The Pomp Podcast - #461 Chamira Gamage on Potential Pardon for Julian Assange

Episode Date: December 30, 2020

Chamira Gamage is a Philanthropy Manager at Amnesty International and cofounder at Thinkrs.io.  In this conversation, we discuss Julian Assange’s story, freedom of the press, why he was arrested, the potential issues with his case, how a pardon would work, and what the potential outcome will be. ======================= Crypto.com is the only all-in-one platform that allows you to BUY / SELL / STORE / EARN / LOAN / INVEST crypto all from one place. Join over 1 million users currently using the Crypto.com app. Download and earn $50 USD using my code ‘pomp2020’, or use the link https://platinum.crypto.com/r/pomp2020 when you sign up for one of their metal cards today. ======================= Coinbase Wallets are adding support for .crypto and .zil domains through their partnership with Unstoppable Domains. Unstoppable Domains provides an all-in-one solution for blockchain domains. You can send money using these new domains instead of long Bitcoin wallet addresses, while also storing your domain in Coinbase's collectibles section. Go to unstoppabledomains.com in the dapp browser to register and manage your domains.  ======================= LVL is a new crypto investing platform that I'm an investor in. They allow anyone to trade an unlimited number of times per month for free. They have no trading fees and no spreads in the spot market. If you buy or sell more than $500 in Bitcoin on any exchange, you're spending too much on trading fees. Use LVL to save money and trade as many times you want. https://lvl.co/pomp

what's up everyone this is anthony pompliano most of you know me as pomp you're listening to the pomp podcast simply the best podcast out there let's kick this thing off chamira gamage is a philanthropy manager at amnesty international and a co-founder at thinkers.io in this conversation we discuss julian assange story freedom of the press why julian was arrested the potential issues with this case, how a pardon would work, and what the potential outcome will be. I really enjoyed this conversation with Tamira, and I hope you do as well. Before we get into this episode, though, I want to quickly talk about our sponsors. First up is Unstoppable Domains. Everyone's tried to send a Bitcoin transaction where you've got to send the Bitcoin to a random string of letters

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make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only. All right, guys. Bang, bang. I'm super excited for this episode. I've got Chimera here. Thank you so much for doing this, sir. My pleasure, man. Very happy to be here. Absolutely. You obviously have an accent. You're living in Australia right now. Let's go back, though, before we get to all the fun stuff. Who are you? Where did you grow up? And kind of what's your background before you get to Amnesty International? Yeah, absolutely, man. So yeah, as you said, definitely a strong Aussie accent. I've born and raised in Australia and working at Amnesty International at the moment. My background

in general has been I did a human rights law degree at university which certainly put me on the path for you know getting involved and further in human rights and the international space I would say in general with a little bit of politics international relations thrown in and then I had a big focus being like a relationship management in recruitment did that for many years and was a little bit unfulfilled towards the end and I was looking for a way to connect my sort of passions and areas of interest and skills. And it led me to Amnesty International, which was obviously, you know, it's a huge international organization working on all the causes that I care about. Some in particular, I would say.

And it led me to where I am today. What is Amnesty International? For those that don't know. Amnesty is the largest human rights organization in the world. It's been around since 1961. started by a human rights lawyer named Peter Benenson, who was basically raising a toast to freedom and wanted to ensure that people around the world could condemn any acts that jeopardized human rights that took place around the world by sending letters predominantly. From there, Amnesty has grown to 150 countries, just over 10 million supporters around the world, and has grown in influence with governments, with people, speaking up for people who can't amplify their concerns or have been mistreated around the world. They generally look to amnesty

as a bit of an independent pillar to stand up for human rights and protect them. One of the cases that you've been involved in is the Julian Assange kind of story. And this goes back many years. People who are listening to this, some of them will be experts on the details and some will be beginners. Maybe just walk us through who is Julian Assange and why has his story become so publicly known and has so many people kind of paying attention? Absolutely. So as we were saying earlier, it's one of the most complicated cases and backstories is certainly important. And I think putting it all together in an easy to digest way is super important for people to actually understand why it's important, particularly a week out from

what I would say is one of the biggest trials and verdicts of our time. In terms of his backstory, Julian is a publisher. Julian is a journalist. He basically performed activities that many journalists perform today and have for a very long time, which is receiving information from different sources and then publishing it on a platform which he created, which I believe started in about 2006 called WikiLeaks, which many people would have heard of. Now, the role that WikiLeaks played in broader society and particularly in the media journalism space has been pretty profound. What he did basically was, in a sense, you know, publish information directly straight from the horse's mouth, I would say. So it basically got around any inherent

