17,700 Herald: Okay. This is getting more dystopian by the minute. 469 00:45:17,700 --> 00:45:20,499 Andy: Sorry for that. Herald: Let's see if we can go even 470 00:45:20,499 --> 00:45:23,700 scarier. Microphone two. Andy: I'm sure there will be other talks 471 00:45:23,700 --> 00:45:28,547 about good news. Herald: Oh, no. No, there won't. 472 00:45:30,777 --> 00:45:35,010 Q: Thank you so much for the presentation. The details like were really important. 473 00:45:35,010 --> 00:45:39,140 Like to see, you know, have a concrete image of what surveillance looks like in 474 00:45:39,140 --> 00:45:44,390 the embassy. And as you mentioned, all what happened was in complicity with the 475 00:45:44,390 --> 00:45:49,550 Ecuadorian embassy, even if also you said that it's not really related to law 476 00:45:49,550 --> 00:45:55,010 enforcement, I'm really curious from legal perspective, if there is any way and if 477 00:45:55,010 --> 00:46:00,920 there are ongoing cases, if there is any way they could get away with it. Are there 478 00:46:00,920 --> 00:46:06,190 any things that they can do or defend or argument just to make this okay? I don't 479 00:46:06,190 --> 00:46:10,180 know, national security reasons, whatever not considered, you know, is a violation. 480 00:46:10,180 --> 00:46:16,220 A: OK. So what I can say is that the Spanish lawyers of Julian are currently 481 00:46:16,220 --> 00:46:22,800 with high pressure also working together with the state prosecutor and examine the 482 00:46:22,800 --> 00:46:29,895 evidence. So the owner of the company was briefly arrested. He's out on bail. His 483 00:46:29,895 --> 00:46:36,580 company compound was searched. Computers, USBs, hard disks were seized and so on. 484 00:46:36,580 --> 00:46:41,390 And that's all stuff that's being worked on right now, because it might be very 485 00:46:41,390 --> 00:46:47,570 important for Julian's main extradition case, as it clearly demonstrates that the 486 00:46:47,570 --> 00:46:54,710 United States or some entities of the United States are being located in the 487 00:46:54,710 --> 00:47:01,780 United States, have violated his ability to prepare legal defense in a fair way. 488 00:47:01,780 --> 00:47:08,550 And that might be a main argument. However, when - and I've been talking a 489 00:47:08,550 --> 00:47:13,780 lot with this lawyers - like they say things like in any normal case, this would 490 00:47:13,780 --> 00:47:19,260 be the end. But this is Julian Assange and the U.K. government on behalf of the 491 00:47:19,260 --> 00:47:24,320 American government, so we'll see what happens. No one expects a fair trial here. 492 00:47:24,320 --> 00:47:29,410 And I mean, also the fact that he's kept in solitary confinement for 22 hours a day 493 00:47:29,410 --> 00:47:33,450 in a high security prison that's normally for terrorists, organized crime and 494 00:47:33,450 --> 00:47:40,490 murderers, while being none of that, shows clearly that this is like not a normal 495 00:47:40,490 --> 00:47:46,050 case here. This has nothing to do with normal justice. The United Kingdom ignores 496 00:47:46,050 --> 00:47:52,340 the United Nations finding on torture about his psychological state, as he has 497 00:47:52,340 --> 00:47:56,010 been, of course, through a totally different journey. For him, it was not 498 00:47:56,010 --> 00:48:01,980 only knowing about this surveillance, it was also the unknown of: can I ever expect 499 00:48:01,980 --> 00:48:06,940 a fair trial, will they want to kill me or will it just be orange based jumps in 500 00:48:06,940 --> 00:48:15,480 Gitmo or whatever? So he, of course, has issues through that, but the UK ignores 501 00:48:15,480 --> 00:48:21,260 the United Nations, so in theory we should all be outraged completely and stand in 502 00:48:21,260 --> 00:48:28,460 front of these