We must not be flummoxed by exaggerated claims of threats against America and our interests. This meant that a lot of the things that we see Gun go through in the film actually took far longer in real life. (Photo by Scott Barbour/Getty Images). Id immediately be transported back to GCHQ and that email the anger I felt and the decisions I made. Thank you! Iran has been filmed loading missiles aboard some of its vessels. So right there, you are pulling out the highlights," said Hood of the key issue with making Official Secrets. For several years, just recalling the events would set my heart racing and my hands trembling. Most directly, it bolstered opposition to the US position from Chilean and Mexican diplomats weary of American "dirty tricks". And maybe if we went to work for Enron and we liked our job well enough, and its a job. ", Left: Dave Benett/Getty. Eventually, it was widely held that at least one of the reports of the attacks, and perhaps even both, were false. A transcript, lightly edited with explainers where necessary, follows. Cheering crowds have never been my sort of thing. We were to target such things as phone calls and emails from their homes as well as their places of work. She had been following that war, as many of us had, for a year. The legal case against Gun was eventually dropped by the British government in 2004, after her lawyer, Ben Emmerson QC (played in the film with fabulous charisma by Ralph Fiennes), threatened to use disclosure to put the legal basis of the war itself on trial. I could put a lens on, and now my job is, this actress is doing great work, lets not get tricky, lets just get the audience into her eyes so that you could see those cogs moving. So I said goodbye to my mom and moved to America. Sixteen years ago, I became headline news after I leaked an internal email from GCHQ, the communications intelligence gathering centre near Cheltenham. For me as a journalist who was really getting started around that time, this climate of fear that was in place in the United States and also in the UK. As opposed to trying to be Katharine Gun. From nightmares to candy cravings, the seemingly innocuous habits in Man is banned from touching every parking meter in Liverpool for two years after being convicted of theft, Katharine Gun, Gchq Whistleblower For The Mail On Sunday, Do not sell or share my personal information. Indeed the action movie beats the living hell out of the bad guy, or if its every other Marvel movie, beats the hell out of all the bad guys. He said she didnt even know what the job was. Healthy mother-of-two, 32, collapsed and died from brain bleed while she led fitness bounce class. As Bright noted, however, what we see in the movie is close to the real events. It wasone of the reasons I came to this country in 89 was because we were getting drafted, and I thought I cant do this. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site. As one of the journalists who broke the story, I feel a certain responsibility for how things have turned out. So we start with hair, and then we start with glasses, and Keira says, "Gavin, what if I just was me?" So it was a pretty awful thing to happen to her. By printing off the memo, putting it in her handbag and taking it home, she was already committing a serious breach of the Official Secrets Act. Americans find it hard to believe that it could happen, but it happens, it happens fast. "You get to the end, and there's this court case. Which really, really, really happened. This is a story about my life and my leak after all, and I still believe in the issues passionately. So somehow in my rolodex, sometimes they sought me out. In fact, I had no idea what was going on. ", Speaking to Gun, and seeing her in archival footage at the end of the film, it is clear that Knightley didn't try to emulate the look or sound of the real-life Gun. What do I do? And that was my way in. What resonates to me is the somewhat more, I hope, timeless thing. Despite the millions affected by the Iraq War, its now far removed from British and American news cycles, displaced from the headlines by todays political turmoil. Anyway, the Office of Special Plans and Abram Shulsky make an interesting Wikipedia read, it won't take you very long. Yet here was a story that had the capacity to derail the war altogether. Look at what happened to Reality Winner in this country. Despite the risk of a harsher sentence, I decided to plead not guilty because I felt strongly that my actions had been intended to prevent the unnecessary loss of life in an illegal war. Gun disclosed details of the spying operation as it was happening to stop something she viewed as terrible happening in the future. WebThe Katharine Gun Case. What It Feels Liketo Survive a Chemical Attack. There were some audience questions as well. You might say I am biased. Exaggerating threats to provoke a war? But depicting that climate, people who were not aware or active at that timedidn't realize how difficult this was to talk against the war both from the journalist's perspective and obviously someone who's in the intelligence community. She failed. The same countries demanded immediate answers from the British government about its involvement in the spying. That means that, in theory, the war could still be classified as an illegal war, Gun says. The story of Katharine Gun, a whistle-blower who exposed NSA spying in the lead-up to the Iraq War, gets the Hollywood treatment. And that I think was the motivation. David Dayen: As someone who works on a magazine, it's the ultimate copyediting failure. I was glad to get back to what I hoped would be normality, but the effect on me had been traumatising. You see it most vividly in that scene where everybody stops calling Martin Bright, or they start canceling all the interviews. Across the world, millions protested the invasion of