biases that took place when reporting from journalists or media orgs, which, you know, like any organization, plenty of pros and cons, but certainly there can be vested interests, there can be inherent bias, there can be slants put in the reporting of information. And once again, information is the grounding for which we all make our judgments on the world, how we think, how we vote ultimately. So for that to be as transparent and clear as possible, the more raw the information the better uh obviously keeping in line with national security i'm not putting anyone at risk etc so with that in mind um wikileaks published information including emails um you know and uh and various uh reports that they believed were in the public

interest which makes us more informed uh today and so his background was predominantly publishing His experience prior to that, I believe, was in tech and software and IT. But that's certainly what shaped his career. And so obviously WikiLeaks has become a known quantity on an international stage. There's a lot of sensitive information. Some would argue confidential. Some would argue it's important for the public light and kind of public conversation. What is the type of content?

Like, are there specific examples that stick out into your head that were kind of milestone type publishing or leaks that WikiLeaks posted so people can get a sense of what that content is? Absolutely. I think the ones that stood out the most and the ones that are referred to the most, you know, in general, the Iraq war logs is what they were called. In 2010, there was a release of many cables, as they were called, and also a video in particular, which many people may be aware of, of the Apache helicopter and gunning down civilians, including reporters themselves. And the nature that it was done and the sort of crassness in how that action was performed was shocking to people around the world. A lot of people suspect this takes place in wars and, you know, it is a war and no one gets to really see the details unless you're on the ground and I think we're kind of covered here in the West and I think that for many people was the sort

of anchor for, well, you know, that's good to know. I didn't know that this was being performed in our names as the public. The Guantanamo Bay prisoner files as well as to how they were being treated 2007 i believe was um another big one which which shaped people's perceptions um there was a lot of emails um regarding uh the the dnc in america um treatment of of bernie sanders um and and the voting within the party itself um and conversations that took place so i won't get into the absolute details but um yeah it certainly revealed uh aspects of um you

know, uh, governments and institutions that we place a lot of trust in, uh, and, and made it a lot clearer as to how they act on, on an, on a regular basis. And that's really important, um, for us again, to make our mind up, to be informed citizens and, uh, and know what, what, what world we're operating and sort of playing in. Yeah. Yeah. And I think part of it was like one half of the population was surprised by all of this and frankly shocked. Uh, and then another half It just confirmed what their greatest fears or kind of the conspiracy type viewpoint was, right? It was just like, hey, I always thought this happened, but like, okay, now there's proof. So it really pulled a lot of folks in.

And then obviously those that are in powerful positions or positions of influence, this wasn't exactly the type of information that they wanted to be publicly exposed in a bunch of different forms and factions. Uh, so Julian Assange doing journalistic work, uh, today has been arrested, uh, in the United States. There is the belief that there's the freedom of press. Uh, there's a lot of, uh, nuance. There's a lot of, uh, legal precedent that shapes that view in the United States. Uh, how do we get from the publication of confidential or sensitive information via WikiLeaks in a journalistic type perspective to him sitting behind bars today? Like what is that path? And maybe talk through a little bit in terms of Julian's perspective and then those who might disagree with his perspective. Fair enough. Yeah. It's been a bit of a long road, I would say. A lot

of factors have come to play and all which kind of need unpacking in their own way. So after the war logs. Um, he was actually, uh, in Sweden and, and this is quite a controversial, um, you know, aspect as well, which, which kind of, um, framed how he was perceived publicly. But, um, you know, my understanding is there were allegations of rape charges in Sweden, which he faced up to in terms of a, um, uh, an online hearing or an on, it was like one of the first extradition processes that he had to go through, charges were dropped and the case was dropped. It was reopened in future, I think many years later,

due to some encouragement. But during that time, he felt that there was a concerted effort to get him to the US, that ultimately, based on his actions and publications, the US will want to get him. And that's fairly logical that obviously, you know, I can't imagine them wanting to just let the guy sit. So, you know, there was a connection there with London as well. So to try and get him to face up in London and exactly the scenario that's taking place now, which is actually an extradition treaty between the US and the UK, for him to be trialed in London and the UK and then be sent to the US.

The nature of what that would look like wasn't clear, but that was the general suspicion. um so he was actually treated as uh an asylum seeker which is which is not the term you'd normally think of with with um with this instance um but there were many countries that that felt that he's he was being chased after um you know and and for the wrong reasons and that it was unjust and so a number of countries around the world offered him um asylum or refuge uh and Ecuador being one of them. So whilst being in London, the Ecuadorian embassy in London granted him that refuge.