British embassies for the moment, to do, to demand that his prison 503 00:48:28,460 --> 00:48:35,240 conditions are being humanized. As totally independent from the fact, if the court 504 00:48:35,240 --> 00:48:40,109 will find him guilty or if the extradition bill plays, the fear is that he is kind of 505 00:48:40,109 --> 00:48:46,120 being killed right now as we speak. Herald: Thank you. Microphone two. 506 00:48:46,120 --> 00:48:51,840 Q: Hi. Do you know if that Spanish company is still responsible for the security 507 00:48:51,840 --> 00:48:54,690 installation at the Ecuadorian embassy in London? 508 00:48:54,690 --> 00:49:01,720 A: No. Maybe I missed that slide. They have been brought out of their... the 509 00:49:01,720 --> 00:49:07,570 contract has been canceled in April of 2018 and this other company, Promsecurity, 510 00:49:07,570 --> 00:49:12,000 took over. Herald: Thank you. One more question... 511 00:49:12,000 --> 00:49:16,080 A: What I can say is that some of the - that's maybe an important aspect - as some 512 00:49:16,080 --> 00:49:22,390 of the employees of UC Global, which have been working in the embassy and had their 513 00:49:22,390 --> 00:49:28,740 eight hour shifts there, have become protected witnesses of the Spanish justice 514 00:49:28,740 --> 00:49:35,230 to testify against Morales. They were not happy with what they were doing. They 515 00:49:35,230 --> 00:49:39,450 understood at some point that this was on behalf of American intelligence, violating 516 00:49:39,450 --> 00:49:43,590 the official contract they had been working under. So there was some 517 00:49:43,590 --> 00:49:51,330 resistance. There is the option that some of this resistance also had to do, that 518 00:49:51,330 --> 00:49:54,580 the owner of the company got a lot of money every month for this, but did not 519 00:49:54,580 --> 00:50:01,590 share that money. That might have played into it. But some of these guys also were 520 00:50:01,590 --> 00:50:06,260 not happy as they were like sitting in the same rooms with Julian the whole day and 521 00:50:06,260 --> 00:50:10,970 talked with him, of course, also. Herald: Thank you. One more question from 522 00:50:10,970 --> 00:50:17,060 the Internet. Hi, Internet people. Signal Angel: How do you explain the huge 523 00:50:17,060 --> 00:50:22,210 effort besides the intimidation you mentioned towards you that motivates the 524 00:50:22,210 --> 00:50:28,600 USA to take these dubious and very ambitious steps. So maybe just to ask you 525 00:50:28,600 --> 00:50:33,540 one more question to you, sir: How many intelligence officers do you think then 526 00:50:33,540 --> 00:50:35,510 are in this room right now? 527 00:50:35,909 --> 00:50:38,249 *laughter* 528 00:50:38,621 --> 00:50:41,770 A: Okay. So the first question was, I'm 529 00:50:41,770 --> 00:50:49,650 not sure I fully got it: Why they are doing this? Well, I mean, I could also 530 00:50:49,650 --> 00:50:53,430 have introduced me the other way. I could have said, I don't need to introduce 531 00:50:53,430 --> 00:51:02,170 myself. Go to the Mueller Report, see page 47. I was suspected due to my multiple 532 00:51:02,170 --> 00:51:07,060 visits and actually, look, I brought Julian food, I brought him clothing, I 533 00:51:07,060 --> 00:51:13,400 brought him computers, USB sticks in like packages, all kinds of things. I will 534 00:51:13,400 --> 00:51:18,490 never be able to prove what I not brought him due to the amounts of my visits there. 