Yasur is a Turkish Kurd who is married to 47-year-old Katharine. I mean, its every journalists dream to have these, you know, front-page splash stories that get followed up around the world. Marcia Mitchell. But there were a group of journalists within the newsroom who trusted each other, had worked together previously. Tweet. I mean, what are you doing here? Thought-provoking commentary and opinion on politics, books and the arts. Due to the pandemic, the event was then canceled. Bush had agreed to this to help Blair. Courtroom porn and social media have turned innocent bystanders into a mass of mudslingers. For eight months she was bailed and bailed again, repeatedly. I gather intelligence so that the government can protect the British people. Katharine Gun worked as an analyst for Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the British equivalent of the secretive U.S. National Security Agency. I mean, my first reaction was shock and anger. The Smash actress, 36, admitted her 35-year age gap with Foster, 71, was a concern for her - but more because of the . It was an extraordinary moment. I asked her why she decided to leak the memo. Katharine Gun, former intelligence specialist turned whistleblower, discusses the new film "Official Secrets" which details why she leaked a classified memo. I do not gather intelligence so the government can lie to the British people. Thats Keira Knightley playing Katharine Gun, whos in our studio now, the whistleblower, former British spy, worked for British intelligence, explaining why she leaked this memo, which would get to the press, which would get to The Observer, which brings us to our next two guests, Martin Bright and as well as Ed Vulliamy. Katharine Gun, Martin Bright, Ed Vulliamy and Gavin Hood. Because I have processed it now, and Im probably a lot more clear in my thinking, explained Gun, who met with Knightley before filming. Back in 30 seconds. Yasur is a Turkish Kurd who is married to 47-year-old Katharine. On the phone, she tells me how she came to be there. The Drudge Report, famous right-wing website, had followed the story up. AMANPOUR: OK. Even before the invasion, she suspected that the US was cooking up intelligence about Iraqi WMD. Katharine's house was searched before she was sat down to be interviewed the following morning. Famed U.K. whistleblower Katharine Gun joins Justin on Extension 720 to talk about, "Official Secrets," the new movie based on her real life story.Gun leaked a secret memo exposing an illegal spying operation by the United States of America, looking for information with which to blackmail United Nations diplomats tasked to vote on a resolution regarding the 2003 invasion of Iraq. And she sees this memo that says that the evidence for going to war would not be based on intelligence of whether there were WMD, but on trying to get something on the U.N. Security Council members, personal or whatever, to get them to vote for the invasion, to back President George W. Bush. Katharine Gun : I work at GCHQ. Were talking about Official Secrets. In January 2003, 28-year-old GCHQ translator Katharine Gun received an email from the US National Security Agency that would turn her world upside down. It is based on the whistleblowing investigation by Katharine Gun and Martin Bright. Nowadays, everyone can invent their own news - and call out stories - on social media, and . The diplomats were due to vote on a second United . She believes that her leak probably finished off the second resolution, turning Chile and Mexico against it. More than that, Koza wasnt just asking for information on what these ambassadors and their governments were planning, he seemed to want dirt. Katharine Gun : Yas, I understand why you are angry. Gun had, of course, been forced to abandon her career in the civil service and finally, struggling for work, left Britain altogether. The highly confidential memo revealed the United States was collaborating with Britain in collecting sensitive information on United Nations Security Council members in order to pressure them into supporting the Iraq invasion. You've never seen war, you've never smelled it! Katharine Ross's body measurement is 32-38-32 inches, and she wears a shoe size of 7.5 US. Katharine was charged with an offense under section 1 of the Official Secrets Act 1989 on 13 November 2003. GCHQ began a leak inquiry, interviewing everyone. We had at least a name. Whistleblowing on wrongdoing is part of that fightback. AMANPOUR: And that spoke was this memo that had , AMANPOUR: been leaked to you and then you leaked it to the press, not leaked but delivered to you . She wondered if the economic sanctions that were supposed to choke Saddams dictatorship were instead, as the critics maintained, causing a genocide of Iraqis. She had never planned a career in intelligence and was slightly surprised to find herself working at GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters), Britains electronic spying agency in Cheltenham. Asking for the whole gamut of information from domestic and office communications was for her a demand for blackmail material blackmail to manipulate their vote, to sanction a war. Well, now Katharine Guns story is being told in the new film Official Secrets, starring Keira Knightley. We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work. We thought it was really interesting to talk to you at this time. But they not only are saying they are going to crack down hard on the leaker, but theyre also saying they will crack down on the press, any press that reports this in Britain. Where Are Katharine Gun and Husband Now? This month, a new film Official Secrets, in which she's played by Keira Knightly will be