And so he spent a lot of time there. I believe it was seven to eight years he spent in Ecuador with them saying, you are a persecuted individual. We recognise your actions and the treatment that you've experienced and that there's a general consensus that the US will want to get you and misread you further, you know, to kind of narrow it down. So he spent a lot of time there. He was still performing WikiLeaks actions whilst in the embassy.

And, you know, from the US and UK perspective, I can imagine that would be, you know, particularly when he would be revealing actions that they were purporting, I can imagine they wouldn't be too happy and would still be trying to get him to, let's say, face the music based on their own terms, whether it was right or wrong. And as an international community, as a human rights organisation with amnesty, there was certainly an acknowledgement that that was wrong, that was

breaking a number of human rights laws, and that it would set a really bad precedent for future journalists, you know, and publishers around the world who wanted to perform similar actions in public's interest and that he was being used as a scapegoat now that uh has come to be um so last year would probably be one of the most important years in this whole story and unfolding because he was um literally um given up i would say by the ecuadorian um embassy um and then physically dragged uh out and taken to belmarsh prison in london okay before before we continue uh i want want to clarify a couple of things. So Julian Assange is in London, feels like kind of the walls are closing in around him. He is likely to continue to face legal obstacles, potentially

arrest. There's all kinds of allegations that are levied against him. I don't want to go into whether they are guilty, not guilty. The courts around the world will figure that stuff out. But there was definitely allegations. Some of them were not that shocking or damning and some of them were really, really bad. Right. And so there's a whole spectrum there. But at some point he realizes I need to find asylum with a country that is willing to treat me like a refuge. um talk through and so what he ultimately does is he literally walks into the ecuadorian embassy in london uh and stays there for years um and kind of has this refuge talk through what does asylum mean like when somebody is looking for asylum just at a high level for those that don't understand it yeah when he walks into that door why is he safe even though he is technically in the city of london but he is now in an ecuadorian building and how that works

yeah absolutely i mean in terms of asylum it's um you know it's basically um an unfounded fear of persecution based on a number of factors it could be religious it could be um you know your your sexuality could be um you know a variety and basically if anyone falls under those factors they're considered um a refugee and should be granted asylum i don't know the act the absolute specifics of that instance and how it was defined but they did consider that he was a political prisoner um and somebody whose life was at risk from from governments um based on actions he performed they believed weren't illegal whatsoever um and this also kind of fell into the narrative of Assange being a a hacker which you know which was a part of the trial that he's facing at the

moment um and where there has been no proof uh whatsoever that that's the case and again it's another word that you can you know slap onto someone as a label and it just kind of sticks And then there's no second thought. But yeah, so without him being a hacker, there was there was certainly grounds to say that he was being persecuted. And so asylum, it's basically an entity of the Ecuadorian state in London, and he's based on international law protections. um he he is allowed to to um to reside there and and not be touched i would suppose unless there was extenuating circumstances where that embassy decided you know what uh we're gonna cancel this uh this refuge regardless of how that internationally plays between us and other countries um because they were staunch staunch um advocates of him being protected and i believe there was a change in government in Ecuador.

I believe Carrera, I think, was the initial leader that granted him asylum. And as there was a change in future, there was also a bit of a change of tone towards the end of that, so coming up to last year, where there were a number of reports of Assange's activities taking place in the embassy itself that they felt weren't appropriate and they decided to give him up.

let's say there was a hefty loan given to Ecuador not long after that took place as well in the billions so that's an interesting one to look into but that aside yeah there was a lot of activities that also took place just to clarify within the embassy such as spying so there was spying of all the guests that came into the embassy in the bathrooms there was spying on his legal proceedings which in many countries if that took place it'd be like see you later that's it we're not going to continue this. That was considered recently and taken into account, which was good, but again, shouldn't have happened. So it was quite an interesting space going on there. There was reports of bugging, plenty of evidence, even whistleblowers at work

there said that there was a lot of things going on that just wasn't appropriate. So it was quite an interesting time towards the end. And then he was given up to London who took him into Goldmine. So while he's got kind of the asylum, he's there, he's protected for a number of years, what stops the London police, the FBI, pretty much anyone with big guns and a lot of men from kicking down the door and just going and taking them? What is the reason why they don't do that? Is it a respect for international law or is it something else? Is it that Ecuador will literally shoot guns from armed guards to protect the embassy? How does that work? Yeah, it is respect for international law, which a lot of countries kind of play with to their own advantage, to be honest, but it's more of like an international consensus and agreement.

