Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 6/8/23 Kit Klarenberg on His Experience Getting Interrogated for Doing Journalism

Episode Date: June 10, 2023

Journalist Kit Klarenberg joined Antiwar Radio this week to talk about his experience being detained by British police and interrogated about writing for The Grayzone. Klarenberg talks Scott through what happened—how he was detained and what he was asked about. They then zoom out and discuss the concerning implications of this aggressive new attack on alternative media.  Discussed on the show: The Trial of Julian Assange by Nils Melzer “British police detain journalist Kit Klarenberg, interrogate him about The Grayzone” (The Grayzone) Kit Klarenberg is an investigative journalist exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions. Follow him on Twitter @KitKlarenberg This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott. Get Scott’s interviews before anyone else! Subscribe to the Substack. Shop Libertarian Institute merch or donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal or Bitcoin: 1DZBZNJrxUhQhEzgDh7k8JXHXRjY Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For Pacifica Radio, June 8th, 20203, I'm Scott Horton. This is Anti-War Radio. All right, y'all welcome the show. It is Anti-War Radio. I'm your host, Scott Horton. I'm editorial director of anti-war.com. And I'm the editor of the book, Hotter Than the Sun. time to abolish nuclear weapons. You can find my full interview archive,

almost 6,000 of them now, going back 20 years ago, at scothorton.org, and at YouTube.com slash Scott Horton Show and all the video sites, actually. And you can follow me on Twitter, if you dare, at Scott Horton Show. All right, introducing Kit Clarenberg.

I interview him all the time. He's from the gray zone.com, and he does really good work there, which is what got him in trouble with the Scotland Yard, I think. Welcome to the show. Kit, how are you doing? Hey, how's it going? Well, I don't know if I'm cavorting with a felon here or just an accomplished journalist, but there is no First Amendment over there in England where you're from, and I'm here at the Gray Zone that you got got over your journalism.

Yeah, well, it's, yes, it's, it was quite a shock, really. I mean, I've not lived in the UK for several years and I returned on the 17th of May to visit an elderly relative who might not have much very much longer left so it was a it was an attempt to bid them a warm farewell perhaps as bleak as that is I pulled into Luton which is one of the worst airports in the entire world that the hottest places in hell have nothing on Luton on a Friday night but in effect when we landed, the pilot said over the tannoy, you know, everyone have your passports ready because border control is waiting around the corner. Now, in my naivety, I assumed or maybe hoped, because there was some sense in my mind that, you know, maybe I would get stopped coming back into the UK,

that maybe the airport had been restructured since I was last there, but no such luck. There was a team of six plainclothes officers waiting for me at the, pretty much on the, you know, the tarmac at the bottom of the stairs. They were checking everyone's passport. They saw mine. They ordered me to come with them. Immediately, I was frog marched, flanked by these officers, whose names I never learned, that I only learned their call signs. And at one time, at one point, sorry, one officer forgot another's call sign. It's like, you know, are you B-21 or C-37? It was, you know, very surreal. But, you know, not funny at all. Like, you know, at the time. I have to say, I have a great imagination and I'm picturing this as a scene in a movie with, you know, good

cinematography and everything. This is pretty exciting stuff when you're the protagonist in it, right? Yeah, I mean, it was, it was just, it was just more perplexing, really. You know, at the time, it was just a bit like, okay, well, this is now happening. It throws up all of these uncertainties. You know, am I going to be thrown in Belmarsh? You know, like, you know, what's going to happen next? The, so, yeah, I was walked to this back room. which had no windows. I was extremely hot. And they said that I was being held under Schedule 3 of the 2019 Prevention of Terrorism Act. Now, this is a sweeping bit of legislation. It's not typically used against journalists. They haven't got to that point yet. Maybe I'm

the first of a wider trend to come. But in effect, it grants police extraordinary and indeed unprecedented powers in the history of Western quote-unquote democracy. And it robs suspects or interviewees of all sorts of fundamental rights. And so it would have been an arrestable offence to not answer their questions. It would have been an arrestable offense not to hand over my passwords and patterns for unlocking my electronic devices. And I might add, You know, like Britain was the country that invented the right to silence, which, you know, much of the world to, you know, varying degrees of seriousness has taken up as a basic legal principle. And at one stage in British history, it was enforced or observed so stringently that it was actually illegal for suspects to testify in their defence because it was thought improper that anything they said in their defence might be, you know, turned against them or taken out of context or twisted. So, yes, you know, this is, it's quite remarkable. I think, you know, I mean, the U.S. has