Iraq, doing their own small parts to attempt to prevent the war. Times have often been tough, not least because of the itinerant life she has chosen for herself. Direct to your inbox. In the matter of a few years. Provocation? And it's also true that we were then attacked by the Drudge Report for what would now be called 'fake news. WebWhen the film opens, Gun (Keira Knightley) is happily married to Yasar (Adam Bakri), a Turkish national living in the UK on a temporary visa, and passionately invested in It gives me an interesting pause. Im gratified, too, that the film shows the love and support my husband gave me throughout this ordeal. Then the story went Does anyone have any questions? So important was this email, I knew it might even derail the case that Tony Blair was making for joining the Americans in an invasion. I was suddenly free and bewildered. Later, she gave the document to a friend, who passed it onto a contact in the anti-war movement, until it finally landed with journalists Martin Bright and Ed Vulliamy The Observer. So WMD may not have been as important, had they gotten that resolution. However, when her friends start being interrogated about the leak, Gun confesses to being the whistleblower, leading to her being arrested and taken to court for breaching the Official Secrets Act. Please help keep the independent journalism of Common Dreams strong. In real life, "the spellcheck largely happened through a series of phone calls," according to Bright, "because on a Sunday newspaper we don't work on a Sunday, and we don't work on a Monday. I didn't plan to have this movie out today and know what was going to be going on. [Gun's husband Yasar, a Kurd, was nearly deported back to the Middle East at one point, even though he had nothing to do with the leak.]. They live on a smallholding, renting a house, in rural Turkey. By design. Marcia Mitchell is a writer, researcher, and the author of "The Spy Who Tried to Stop a War: Katharine Gun and the Secret Plot to Sanction the Iraq Invasion." Does your loyalty lie to your own conscious, does your loyalty lie to your marriage, does your loyalty lie to your government, does your loyalty lie to your country? Whether you work for Boeing or Enron or Wallstreet? I got that from Yasar. We were in development with a particular studio, and I don't mean to be funny after such a heavy film but sometimes we need a little bit of humor. Twenty-eight, pretty naive. When do the clocks change in 2023? But the falsehoods and unnecessary wars of yesteryear likely have influenced the waning support for public institutions today. Gun discusses her attempt to stop the Iraq War, which is the subject of the new movie Official Secrets. David Dayen: One thing I think you depict really brilliantly in this story is what the climate was like at the time. Your Privacy Choices: Opt Out of Sale/Targeted Ads. The central issues of whistle-blower protection, public interest disclosures, journalistic freedom and the accountability of our elected representatives continue to be just as relevant today. Ms Gun worked as a translator at the GCHQ building in Cheltenham, pictured. So Im very proud of Keiras performance and I dont mind that she doesnt have blonde hair. Katharine Gun and Martin Bright could be forgiven for fielding Hollywoods overtures with a degree of skepticism. Gavin Hood: Its a question of how conditioned are we to the conventional Hollywood structure. This and her other writings about intelligence issues have been critically acclaimed. Chile and Mexico and the other smaller countries were so outraged that they refused to even bring it to a vote. Amazing lady, shes still a journalist. Gun, her husband, and their four-year-old daughter shed their coveted privacy long enough to allow Katharine to be one of two former Sam Adams Award winners to present this year's award. Taking Vitamin D each day could cut your chances of getting dementia, study claims. Enter Katharine Gun. This content is imported from youTube. I don't think she thought they would deport her husband, I really don't think she thought that. WebYou may not know the name Katharine Gun unless you live in the United Kingdom, but she was a pivotal figure in the run-up to the Iraq War. In technical speak, the Americans wanted the whole gamut of information which would give US policy makers an edge in obtaining results favourable to US goals in relation to Iraq. [Gun was charged with violating the Official Secrets Act in Britain, but ultimately the case never went to trial.]. When my moment came, I found myself standing alone in the dock facing the judge and surrounded by lawyers, journalists and supporters. Some called her a traitor; others insisted she was a hero. Who authorised the NSA email, for example? Neither my friends nor my family knew what I did all day. It was what I was thinking, what I was feeling. You have no idea. Everyone involved assumed the project had run into the dust, but then it appeared on the Black List, a Hollywood website for unmade film scripts, which has featured Slumdog Millionaire and The King's Speech in the past. Liberty, the civil rights organisation, and Ben Emmerson QC had already agreed to defend me and we prepared for trial. I admitted the leak and my life was turned upside down. For the Observer too, it was a story full of risks. Donald Trump also is saying he doesn't want war, which is probably true. ", "I think Gavin had a really difficult time telling this story because it doesn't fit into a normal sort of storytelling mode," said Gun. I believe that all of this should have been formally acknowledged as part of the history of the second Gulf War. It turned out a copyeditor at The Observer had run the memo through spellcheck before printing it.]. And Where Is Katharine Gun, JUST 36 HOURS TO GO IN OUR WINTER CAMPAIGN. 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