So, you know, there are conventions, the refugee convention, for example, the rights of child, like there are a variety that countries subscribe to, you know, and they have to sort of stick to it. But there has been instances of countries that just kind of skirt around at different times to suit their own agendas. Um, in this instance, it would be that, I think it would be just far too blatant to come in storming. Um, as I mentioned, it's been a very long process where, um, you know, the, the action like the right actions had to kind of, um, play out at the right time. It's not like you could just go in willy nilly storm the place. It would be a huge breach. And I don't think, um, you know, in my own mind, sort of, um, guessing how it would work. I don't think the U S would think that it would be worth for a case like this to go that far because of how they would be perceived

on an international scale. So yeah, it's really to keep the peace more than anything and adhere to those international human rights standards. So that, yeah, I think, like I said, they pick and choose the case to kind of skirt around. And so at some point, Julian Assange is doing whatever he's doing inside of the building. Again, there's a bunch of debate, good, bad, indifferent uh then the ecuadorian government there's this change of power uh but we eventually get to the point where ecuador now says you know what you no longer are going to have this asylum uh and my understanding and correct me if i'm wrong here is like they literally just call the london police and they're like come get them like literally we're just gonna open

the front door and like come drag them out is that what happens correct yeah that was pretty much out when it was pretty um at that point it was pretty um brash and in your face i suppose but that's where the famous shot up a lot of people would have seen came from with him kind of being dragged out like with a with a beard as you can tell he has probably hasn't been living in the best conditions and put into a van and then just quite simply taken uh away um for further hearings and then put into belmarsh and just to clarify belmarsh is one of the worst prisons in england anyone you talk to says you know it's it's extremely rough and the fact that someone um assigned and and the actions he's performed is in belmarsh is just so out outlandish and

ridiculous that um it's a statement in itself so yeah and and when he gets arrested i'll kind of put that in air quotes because i don't know if that's actually how they've you know labeled this But when that occurs, what are the charges against him? Are these new charges? Are these simply the application of previous allegations against him? How does he kind of end up behind bars or what's the rationale there? yeah the rationale is um so uh there was a number of things so with the trial itself um they were one of the biggest focus points was what i mentioned before about hacking and whether he was um conspiring to hack information so for example chelsea manning was was obviously many people would know was a whistleblower that um passed on from the inside many documents um which wikileaks then published again an action that new york times you know many other papers would do

um but but to get him on that sort of technicality was did he conspire to hack this information did he conspire to say look i will help you hack this i will illegally ascertain this information and again from the the case notes that i've seen and not many people have seen it doesn't seem to be any evidence of that another one was that he um skipped bail um in london so that was another technicality and again you know um this kind of all falls into the context of there was a genuine fear that the exact scenario that's playing out right now was going to happen and people said that's ridiculous you know you gotta face up etc etc and um yeah there's certainly a legal process that has to take place but all those fears uh you know have come to fruition um and and to add on to

that was whether um anyone was um harmed from from his releases so did anyone um you know get physically um harmed from their names being revealed in any publications which also ties into the um questioning from a lot of people about how he isn't a journalist because he didn't retract names um we've seen more than enough evidence i think a week ago there was an hour long chat between him and the government saying look i've just been up till 4 a.m deleting as many names as i possibly can many witnesses have proven that guardian journos as well saying no he literally didn't sleep to make sure there were no names involved that no one was implicated And again, we're talking millions of cables. So you do the absolute best you possibly can whilst balancing the story that you're trying to put forward. So yeah, again, I haven't seen any evidence of that throughout this trial, but they were the main points.

Got it. And so what is the difference between what Julian Assange did and let's say the New York Times, Washington Post, you know, organizations that people consider mainstream media that, you know, conduct journalism? And most people would think that if there is confidential or sensitive information that they got their hands on, they would publish and they would tell the stories and kind of hold people of power, influence or organizations accountable. What is the difference between Assange and any of those organizations? Well, it's a really good question. And this is probably the best way to ground this whole conversation is Obama had the opportunity to prosecute Assange and he said, I can't. And many people are asking why. And it was called the New York Times problem or predicament because he said, if I prosecuted Julian Assange, I would then have to prosecute the New York Times because so many of these papers perform the exact same function. If he's quite simply a publisher, not even in the US, it's not even in the country, and he's like a middleman really, he's just revealing information for people to consume, there actually isn't any difference, to be honest. And I think there are certainly journalists that think that, you know, the way he went about publishing information didn't make him a journalist. And now we're getting into the technicalities of an industry where certain players might think one thing culturally, the others might think, no, that's a good culture, that's a bad culture.