535 00:51:18,490 --> 00:51:23,140 So the Washington Post came at some point and said that they had multiple 536 00:51:23,140 --> 00:51:27,760 intelligence sources from somewhere that I was the person who brought Julian the DNC 537 00:51:27,760 --> 00:51:32,230 emails on a USB stick and I said like, wow, what a bullshit. But as I said, I 538 00:51:32,230 --> 00:51:37,040 will never be able to prove that I wasn't doing that. My taking off it is as I am in 539 00:51:37,040 --> 00:51:40,360 a small foundation called Wau Holland Foundation, one of the five board members, 540 00:51:40,360 --> 00:51:45,810 and actually I'm kind of working in that project area for freedom of information 541 00:51:45,810 --> 00:51:50,570 that I was to contact prison to weekly send to Julian for many years. So they 542 00:51:50,570 --> 00:51:54,200 maybe just to follow the money and want to kill it. I mean, would not be a surprise 543 00:51:54,200 --> 00:51:58,789 that they want to kill like WikiLeaks else as a publication agency or not. Julian 544 00:51:58,789 --> 00:52:03,750 Assange only as a human being. So here you go. One theory. There's, of course, many 545 00:52:03,750 --> 00:52:07,510 others, but I guess they're pretty generous. And the budget they have to deal 546 00:52:07,510 --> 00:52:11,590 with is pretty big. So, and of course, I'm not the only one that's being followed and 547 00:52:11,590 --> 00:52:15,720 so on. The other question was...? Herald: How many intelligence officers 548 00:52:15,720 --> 00:52:18,780 that we have here in this room? *drumming on panel* 549 00:52:18,780 --> 00:52:22,550 *laughter* 550 00:52:22,550 --> 00:52:28,889 A: Out there on the stream, I see 23 different. In the room, five to eight. 551 00:52:29,559 --> 00:52:32,412 Herald: I think that guy walks a bit sketchy. 552 00:52:32,412 --> 00:52:33,470 *laughter* 553 00:52:33,470 --> 00:52:36,470 Herald: He's wearing a headset. He's been quiet the entire time. 554 00:52:36,470 --> 00:52:42,190 *applause* 555 00:52:42,190 --> 00:52:44,007 A: What can I say? I mean, openness 556 00:52:44,007 --> 00:52:53,010 protects from from being blackmailed. Maybe that was Wau's idea about it. But of 557 00:52:53,010 --> 00:52:57,920 course, not all aspects of WikiLeaks can be subject to full disclosure as there's 558 00:52:57,920 --> 00:53:02,270 sources to protect, there's people who have lives to protect, who help with all 559 00:53:02,270 --> 00:53:08,109 kinds of things. There's journalists who sometimes bring more things from funny 560 00:53:08,109 --> 00:53:12,450 sources, so there's all kinds of things that as a media project you would want to 561 00:53:12,450 --> 00:53:16,230 protect normally. Under the circumstances, however, it's a bit tough. 562 00:53:16,230 --> 00:53:21,307 Herald: OK. Thank you. There is a person next to microphone one and I don't 563 00:53:21,307 --> 00:53:24,000 understand if you actually have a question, are you there to (...) 564 00:53:24,000 --> 00:53:26,560 A: An answer maybe? Herald: You have a question? 565 00:53:26,560 --> 00:53:29,384 Q: Yes Herald: Are you CIA? 566 00:53:29,384 --> 00:53:31,807 Q: I hope not ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ *laughter* 567 00:53:31,807 --> 00:53:34,308 Herald: OK, we're not interested. Microphone two 568 00:53:34,308 --> 00:53:37,566 *laughter* 569 00:53:37,566 --> 00:53:39,290 A: It's a little too brutal, maybe? 570 00:53:39,290 --> 00:53:43,950 Q: OK. Thank you. Are there actually any diplomatic consequences out of this case? 571 00:53:43,950 --> 00:53:49,490 Because like the CIA, with the help of the British government, kind of violated the 572 00:53:49,490 --> 00:53:55,170 embassy of Ecuador, so, like, installing cameras is not exactly ok for my 573 00:53:55,170 --> 00:53:58,390 understanding and for embassies? 