released, telling her story. After the meeting, the Brits and the Americans shook hands on the tarmac and walked to their planes. Yes, I mean, these were, as Martin has suggested, divisive, divided, bitter, difficult times. The following Monday, she walked out of work, a printed copy of the email folded up and hidden in her handbag. KATHARINE GUN: [played by Keira Knightley] Do you mean have I leaked anything else? An insider with courage. Gun received bail each month, so she was able to make it seem like she still worked for GCHQ and had a normal life. Official Secrets is based on the actions of Brit Katharine Gun, who revealed that America had been eavesdropping on diplomats from other countries. And likewise the other performances, extraordinary in this film. But, in 2003, when she came across an email suggesting that the United States and the U.K. governments were intending to blackmail members of the United Nations to authorize an invasion of Iraq, Gunthen just 28felt morally obligated to leak the letter. Gun believed that this would be illegal, a breach of the Vienna Convention governing diplomatic relations. To this day, she has no idea how convincing she was during her interrogation but really, it doesn't matter: on the Wednesday, she marched right up to her manager. When an American is asked to define the term whistleblower," they will probably reference Edward Snowden or Chelsea Manning. And also, the memo itself contained language that was consistent with intelligence service language, so we had experts look at that, as well. And the whole process, I think, was just a parallel process that didnt have a. "Official Secrets," which opened Friday in New York and . The CIA knows it. It looked like a very exciting story. Gun, realizing how unfair it was to subject her colleagues to the consequences of her own actions, confessed and was arrested shortly thereafter. It isn't a crime, it's a responsibility.". Katharine McPhee shared a sweet snap of her 6-month-old son, Rennie, playing with husband David Foster in the cabin of a private jet. We're looking at the real-life political thriller of a British intelligence specialist, Katharine Gun, who risked everything to blow the whistle on U.S. dirty tricks at the United Nations in the lead-up to the Iraq invasion in 2003. Plus a change The warI mean, our obligation is not whether we support or are against the war. The memo proposed blackmailing smaller, undecided member states into voting for war. On the night of the 19th of March, 2003, the bombs began to fall. Only a select number of people had received the communication, and GCHQ were going to want to know who'd blown the whistle. AMY GOODMAN: Right, because it said like F-A-V-O-U-R, instead of V-O-R. AMY GOODMAN: And so that proves its a fake memo, they think. The Case Against Mary Katherine Higdon 43:11. The western leading man, Sam Elliott, first met his famous actress wife, Katharine Ross, on the set of a movie. January of 2003. Latest Martin Milner Net Worth Income Salary, Andrew Witty Biography , Wife Age, Family Salary & Net Worth: UnitedHealth Group CEO, Blaize Pearman Wikipedia, Net Worth, Age, Bio, Mother Lydia Gaulden. When I saw the red flagit was like, Oh, my gosh, this is so explosive. Any intelligence gathered would be used as leverage to coerce those nations into sanctioning a war in Iraq. The defense would have argued that, at the time I leaked the memo, I believed the war was illegal. is an independent global news hour that airs on nearly 1,400 TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. MARTIN BRIGHT: Was one of the six nations. Finally, she called someone (she has never named) who had connections to the media, telling them: I have something explosive, I think it has the potential to avert a war with Iraq. She went back into work on Monday, printed the email, folded it neatly and put it in her bag. You wanted to stop the Iraq war. Katharine spent that night in a cell underneath the local police station. MARTIN BRIGHT: The paperthe editorial line was supporting the war, but obviously there were those of us within the paper who didnt. You know, its not every day you get a top-secret memo, and not just a top-secret memo from GCHQ, but a top-secret memo from the NSA sent to GCHQ. In 2003, the girl in her 20s initiated a courageous move to expose the secret plan made by the US government. I went with Blair on his last visit to Iraq as prime minister, in 2007. But, in 2003, when she came across an email suggesting that the United States and the U.K . And thats really where the story started for Ed and myself on The Observer, was process of verification. Amid safety concerns, and anxiety over the fate of a $200 million movie, The Johnny DeppAmber Heard Defamation Trial: The Makings of a Remarkable Moment in American Celebrity. KNIGHTLEY: Governments change. This is a clip. Katherine Louisa Ryan was born on June 30, 1983, to Finbar and Julie McCarthy in the city of Sarnia in southwestern Ontario, Canada. As noted in online sources, the former spy's birth year is recorded to be 1974. From there, it made its way into the hands of Yvonne Ridley, a well-known anti-war activist. In fact, your husbandwould they attempt to deport him? "Public opinion was just so obviously against the invasion that I thought it wouldn't happen," she recalls. The next morning, Katharine returned to the office as normal and got on with her work, trying as best as she could to not think about it. Ive always been very proud to work at GCHQ. "The problem was that I just didn't feel guilty," she tells me. And he had told me over two meetings, A, we know that Saddam Hussein has no weapons of mass destruction. It has been suggested that the