so um top line overall like there wasn't any dispute um which also has had to be proven and chipped away at over time to unpack the stereotype and stigma that was put forward by the media funnily enough that that also um um made so many stories off the back of wikileaks publications we have to remember um so they've profited they've they've gotten plenty of clicks and readers from from a lot of WikiLeaks stories but then when the tide shifted one of the first to kind of to shift and turn their back on on Assange and again I completely acknowledge it's an extremely complicated case it's not black and white like like many things aren't black and white there's a lot of space in the gray that has to be unpacked to truly understand so I think with with this

instance there's enough evidence to say he absolutely is a journalist the same as many different publications um and the manner in which he went about it could be the the slight difference which for me is a cultural thing of an industry would there have been a difference if let's say uh julian assange simply said hey i've built a website if you have confidential sensitive information that you would like to leak upload it i'm actually not going to look at it and it's just going to auto publish in some way he now isn't taking like quote-unquote editorial control or you know uh redacting names and kind of there's a whole bunch of downsides to that model uh but would that have been less risky for him like would he basically have been able to insulate himself

from uh some of the pressures and ultimately the arrest uh by simply just saying hey i built a website and anyone can use it but i don't actually say publish this pub don't you know don't publish that yeah that's a good question as far as i'm aware i mean i i understand i mean wikileaks is a website. And, you know, they also were one of the first to have a Dropbox that whistleblowers or anyone could just put information into. So if you didn't feel comfortable passing this on to other organizations or other parties, you could literally put it into the Dropbox, WikiLeaks would ascertain it, protect your identity, and then publish. But as far as I understand, it was quite similar to that. I think, I don't know if he was called an editor per se,

um but certainly the the sort of figurehead of this of this you know you could call it a publication because it was um compiling information and then just putting it out there through their own through their own channels and and again um it was very much an you know um in line with the internet's culture at the time i suppose which is we've got this big chunk of data this big chunk of information we're going to put it out there and you can sift through it in your own time so um you know and that's probably where that like i mentioned before that sort of conversation of oh is that a journalistic practice but once again to be honest i was way more informed and many people were more informed reading it directly rather than reading someone's interpretation um so i

think it was quite similar to be honest yeah and to be clear normally if somebody had taken that information and not sent it to julian assange and wikileaks they had sent it to the new york times washington post whatever uh some of it would be quote-unquote verified right but once that had been done they basically would reveal the same information they just might write their own story and insert their own opinions or facts or details you know not necessarily quote-unquote fake news but just they would tell a story around the information they would never just dump it in terms of hey come and read it but i think what you're getting at here is like is actually just revealing the source materials, a better journalistic practice,

because now it allows the reader to make up their own mind after reading the content rather than having to rely on the journalist or the organization to be that filter that basically tells the story and can use data or information to weave into a story to craft a narrative versus just seeing the actual information for yourself, right? Yeah, correct. And look, I think, you know, again there's that there's that nuance and the gray uh aspect of of journalism because i mean it's a fantastic profession it's extremely valuable i i was looking to be a journalist when i was younger as well um you know and i i really thought that it was such an it plays such an important role in society and it absolutely does and journalism takes many forms you know

there's a lot of value in reading the source material if you want to be informed than an issue but then what about the 10 to 20 different forms of journalism that give you like you know a nice little blog or a narrative or a backstory to something or an opinion piece like like everything pros and cons um but when it comes to certain types of information that source material when it's uncompromised and it's just again straight from the horse's mouth um i feel makes you more informed and there are some issues that probably shouldn't really be you know shouldn't really go through that filter because they're the issues that are really important for you to know before you vote or make your mind up about the world around you um and uh yeah so i think that

you know there's um it takes many forms definitely pros and cons and benefits to each side but um having that source material is just invaluable so let's talk about moving forward uh julian is currently under arrest i believe there's an extra extra addition uh interest i don't know if that's like a request or whatever but basically the united states would like to bring him to the United States. It sounds like there's some legal proceedings that need to play out to find if that will happen or not. But kind of where do we go from here? Maybe like what's the risk scenario and then what is kind of the positive perspective of where we go from here? Yeah, sure. So yeah, as you mentioned, so it is an extradition hearing. So there's a treaty

between the US and the UK. And it basically says, you know, if the US requests to extradite someone to the US for whatever grounds, that's fine, as it has to go through a court process. However, the caveat is that if they believe there's a political, there's inherently a political nature to this trial, then it gets scrapped. And so again, from my perspective, and many people's perspectives that have been viewing this case for years, and this particular trial, there's certainly evidence that it's political in nature like you know and i think a lot of people can feel that in their guts they kind of know and i think that's a big thing about this case a lot of people kind of know there just hasn't been that discussion in the public or information to kind of really

go yeah okay okay fair enough now it makes sense but i think we're coming to that um so where we're at now is is a massive crossroads where we're at is a week out from the 4th of jan which is the verdict of this trial which has been going since february now um i'll just unpack this a little bit so um so um a week out the options on the table are uh with trump's last term um uh you know last time in play now he could pardon him and a lot of people are calling for a pardon that's one way to to release julian and just to to remember um he's being extradited to the u.s so that he would face the espionage charges, which is the first time in 102 years.