the Fifth Amendment, which is, you know, the right against self-incrimination. You know, that didn't apply here. And so I also, you know, I was subject to a quite invasive search. I had to take my shoes off. I was patted down. They went extensively through all of my bags and, you know, the pockets. They took my bank cards, quite what they did with them. I'm not sure. all of my sim cards, I had some old foreign sims that I hadn't used in, in, you know, a year or so that I had to give the pin codes for. I didn't even know these sims were working, what they did with them again, I don't know. And yes, then we got down to business in terms of asking questions. Now, you know, they said, said up front, well, you know, you're probably going to

be wondering, why are we asking you this in this kind of friendly, cheerful way? Although, I mean, it was, you know, I'm still, in many cases, asking myself now, and none of the answers I can come up with are pleasant or anything but sinister. So they asked me, you know, do I have a relationship with the Russian government? Am I in touch with Russian media operatives? Do I, have I had any known contact with Russian intelligence officials? Does the grey zone have any arrangement with the Russian government? Does it publish hacked material as part of a dedicated agreement with the FSB, which is the Russian Federal Security Service? You know, it just went on and on and on. There were specific questions about my journalism. They asked me about my recent 9-11 investigation,

which we kind of concluded that it was highly likely that two of the 9-11 hijackers at least may well have been knowingly or unknowingly recruited as assets by the CIA. You know, they were particularly interested in that. They were interested about my, my background in terms of how I got international security reporting. They kept on returning to this. They thought it was strange. It was quite incongruous the fact that they kept on driving this point home, particularly given that I made clear to them that I studied politics at university, so therefore, you know, would have an interest in this kind of topic in this field. Yeah, and, you know, all of the questions were about Grayson. It was the pretty much the sole focus. They wanted to know

how much I was paid. Had I met Max Blumenthal? What are your bank account details of the account that you're paid by Grayzone? You know, it just, as I said, it just went on and on and on. And it's interesting, Kit, that it seems like all the questions that you cite as examples, they were all things that they could know through signals, intelligence, without ever talking to you in the first place, right? It almost sounds like just a perjury trap. Yes, yes, exactly. I mean, it just, it seemed like, it seemed like, seemed like a mass fissing expedition. And actually, you know, when they were asking who funds Gray Zone, how does it work?

You know, how does the, you know, how is how is your, how is the business structured? You know, like do, does anyone apart from you or Max have access to the Grayzone servers? Do you, who has access to the great, you know, to Grayzone's email addresses and stuff? And it's like, you know, some of these questions, I didn't even really know the answer. So, you know, it's, when they're, but you do feel this compulsion to, you know, answer as comprehensively as you possibly can. You know, I felt I had nothing to hide. I felt I'd done nothing wrong. You know, I answered, you know, their questions as, as, as I thought was appropriate and necessary. They even thanked me for, you know, being so forthright, et cetera.

I mean, you know, maybe they were just, that was just window dressing. But yes, the whole thing was extremely bizarre, and I think that the more and more that I think about it, the more it was, you know, extremely, an extremely unpleasant, invasive experience. And, you know, I am heartened that so many, you know, average, you know, private citizens have thought that this is absolutely disgusting. And, you know, they are, I mean, particularly outside of the UK, they find the idea that you would not have a right to silence completely shocking. And yes, as I say, Britain is the country that is, you know, they're the mother of all democracies, that they're amazed by it. You know, people ask me, you know, why didn't you remain silent? Well, I would have been

arrested and potentially jailed. So, you know, I mean, it's, yeah, it's one hell of a trap. And I might add, the wording of the legislation under which I was held is terrifyingly vague and broad. And it has, so for instance, Schedule 3 refers to potential state threats. Now, this is, you know, stopping means that they can stop people at UK borders if, if they feel that this person poses a threat to, yes, sorry, poses a state threat or is acting on behalf of a hostile state, of a hostile state against British interests. Now, the wording states that an individual doesn't need to know or be consciously acting on behalf of a foreign state to pose a state threat, but not only that, the state on who they're acting for doesn't

need to know either. So it's one hell of a conspiracy where the two conspirators don't know that they are conspiring with each other in service of a particular goal. And it's really, I think that we're getting into the realm here where, you know, we've had probably the real turning point was, you know, like Russiagate, etc. But we have had years of supposed disinformation experts who are actually just experts in spinning disinformation themselves and censorship, saying that, well, even if someone is unwittingly broadcasting or transmitting or disseminating or amplifying, quote-unquote, Russian disinformation narratives, which couldn't be that the war in Iraq was an illegal war of aggression, according to them, then they are effectively guilty of