574 00:53:59,890 --> 00:54:04,859 A: Well, I would think that in any normal 575 00:54:04,859 --> 00:54:09,940 European country, there would also be investigation, like, official 576 00:54:09,940 --> 00:54:13,420 investigation, maybe even by other embassies in the building and so on after 577 00:54:13,420 --> 00:54:18,700 learning these things. The U.K. seems to have just decided not only to get out of 578 00:54:18,700 --> 00:54:22,780 European Union, but also to become more of a colony of the United States, if they 579 00:54:22,780 --> 00:54:28,770 have not been that all the time. So I don't have the impression also with the 580 00:54:28,770 --> 00:54:32,530 fact that the current Ecuadorian government is very pro US, they have 581 00:54:32,530 --> 00:54:40,440 allowed military installations from the United States in Ecuador. They have made 582 00:54:40,440 --> 00:54:48,230 this agreement to help them in the investigation. So not that I'm aware of. However, this 583 00:54:48,230 --> 00:54:53,760 Spanish investigation is probably the strongest thing going on. There have been 584 00:54:53,760 --> 00:55:02,500 contradicting statements about involvement of Secret Service people, CIA people, 585 00:55:02,500 --> 00:55:10,170 might be a mixture of both of them. But this is ongoing. And if you ... these 586 00:55:10,170 --> 00:55:15,359 links here is my own little wiki called osint.info where I'm collecting the 587 00:55:15,359 --> 00:55:19,350 regular updates coming in from the investigation through the Spanish news and 588 00:55:19,350 --> 00:55:24,339 so on. So you will learn more about the case in the next weeks. It's all ongoing. 589 00:55:24,339 --> 00:55:28,200 Herald: Thank you. OK, the guy who's supposedly not CIA, go! 590 00:55:28,200 --> 00:55:33,220 Q: So I want to make clear that I never received any direct payments from the CIA. 591 00:55:33,220 --> 00:55:35,621 *laughter* Q: My question is... 592 00:55:35,621 --> 00:55:40,224 A: No, but that's... that's, by the way, the nature of them. So I would be very 593 00:55:40,224 --> 00:55:41,822 surprised... *more laughter* 594 00:55:41,822 --> 00:55:44,860 *applause* A: I would be very surprised that we find 595 00:55:44,860 --> 00:55:50,420 evidence, because one of the core working principle of the intelligence is of course 596 00:55:50,420 --> 00:55:56,250 deniability. So if you have a situation like this where you see funny money is 597 00:55:56,250 --> 00:56:01,540 coming in and finding instructions come in, but you cannot prove who it was, 598 00:56:01,540 --> 00:56:05,960 that's exactly the confirmation and, so to say, the "proof", because you can't prove 599 00:56:05,960 --> 00:56:14,040 it. That deniability is core of their like way of acting. And I mean, whom, by the 600 00:56:14,040 --> 00:56:17,990 way, am I telling this. It's not only them. OK. 601 00:56:17,990 --> 00:56:21,930 Herald: I always thought you kind of create an invoice for covert spy 602 00:56:21,930 --> 00:56:24,261 activity... A: Yes, they did at some point, but the 603 00:56:24,261 --> 00:56:28,830 guy was greedy. He traveled then, what we know is he traveled to Gibraltar and there 604 00:56:28,830 --> 00:56:33,820 might be hidden bank accounts there. And also the way the cash was transferred 605 00:56:33,820 --> 00:56:40,050 changed from time to time. So, there was... not all of it seems to have been 606 00:56:40,050 --> 00:56:45,680 going directly through Sheldon Adelson, but Sheldon Adelson is - actually I missed 607 00:56:45,680 --> 00:56:51,030 him to put him out on a link - he's a person also worth checking out, is a very 608 00:56:51,030 --> 00:56:56,430 weird international intelligence operative, I would call him . And he can 609 00:56:56,430 --> 00:57:00,839 sue me for that, but he's 92 years old, so he's a cover anyhow just for other people 610 00:57:00,839 --> 00:57:06,490 active. He runs casinos in Las Vegas, in Macao and other places. He has been 611 00:57:06,490 --> 00:57:11,869 running spy operations on Chinese officials in Macao, he has been accused, 612 00:57:11,869 --> 00:57:17,890 look Wikipedia, on money laundering from forged USD notes printed in Iran, was not 613 00:57:17,890 --> 