So I think the first time ever the US has actually placed these big espionage charges on a journalist. And he's facing up to 175 years if that was to take place. So we all kind of know where that's going to go. Now, he's facing 23 hours a day solitary confinement, one hour out. It's horrendous, right? Aside from being in Belmarsh, aside from not being given

warm clothes in the freezing cold um in london and um you know i think a lot of people can see that his treatment in there is just is really bad he's got a lung condition so with um everything going on with covert i know that the risks were even higher and there wasn't any special treatment or anything like that to acknowledge that so he's in a pretty dire situation all the people i've spoken to that have seen him spoken to him have said mate this is dire there's not that much time left to be to be frank and and you know um it's really not looking good he's got a lovely partner stella he's been working with amnesty and and i'm speaking to recently who's just like you know and they're two kids young kids who barely get to see him as well who are just doing absolutely

everything they can to try and um ensure that his health is kept more than anything and that's really dire so we really hope that he can keep up you know the strength and and move forward there and that's what we're all trying to do now um if the pardon takes place that's that's a that's huge um it's a really tough one trump's you know here it's it's a shot in the dark it's really hard to know um when it comes to um you know um biden let's say that he is extradited on the fourth that's the verdict i've been told that this could be a long lengthy process for 12 to 18 months afterwards if it's if there's an appeal um and so a lot of people don't think he lasts that long um you know and then if if um the charges were to be dropped uh by biden in the after the fourth i

think that could be one other avenue but that's also a bit of a tough one so i think the more discussions that can be have that can be had with his part his team um the better there's been people in the democratic party like aoc's expressed concern you know there's people on on the republican party like you know there's there's ron paul ran paul there are people from all sides in the last year i've watched this as amnesty has become even more sort of um prevalent um i've really noticed talking to different parties how much this is just not a non-partisan issue anymore it's just not non-partisan it's literally one of those things where everyone can kind of come together and go this is pretty messed up freedom of speech freedom of expression um you know the

freedom of the press um they're all kind of on the line with a case like this everyone's looking for that one thing that unites us. Biden talks about uniting the population. Trump wants to unite the population. Sure. You know, these are the things that politicians say. There is no better example than this. And it is one of the most important things for the population to be informed, to hold on to these democratic principles that we espouse to the world and hold on to tightly. So I think this is the kind of thing that we should all fight for. I've been fighting for this for a long time and watched people who were not even remotely concerned in the last year or two slowly slowly change their change their tune change their tune and in the last week we saw

Sarah Palin apologize you know I've seen a number of New York Times journalists apologize for statements he's made about him this is crucial they said we know where this stands Larry Sanger the co-founder of Wikipedia who I've been speaking to a really good guy and he was very gracious in saying, look, I made comments in 2011. I changed my mind this week. This is so important for everyone. And I think that's what I'm trying to convey more than anything is that these are the options on the table. This is why it's important. And we really need to speak up and make our voices heard now because that actually can, after watching it happen, working at Amnesty, that can make a difference. Yeah. Absolutely. One thing that's interesting to me, and even I've done it, is

Julian Assange and Edward Snowden. I think both are different cases, different details, different facts. But many people kind of put them in the bucket of these are folks who held the powerful, the influential accountable. They did it in different ways. They kind of had their different paths, like I said. But is there a world where an outgoing Trump basically says, you know what, this is a way to make a statement and I'm going to not just pardon Assange, I'm actually going to pardon Assange and Snowden and maybe others and kind of, you know, make that pushback when it comes to freedom of the press and the way that both of those individuals have been treated. Is that something that's part of the conversation or is it really just,

hey, Assange is the one that's likely to get pardoned if anyone does. And so let's focus the energy there yeah uh yeah really good question i mean i think uh looking at history and i've been looking at this recently to kind of see if there are any patterns but uh you know a lot of governments um sorry a lot of presidents do like to to pardon people that they they genuinely have always wanted to in the last minutes it's kind of like their last um chance to add to their legacy uh as to what kind of a president they were, and probably help out a few mates, I would imagine. So with all of that in mind, I think Obama did pardon Chelsea Manning,

and that was a big one. So I actually think, and I certainly don't want to make predictions on this one, but I think that one of them might be. And I think that it would fall short of Trump's values that he puts forward about freedom of speech, knowing the repercussions of both of snowden and assange being um imprisoned or not pardoned i think he would do one and the only reason i don't think he would do both is because people are in his ear that's my that's my um that's my personal opinion but it's again really hard to to predict