collaborating in a Russian information operation, even if they're doing so unwittingly, and therefore they are legitimate targets for censorship and much more. besides online. Now, this seems to be ever increasingly enshrined in law where whatever the government says constitutes disinformation becomes so. And not only is, yes, kind of provides a rationale for, you know, censorship and another, you know, anti-free speech, anti-democratic moves, but, you know, could potentially constitute a criminal offense. Yep. All right. So it's anti-war radio. I'm Scott Horton, and I'm talking with Kate Clarenberg from the gray zone.com. And I got a few things on my mind already at this point in the interview kit. The first one is that you guys ought to wear this as a badge of honor. You guys do such great work. Max and Aaron. Aaron Matte, of course. I never say it right. It's Aaron Matte. And your great work. And I'm forgetting the other guy's names off the top of my head. Rubenstein. and a couple others do such great work over there.

And so you deserve this in the ironical best sense of that term. And as I wrote on Twitter when I first heard about this, you're quoted numerous times. I already told you this before. You're quoted numerous times in my new book that I'm working on now because you do absolutely crucial journalism. So good for you in that sort of scary way. But so let me ask you, is Julian Assange

doing solitary confinement at Baumarsh on your mind as you're sitting there you already mentioned what are they going to do to me and you mentioned belmarsh they already have made an example out of him and you're worried they're going to make one out of you too huh yeah well exactly and i just i just think it's um yeah i mean funnily enough i was reading nils melza's book on um you know he's the he was the u.n special rapporteur on torture as i was as i was flying in um you know that's been playing on my mind a lot it's yes it's i I just think that it, you know, in that context, yes, as I say, it seemed like a fishing expedition. It seemed like an attempt to gather all sorts of information.

If it's the case that British intelligence legitimately think that Grayzone is a, you know, FSB front, or that I myself am somehow, you know, a Russian state operative, you know, receiving secret direct directives and, you know, from the Kremlin, then they're completely insane. They make Alex Jones look, sober and sensible analyst. really, you know, it's just mind-boggling. And I, when I was asked very detailed questions on how we receive leaps, etc., it did bring to mind that, yes, they are trying to find out our sources. They specifically asked me when I, you know, started off the, kicked off the interview,

do you have any journalist material with you? Because, you know, we wouldn't want to pick by accident. And, you know, I was asked all sorts of questions about my affiliations, the press organizations and, you know, journalists unions, et cetera. and they were asking what kind of protections and benefits there are of joining these organisations. And it's just like, well, I mean, surely they would know that. I mean, perhaps they truly were kind of operating in the dark. They don't understand how journalism works.

And they were also trying to gauge how much trouble they were written for detaining me. It's all very perverse. Yes, one thing that did spring to mind when I was being, you know, grilled on non-existent connections to the FSB was how one of the reasons that the WikiLeaks was designated, a hostile non-state actor by the CIA under Mike Pompeo. I think I was after the Volt 7 disclosures and bombshell stuff about the way that the CIA operates in digital spaces. The reason they did that was because they were tearing their proverbial hair out

trying to prove that Julian had ties to Russia or was acting for Russia and they couldn't prove it because there was no evidence. And it's like, well, yeah, in that context, well, I mean, you know, might I or indeed grey zone be, you know, subject to the same kind of categorisation because they can't find this type of connection? Yeah, you know, there are all sorts of uncertainties and unknowns from my perspective, even at this stage, you know, the police still have some of my property. They have not, there's been no indication of when I might get it back. It's being held on the basis that an officer thinks that it might, may, you know,

May is doing a lot of heavy lifting there, be relevant to criminal proceedings. You know, it's, you know, that in itself is disturbing and disquieting and it has a chilling effect. You know, I mean, we at the grey zone, you know, we refuse to be intimidated or bullied by anyone. And, you know, I am extremely grateful to count as friends and colleagues some of the finest journalists and indeed the bravest journalists working today. As you mentioned, Alex Rubenstein, Anya Pranthal, Max Blumenthal, and Aaron Matte, who's had my back every step of the away on this and I'm you know I forever indebted to them but not only that like you know we we do have you know tens of thousands of people if not more you know hundreds of thousands of people around the world who support us who think that this is appalling who have denounced this

and you know stand stand ready to you know to fight back if there are further escalations you know again from a personal perspective it's not difficult to feel anxious and because, you know, is there a sense of, well, we can, if we haven't been able to prove this charge or, you know, validate this bullshit narrative, well, then what else can we get him on? You know, there's a kind of limbo there, and I'm not going to, you know, feel any degree of calm and serenity about this until it's the case is well and truly closed. You know, again, when that is, I'm not sure. Yeah, man. Sorry, hang on just one second. Hey, y'all, Scott Horton here for Tennessee Hot Sauce Company. Man, this stuff is so good. They get all different