00:57:24,380 Korean paper or the other way around being brought in by Israeli citizen in a funny 614 00:57:24,380 --> 00:57:29,360 operation. So he's a truly interesting person in this context also. 615 00:57:29,670 --> 00:57:36,161 Herald: So I thought you just send it to invoices@cia.gov and then get it. OK. 616 00:57:36,161 --> 00:57:38,220 A: Try it *laughter* 617 00:57:38,220 --> 00:57:42,309 Herald: Yeah. A: Try it, and put the... 618 00:57:42,309 --> 00:57:44,710 *laughter* 619 00:57:46,250 --> 00:57:48,160 A: No, actually, I would also have a lot 620 00:57:48,160 --> 00:57:52,080 of funny fantasy about this, if this wouldn't be about a friend of mine who's 621 00:57:52,080 --> 00:57:57,109 in serious shit. So, if you could please also apply your fantasy of how we could 622 00:57:57,109 --> 00:58:01,700 get out him there, not only into the question of how we deal with the CIA, I 623 00:58:01,700 --> 00:58:06,660 would be very thankful to you guys. Herald: Thank you. Definitely not try any 624 00:58:06,660 --> 00:58:09,790 of that at home. Question from the Internet, please. 625 00:58:09,790 --> 00:58:11,899 *laughter* 626 00:58:12,220 --> 00:58:14,180 Signal Angel: The Internet asks, what will 627 00:58:14,180 --> 00:58:19,480 happen to WikiLeaks as an organization in case Assange gets a life sentence? And, 628 00:58:19,480 --> 00:58:22,440 since I'm not sure this is the last question from the Internet, the Internet 629 00:58:22,440 --> 00:58:27,378 wants to say that it really appreciates your willingness to do the talk again. So, 630 00:58:27,378 --> 00:58:37,510 thank you for your courage. *applause* 631 00:58:38,230 --> 00:58:42,980 A: I'm not speaking for WikiLeaks, but I am in contact with Kristinn Hrafnsson - he 632 00:58:42,980 --> 00:58:47,200 has this Icelandic name that's hard to pronounce - who is the current editor in 633 00:58:47,200 --> 00:58:51,760 chief and I mean, WikiLeaks is publishing things ongoing. The last publication was 634 00:58:51,760 --> 00:58:57,800 actually two days ago on the 27th or something, so they, of course, decided to 635 00:58:57,800 --> 00:59:03,510 continue the work. Also, because they think that's the only thing they can do to 636 00:59:03,510 --> 00:59:11,080 demonstrate also that, like, this is a publishing organization and they have been 637 00:59:11,080 --> 00:59:17,200 working with media partners and so on. So in Iceland, where Kristinn is officially 638 00:59:17,200 --> 00:59:22,470 located, the surrounding environments, anyhow, are a lot more supportive, as the 639 00:59:22,470 --> 00:59:25,900 other day, some years ago, when this Kaupthing Bank issue and they had a local 640 00:59:25,900 --> 00:59:30,690 bank corruption issue and that was a national scandal. It's a small country of 641 00:59:30,690 --> 00:59:34,390 300,000 people, that's a totally different environment and Kristinn is pretty 642 00:59:34,390 --> 00:59:40,109 confident that they leave him in peace there and appreciate the work. So that's 643 00:59:40,109 --> 00:59:46,850 not the UK, but for the UK itself, well, I cannot speak and I can also not speak for 644 00:59:46,850 --> 00:59:52,770 WikiLeaks. If anyone on the Internet has good ideas on what to do, as I said, this 645 00:59:52,770 --> 00:59:59,119 is maybe the phase where we really need to crowdsource our ideas on how to get Julian 646 00:59:59,119 --> 01:00:03,937 out of this shit. Thank you. Herald: Thank you 647 01:00:03,937 --> 01:00:09,147 *applause* 648 01:00:09,147 --> 01:00:14,802 Herald: Do we take a question from the guy who was definitely not CIA? OK go. 649 01:00:15,622 --> 01:00:18,160 Q: So we have suspected for a long time 650 01:00:18,160 --> 01:00:23,170 that there was a secret request for extradition for Julian and that he was 651 01:00:23,170 --> 01:00:28,119 under surveillance, but there was no proof until now. So the general public and most 652 01:00:28,119 --> 01:00:32,900 journalists dismissed this as conspiracy theories. Now that it's out, everyone 653 01:00:32,900 --> 01:00:37,080 agrees, ok, that this was obvious, so... A: This was a situational awareness, yes. 654 01:00:37,080 --> 01:00:42,640 Q: Yeah. So how can we help the next Julian, which we are not sure yet that 655 01:00:42,640 --> 01:00:49,150 he's definitely under surveillance, to raise awareness of such a situation? 