um but i think that if you were a president running on freedom of speech and expression freedom of the press and if you were trump condemning fake news all the time surely one of them you would think right you you would you would do it so yeah tough to say but i've got a feeling let's see we all we can do is prepare for every outcome and every contingency right and um and give it a crack yeah i uh i tend to think that there's nothing more real than uh here's the source material right read it for yourself and make your own decision uh what can people at home do? So it's about a week out until this decision gets made. And yes, there may be appeals depending on how it goes. There's pardons, you know, there's some kind of these external factors,

but in the next week or so, what can an individual at home do is literally get on Twitter and talk about it or the other things that they can do? Yeah. I've thought about the Twitter one quite a bit because in the early days I thought it doesn't make much difference. Right. But I've been at Amnesty for for a few years now and I have genuinely seen the difference it makes when a lot of people come together at the right time and you know you might think the trending on Twitter thing's pretty trivial I used to think it was pretty trivial maybe in some ways it still is but I think that it I've seen Assange trending on Twitter every single day by like one or two days here and there for the last two weeks and scattered throughout the year so um I think it

does have impact i think that twitter is is actually a small sample size of public sentiment but i think that it's an important one that politicians are aware of um and do respond to not all the time but sometimes when it's important to respond to because of how it relates to the to the party or the politician so um amnesty will be running a twitter storm um i believe in in early january um to condemn this we've been making a lot of statements on twitter encouraging retweets We've been working with people around the world like celebrities, journalists, you know, filmmakers like MIA, Oliver Stone, you know, reaching out to people like Russell Brand and Noam Chomsky, who's shown a lot of support as well. And whoever it may be from all walks of life, once again, to show support on Twitter and online. And it does have an impact because it snowballs.

And that's a big word I like to use with amnesties. You can watch a campaign start from like a concept and then watch it slowly snowball, gather steam. And this is why, you know, campaigning and international movements are so important because they can do that because you have mass numbers and you don't ever think that your voice isn't important. I'll tell you right now, when I started campaigning on this, I thought like, you know, there was about this much of a good shot to really make traction. But in my mind, I was like, we can make it happen. let's let's just give this a really crack and don't let up be persistent which is one of amnesty's main values be courageous have integrity do it the right way and and i if i look back on the last year and a half it's been insane how much it's changed and for everyone at home even if you are

like kind of on the fence but you think you're maybe 60 40 you're more in favor speak up about it talk to your friends and family don't be afraid of conversations that that that might be uncomfortable that's where most growth and progress happens when you have uncomfortable conversations right and with assange that's again one that i've seen people don't want to touch it and then once they start learning a bit more about it they go okay you know what why not i'm more informed and and and this is a big area of passion as well because information if it's the wrong information and then you spread it talking about viruses if you spread it that goes to that person or that person that person all of a sudden everyone's thinks something

which is a little fraction of what the actual issue is and again like you said source material That's why it's so important in the right context, and that's why you should be informed and you should really check yourself before spreading or talking about certain information. That applies to not just the science, but everything, right? And so, yeah, I think that people should speak up on Twitter. They should sign Amnesty's petition, which I can share, which was 400,000, and Sydney here, representing the global movement, we've been pushing hard for our Aussie, you know, got 400,000 signatures. We handed it over to the U.S. Embassy in Sydney. um and it was one of the largest australian petitions ever signed by amnesty um and have have had a lot of allies on board supporting us that you wouldn't expect so i think that can

continue to grow and just speak up online i'm sure people have machine learning algorithms detecting how often you know certain keywords are put up online and okay public sentiment saying this maybe we should respond to it that's the tech side kind of kind of thinking but uh or talking But I think that with that in mind, just put it out there, you know, talk to your friends and family, talk to your local members. If anyone can assist, please feel free to reach out. We can find new networks and connections to try and talk to the different parties and see if we can come to an agreement, because this is crucial. Look, if we're a democracy, this is one of the principles we have to stand on. Yeah, couldn't agree more.

For you personally, you're interested also in Bitcoin, blockchain, crypto. How does that kind of intersect here? And what are your thoughts on that stuff? Yeah, absolutely. I'm working on an app actually called Thinkers and this is actually in line with what I've just spoken about when it comes to quality information. We are at a point in our history where there is an abundance of information online. There's no question about that. And that has been one of the biggest talking points of the year is fake news, misinformation. These were buzzwords thrown around. Myself and a team of people who are very passionate, Jay, Mel, Anne, Lucy and Wilka and Dan, we're all very passionate about quality information and empowering people to critically think. And we think the solution is critical thinking.