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I mean, who knows exactly how the different authorities operate, you know, and the different jurisdictions and what have you. But again, it seems like all the questions that they asked you were all things that they could have figured out just by tapping your phone anyway or doing the old, you know, giving you the old Snowden routine. So what I wonder is whether you think this is maybe an indication of a new Russiagate hoax being built since they know better. you know, I wonder whether they're working on something against the gray zone or something even bigger than that. What do you think? Well, yeah, I mean, I think since the invasion of Ukraine began, like all over the Western world, I think particularly in Britain, the gloves are off in terms of, you know, straight up censorship in terms of, you know, the criminalization of dissenting viewpoints and those are inconvenient facts and those espousing or amplifying them. And I, you know,

it really wouldn't surprise me if there is going to be, yes, you know, further action against us, if not by the state, despite the fact that, yes, the British state is, you know, just off-leash in terms of criminalising and prosecuting people at the moment. I mean, there is an individual called Graham Phillips, who is a V-Logger, you know, vlogger, who he, I think that, you know, I couldn't disagree with him more politically, and I think that he did the wrong thing, but he traveled to Eastern Ukraine when the war broke out. and embedded himself with the Donetsk and the Lugansk separatists. And as a result, he interviewed Ukrainian prisoners of war on camera. Now, I think that that was the wrong thing to do, and I condemn that activity. But at the same time, this resulted in the British state seizing his assets and his home. Now, they did this with, you know, just unilaterally did this.

And they also, there was internal legal advice that they took, which said that you have absolutely no basis for doing this. But they just went ahead and did it anyway. And, you know, in, Phillips is a controversial character, and also he had no real social media presence. So, I mean, I think they probably thought that they could just get away with it. You know, in my case, because, yes, there's been this huge, you know, outcry and this outpouring of shock and solidarity within and without the UK, I suspect that

if they wish to destroy the deportation or kind of go after me, they might do so insidiously via bogus civil society voices or, you know, organisations like Bellingat or friendly journalists. Now, one of the really interesting things was the National Union of Journalists, which is a journalist organization in the UK, they put out a statement on my detention. It was quite mild, it was quite concise, it just said, it said that this is deeply concerning that these powers were deployed against a journalist. And it also, it stated that this will be of obvious concern to all journalists that this was done. And I think that they, you know, quite pithily cut to the core of this, which is this is not about me, this is about, you know, wider issues of press freedom

and the right to publish things the government doesn't like. Now, this statement was deleted within about 24 hours, and it seems that it was retracted without explanation, and they refused to answer questions from myself and numerous other people who've been in touch. Isn't that something? Yeah, including NUJ members who've said this is absolutely shocking and have called out the organization publicly. And so I suspect that the primary cause of this was this huge backlash online from the large number of people. I've pissed off over the years. I mean, you know, it's just too many people to list who was slamming the NUJ in the harshest possible terms for doing this. And, you know, the overriding narrative that they seem to want to get going was that, you know, I'm not a journalist. Therefore, you know,

the obvious indication being that, well, this isn't a shocking attack on press freedom. This is a shocking attack on an individual who, you know, may be a bit shady. And, you know, several people have been pushing that line. I'm not a journalist. Now, there are very clear parallels with what happened with Julian Assange here, where, you know, one of the ways in which powers that be sort of destroy sympathy for him was by minting the narrative that he's not a journalist, he is a spy or a hacker or a, you know, very reckless publisher of sensitive information. And this, you very effectively neutralised a lot of sympathy for him and support for him and served to justify his detention and harassment by authorities. And, you know, I see that

happening with with myself and it's really um yeah it's it's pretty disturbing and that yeah there are well now wait a minute let me ask you here because they have some sort of sophistry where they say that well asange is publishing these documents just outright dumping them instead of which he doesn't outright dump them but that's the way they frame it rather than publishing articles about them like you would read in the washington post or so but so I read your articles and their articles for a news site and presumably Blumenthal pays you the nickel or something for them. So is there a form of an argument that you're not a journalist or just that's a name they're calling you, not a journalist?