government was desperate to ensure that documents containing advice about the legality of the war which the defence had requested would not be made public. Her story was adapted into the film Official Secrets in 2019. This is Democracy Now! In 2003, Katharine Gun was working for Britains Government Communications Headquarters, known as GCHQ, the intelligence agency similar to the National Security Agency here, when she opened a top-secret NSA memorandum. List of Wanted Pages on Real Life Heroes Wiki. When you go to court, you face years in prison. Yasar Gun is the husband of a British whistleblower, Katharine Gun, who revealed top-secret information. Mr. Koza? Yeah, whos that? That level of pressure, stress and attention took its toll. You walk in. At the time, her actions received very little attention from journalists in the United Statesunless you were watching Democracy Now! Nerves tingling, she went home. At the time, I was really focused on the Iraq invasion issue, Gun told Vanity Fair this month, ahead of the August 30 premiere of Official Secrets, an intelligence thriller recounting this terrifying chapter of her life and starring Keira Knightley. Woman who tried to stop a war. Katharine had assumed a journalist would use the letter as a springboard for their own wider investigation. You see this headline splashed across the front page. She says this breach was a foolish one-off. In 2003, Katharine Gun exposed a plot by U.S. security officials to spy on United Nations members as they ramped up pressure to secure a resolution to go to war with Iraq, and she leaked the . KATHARINE GUN, WHISTLEBLOWER: Its you know, its very hard to explain the point of view I had or the mental state I was in at the time. We had just come from a press conference with the Iraqi information minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, better known as Comical Ali. "And there in my inbox was was this email from [the US] National Security Agency, which in and of itself was quite out of the ordinary.". I do not gather intelligence so that the government can lie to the British people. AMY GOODMAN: I know. And tell the final results of what happened. MARTIN BRIGHT: Yes. Yasur Gunnis is the husband of Katharine Gun, a linguist who specializes in translating Mandarin Chinese into English. And then, one morning, Katharine popped to her local shop to pick up the paper, as she did every Sunday, and there, on the front page of The Observer, was the email she'd leaked. She headed up to Yorkshire and went into hiding, as a media circus descended onto Cheltenham to find her. A few weeks passed and no story appeared. A month later, the Observer splashed the story over its front page. What do you do? And then they changed their headline, from Condi Rice orders operation at the NSA and GCHQ to British newspaper prints fake memo.. Its 15 years later. I was like, Mmm. "Yeah, I suppose so," she says. She revealed the dirty tricks on the UN Iraq war vote to the world. Blogus by Themeansar. With no plan and no contacts, a duty solicitor who was well out of her depth was called. She was sitting at her computer in GCHQ when an email arrived from one Frank Koza, chief of staff at the regional targets division of the US National Security Agency. So, that was Angola, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Chile, Guinea and Pakistan. "As soon as I got home I sat with my husband, who was still in bed. He was forced to resign, because it showed that he called President Trump inept, and he said, you know, the singular reason that the Trump administration pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal was because it was signed by President Obama, and other issues. Heeding the dictates of conscience and true patriotism, Ms. Right away, Katharine knew the significance of this message. And what we are seeing is a movement of people who are trying to stop it. AMY GOODMAN: Tony Blair was the prime minister of Britain at the time. Gun, youre a spy. After the meeting, the Brits and the Americans shook hands on the tarmac and walked to their planes. ANDY DUMFRIES: [played by Jack Farthing] The Americans want us to help them get a U.N. resolution for war. Theyre basically cooking it. "The officer shook my hand once I was bailed and released," Katharine recalls. ONLINE:YouTube: http://youtube.com/democracynow Facebook: http://facebook.com/democracynow Twitter: https://twitter.com/democracynowInstagram: http://instagram.com/democracynowSoundCloud: http://soundcloud.com/democracynow iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/democracy-now!-audio/id73802554 Daily Email Digest: https://democracynow.org/subscribe We were getting calls from all over the world. If people knew about this, nobody would support this invasion.. She saw a newspaper advert for GCHQ. In November 2002, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1441, which called on Iraq to get rid of chemical and biological weapons and long-range missiles. What I object to is being asked to gather intelligence to help fix a vote at the U.N. and deceive the world into going to war. Yasars wife is a British linguist who worked as a translator for the GCHQ, Government Communications Headquarters. You tried to call. Almost a decade ago, the world was gripped with anxiety as it watched the legal proceedings against a young Se. I didnt know why, but I was going nuts. Yasar Gun : All you do is listen to people talking! We speak with a British whistleblower whose attempts to expose lies about the Iraq invasion was called \"the most important and courageous leak\" in history by acclaimed Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg. 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