656 01:00:49,150 --> 01:00:58,780 A: Well, I mean, in theory, as far as I know, the publishing activities of 657 01:00:58,780 --> 01:01:06,380 WikiLeaks are not illegal, have not been illegal, at least, yes, there is ongoing 658 01:01:06,380 --> 01:01:11,140 investigations, but these ongoing investigations are around the question of 659 01:01:11,140 --> 01:01:17,470 how sources were convinced to be a source. So there's this allegation that, for 660 01:01:17,470 --> 01:01:22,580 example, Chelsea Manning was instructed to do something in order to submit the stuff, 661 01:01:22,580 --> 01:01:27,940 in order to publish it later. The publishing itself might have not been 662 01:01:27,940 --> 01:01:34,050 illegal. Chelsea Manning herself is, as you might know, also in prison again for 663 01:01:34,050 --> 01:01:41,240 not testifying against Julian about exactly this question. So it's not only 664 01:01:41,240 --> 01:01:48,410 the publishing stuff that's being threatened here. Yes, also, but also the 665 01:01:48,410 --> 01:01:53,850 treatment of sources and the whole wording surrounding the process of acquiring a 666 01:01:53,850 --> 01:02:01,320 source. It's hard for me to like right now come up with like the concept of how this 667 01:02:01,320 --> 01:02:06,620 can continue. But obviously, we are here at a situation where transparency in 668 01:02:06,620 --> 01:02:14,510 governmental affairs has successfully been demonstrated to be achievable over the 669 01:02:14,510 --> 01:02:19,800 Internet with the right access to information and data and also being 670 01:02:19,800 --> 01:02:24,730 challenged by those in power. And so we better challenge those in power and ensure 671 01:02:24,730 --> 01:02:31,930 that democracy, based on our ability and our right to know what is happening in our 672 01:02:31,930 --> 01:02:40,910 name is preserved. How are we going to do that with a country like the formerly 673 01:02:40,910 --> 01:02:47,040 country known as the United States, now Trumpistan or whatever *huff*. I mean, 674 01:02:47,040 --> 01:02:55,339 even for the United Kingdom *huff*. But ok, here we are in old Europe or in Germany 675 01:02:55,339 --> 01:03:00,390 with all its weird history. There's other countries surrounding us that at least 676 01:03:00,390 --> 01:03:05,300 have a constitution based on some human rights. The United Kingdom doesn't even 677 01:03:05,300 --> 01:03:10,900 have a constitution based on that. So at least for Germany, France, maybe Italy, 678 01:03:10,900 --> 01:03:16,640 Spain and so on, and these countries, I still see that we can do something. So 679 01:03:16,640 --> 01:03:21,010 this is also a bit of a situation between European and American understanding of 680 01:03:21,010 --> 01:03:26,589 governance at all. And we just can't let this happen. I mean, this is not about 681 01:03:26,589 --> 01:03:31,900 Julian. This is about our ability to deal with governments or if you want to hear it 682 01:03:31,900 --> 01:03:35,953 the other way around with the governments abilities to deal with us. 683 01:03:36,223 --> 01:03:37,732 Herald: Thank you. 684 01:03:37,732 --> 01:03:48,020 *applause* 685 01:03:48,165 --> 01:03:56,713 *postroll music* 686 01:03:59,109 --> 01:04:09,861 subtitles created by c3subtitles.de in the year 2020. Join, and help us!