Yeah, that's the, I mean, that's it. I mean, I'm reporting, you know, I, and I think that it's, you know, very curiously and sinisterly, the one of, I've written about this, you can find the article on my substack. One of the ways that the Guardian and the New York Times very, very, very cynically set up Julian Assange was that they worked with him on the Afghan war logs, which, you know, there was, this was, you know, vast amounts of material that was, you know, showing that the absolutely shocking state of the intervention in Afghanistan and, you know, exposing US war crimes, etc. The Guardian and New York Times worked very closely with him on this. And then when it got time to publication, they got cold feet because they were worried about being directly

associated with material in terms of them facing legal repercussions for this. And so they effectively asked Julian Assange to publish the documents first so they could just claim that they were reporting on them rather than they were publishing them. And this has been for a very long time a very important distinction so i mean you know i it's not something that i seek to weaponize and exploit myself but the fact of the matter is i am reporting on hacked information i am not uh or allegedly hacked information or leaked information i'm not um publishing the material itself myself um you know that's you know done through through through through gray zone you know i i um yes receive uh a nickel or two every now and then from Max for doing this, for reporting on the information that we receive in the form of leaks.

Now, in that context, and this was a point I tried to make to the interviewing officers, you know, actually what matters because they suggested that what you do is not in, it might not be in the public interest, is that, yes, and it might be furthering, you know, Russian war aims or something. I mean, I just, it's just utterly bizarre. So I just made the point that, well, in that context, when you receive leaked information, where it comes from and whatever agenda, the person leaking it or providing it to you, has, is that it is rather irrelevant. I mean, it's certainly irrelevant when the CIA hack into, you know, Iranian or Chinese or Russian government computers

and then dump it on the internet via DDoS secrets, and then the internet publishers work on it, and they win awards, and then it's used to justify the drone murder of General Soleimani. I mean, that's a separate question. But yes, that like when you report on leaked information, the information itself is the source. If it can be authenticated and if it's in the public interest to publish it, then, you know, that should be under, you know, existing press standards and conventions, legitimate grounds.

But no, we are shifting very, very, very quickly into the realm of, you know, even possessing or reporting on a class of. information is a criminal offence. In the UK, there is this hugely draconian and terrifying bits of legislation for the national security bill, which has been passed and will come into effect very soon, which will make it potentially up to life imprisonment for a journalist or a publisher or an editor to be in possession of classified material. This has received zero negative coverage in the mainstream British media. It has been basically ignored by every mainstream journalists covering national security. Now, could that be because it doesn't affect them at all?

Like, the kind of leaks, as I mentioned, that they're going to be publishing will be handed to them directly by the CIA or MI6 or any of these, you know, this welter of sinister alphabet soup agencies that were really running things in the Western world. That, you know, that when they, when they publish, you know, quote-unquote exclusives and all these scoops, it's because the powers that B want this information out there. They're not going to be effective. affected by, you know, a bit, you know, legislation that's massively restricting what the public is allowed to know. And yes, like what journalists are allowed to report them because they're not journalists. They are stenographers for power. Hey, listen, I mean, the thing is, this is so

important. And, you know, I know you. And to you, it's all about you. You're the center of the story. But for everyone here, this is a fire bell in the night. This is the most important thing. the Ministry of Truth over there on Air Strip 1 is clamping down hard on an independent journalist. They don't have a First Amendment over there, but they are susceptible to public pressure and public opinion. And this should be an absolute scandal and outrage, and especially when they're doing this to a journalist of your caliber. And so I guess we'll see where the other reporters stand. Those who sacrifice Assange and say he's not a real journalist. Is that what they're going to try to say about you? And now I guess, real

quick because we're out of time, but do you know, are you under criminal investigation of some kind? Or they were really just trying to intimidate you once? Well, yeah. I mean, theoretically, my SD card, which is primarily music and yes, photos of brutalism, is still being held by police. Quite why I don't know. But this is their reason for holding it is the fact that they feel it may be relevant emphasis on May to criminal proceedings. So yes, I'm effectively still under investigation and still in limbo. So, you know, write to your Congress people, you know, write to your parliamentarians. And please, you know, make us think about this. Because as I say, this is not just about me. This is about

whether we're going to allow governments to, in the supposedly free democratic West, to dictate what we're allowed, what we're allowed to say and no. And this is a very perilous situation where, yes, Britain and America are leading the charge very rapidly, you know, trying to police not only online, but also, you know, like private discussion. It's really disturbing. Yep. All right, you guys, that is Kit Clarenberg from thegrayzone.com and read Max Blumenthal's piece all about what happened to him here. British police detained journalist Kit Clarenberg. Interrogate him about the gray zone. That's at thegrayzone.com. Thank you for your time, Kit. Cheers, Scott.

All right, you guys, and that's it for Anti-War Radio for today. I'm Scott Horton. Check out my website, scothorton.org, for all the archives. And I'm at Scott Horton's show on Twitter. And I'm here every Thursday from 2.30 to 3 on KPFK, 90.7 FM in L.A. See you next week.