So with that comes in mind a long-term process of analyzing the information, all the nuance, don't just think black and white, and like any skill with the community as well, it's a lot easier. You can practice it. So what is the context, you know, et cetera. So we built through, funnily enough, AI and machine learning, an algorithm that detects the keywords in every article that you read. It's a browser extension that will be integrated into an app in January. so coming very soon and it scans the page and goes here's who owns this publication here's the bias which you can vote on yourself which gets aggregated you know this it's an opinion piece or it was really new therefore it could be developing these are all the things

people need to think about when they consume information so if you don't have the source material here's a good way to help you think through the news you consume every day now building the app we wanted to build it with you know trust and privacy in mind from the get-go So blockchain being a big factor, you know, having NFTs that we would give when we launch over the coming weeks, we want to give pioneer NFTs to new users that sign up so that we can reward quality journalism on our app. We want it to be a citizen journalism platform for local stories. We want to reward critical thinking. We want to reward, you know, quality, nuanced discussion, not just the kind of back and forths that we do see on Twitter. and this is again a thing that i've seen from so many different people going i can't go on twitter

man i can't talk on this platform i just get yelled at it's just like yelling on this side yelling on that side echo chamber after echo chamber polarization right espousing so our solution was um well-moderated community-driven um rooms to talk in nuance about a lot of these conversations and that's going to be a big task but we think we can certainly do it Um, and we want everyone to kind of help and build with us. Um, so yeah, that was thinkers.io and hopefully, yeah, next month will be very exciting. Um, we want to introduce a token in future and, and work towards a decentralized social media platform for everyone. It's awesome. Before we get into the rapid fire questions to wrap it up,

where can people find you on the internet? Yeah, I'm on Twitter. Um, you know, as well, I am on there. So Chamira Gamaj, so my full name. And that's, that's, I would say where I spend a little bit of my time. I'm not too prominent on any other social medias just yet. I would hope that after we get thinkers up and running, we can try and start a new platform and see what we can do with maybe a bit more characters so we can flesh out our thoughts a bit further before we dive into things. But yeah, please feel free to reach out to me there or on email directly, which is, um, ChimeraGamage7 at gmail.com. Awesome, man. Uh, ask the same two questions everyone before I wrap up and then you get to ask people when to finish it. First question is,

what is the most important book that you've ever read? Oh, that's a good one. Um, not to be corny, but probably the alchemist. I know a lot of people would probably say that, but I've got to buy my nephew who's 17 at Christmas. Sorry. I've got to get him a birthday present. Um, I was going to get it for him for Christmas, but I thought, you know what? i'm going to give him the alchemist he's 17 i want him to read it just because of the anecdotes and the way to see the world little signs symbols around um the story and journey that you go on i just think it's a beautiful really well written story that you should keep in the back of your mind yeah that's a great uh great suggestion uh second question more fun aliens are you a believer

or a non-believer yeah yeah if you asked me about two years ago i would have said probably not um like a lot of people during covid have had a bit of extra time to look at stuff i would say yes yeah i i agree i didn't need covid i didn't need covid to push me down the rabbit hole but uh but once you go down man it is uh once you're there you're like are you kidding me and anyway this year's been an intro big one for that right so i think this is going to continue to grow over time yeah i love it uh what's the one question you have for me to wrap up um i'm not gonna ask if you're bullish on bitcoin because i know you are so i'm gonna say what do you think will be the biggest um uh startup trend for 2021 2021 um i think just the continued

financialization of assets and uh and kind of the digitization of those assets right so you see things like pipe uh it's basically taking recurring revenue and it's turning into a financial asset i think people are going to find all kinds of things to kind of financialize but also we're going to see every stock bond currency commodity go from kind of this electronic QSIP world to a digital world. Markets will become 24-7, 365. You'll kind of really, really break open accessibility for people around the world and kind of just rebuild the financial system for a digital global world. Not that groundbreaking of an idea, but a lot of work goes into doing that. But I think that's kind of where we're headed hopefully in the next couple

of years for sure absolutely and i know you think it's not you know as you said not too groundbreaking but um the more i've learned about these systems and where it's headed to be honest the more you read the more you learn you like i said before you kind of just know this is where it's going to head it's it's an amazing concept and technology and i think i think we're just at the precipice we're just getting started i i tend to agree my friend all right listen thank you so much for doing this shamir i really think that people are going to uh enjoy hearing more about Julian Assange. And if this kind of speaks to you, you think it's a big deal, please go tell family, friends, and talk about it online. We've got about a week before the decision and every

little bit helps. So thanks so much for coming on and doing this. Thank you, man. My pleasure.