AMANPOUR: by somebody within your organization. Copyright All rights reserved | Her story was adapted into the film Official Secrets in 2019. The UKs own intelligence, published by Downing Street, produced the Sun headline: Brits 45 mins from doom.. Your email address will not be published. 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. Martin faced potential charges too. Whistleblower Katharine Gun and journalist Martin Bright are interviewed for their new movie Official Secrets for the films LFF screening. Yasar Gun : All you do is listen to people talking! MARTIN BRIGHT: We have towe have to protect the innocent in the [inaudible]. But, many in the U.S. might not know the story of the 2003, In 2003, Gun worked for GCHQ, the British government agency that is equivalent to the National Security Agency across the pond. Two, there is a shadow intelligence operation going on through the Pentagon, all your favorite names on this programDouglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle. AMY GOODMAN: That was a clip from Official Secrets. Here is a clip of you being interrogated by the police detective. BEN EMMERSON: You chose loyalty to your country over loyalty to your government, your marriage and yourself. The message requested Katharine's assistance in co-ordinating an illegal US-UK spy operation which would secure UN authorisation for the Iraq invasion. That contact had connections with the antiwar movement. And the whole process, I think, was just a parallel process that didnt have a. We're sitting together in a quiet room at the headquarters of human rights organisation Liberty, just around the corner from the streets through which she'd been marching. As noted in online sources, the former spy's birth year is recorded to be 1974. So, I called him and asked him if he could do anything to help track down Frank Koza, or the reality or otherwise of this individual. It isn't a crime, it's a responsibility.". Truth has a habit of . The terror of that period took a toll on Gun, who suffered from PTSD for years. September 12, 2019 | 12:17 pm. And it was a very collaborativeit was a very collaborative place. She went home and stewed about the email for the whole weekend. Former employee of Britain's global surveillance center GCHQ (Government Communications Head Quarters) Katharine Gun smiles as she speaks to . She was the real-life translator who photocopied . It is tough for me to be in the public domain againbut I felt like it was a good thing. Watch our livestream 8-9AM ET: https://democracynow.orgPlease consider supporting independent media by making a donation to Democracy Now! Her late husband, Tom, a former special agent of the FBI and one-time head of . KATHARINE GUN: Well, it was a memo from a chap called Frank Koza, who worked at the NSA. ED VULLIAMY: Well, oh, indeed, brilliantly played his subject. We were going to bring all of this out and it was all going to be in the public. Instead, the case was droppeda temporary relief for her, but a troubling outcome on a greater scale, since it essentially meant they slammed the door shut on that discussion.. 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. Official Secrets is released in cinemas on the 18th of October, 2019. Real Housewives Of New Jersey star Melissa . Official Secrets is a movie about real-life whistleblower Katharine Gun, a relatively low-level British Intelligence agent (she was a translator in the Government Communications Headquarters) who . It wasn't that she was naive. And I pretty much ran home. 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 . The original content of this program is licensed under a. This is of no use to me at all. And she turned the piece of paper over, and on the back someone had written the header information. Plus a change The warI mean, our obligation is not whether we support or are against the war. And then, finally, it came to me. And also, the memo itself contained language that was consistent with intelligence service language, so we had experts look at that, as well. But of course that did not stop the war. KATHARINE GUN: Youre putting me on the spot now. 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. I couldn't control myself I was a total state, crying and trembling.". Join The Spectator community and view or post a comment on this article. Katharine Gun in the Liberty office, 2019. KATHARINE GUN: Well, its just serendipitous, fortuitous, whatever it is, but his asylum case was coming to an end at the same time that my case began. Only a select number of people had received the communication, and GCHQ were going to want to know who'd blown the whistle. "Even thinking about it all would cause me anxiety," she says, "but now I am ready." She struggled to find work after being sacked by GCHQ but she has no regrets. "I need to have a word with you," she gulped. How did it come to this? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, you work for the British government? Nowadays, everyone can invent their own news - and call out stories - on social media, and . The former British intelligence officer leaked a document to the press that announced an illegal NSA spy operation created to convince the UN Security Council to approve the 2003 invasion of Iraq. today: https://democracynow.org/donateFOLLOW DEMOCRACY NOW! AMY GOODMAN: So, you call Ed, and you say, Can you track down this guy? Among many other things. TINTIN: And now youre upset at being asked to do that to members of the Security Council. Katharine Gun has a much better grasp of the true spirit of democracy than Tony Blair. "It felt like the protests were what would stop the war," she says. Katharine Gun is the Most Important Whistleblower You've Never Heard of Gun discusses her attempt to stop the Iraq War, which is the subject of the new movie Official Secrets . KATHARINE GUN: No. She was brought up in Taiwan her parents moved there to work when she was three and so was fluent in Mandarin. And its so relevant to be talking about this today, as the British government is talking about cracking down on the leaker of the memos of the British ambassador to the U.S. that forced him out. Back in 30 seconds. But were going to go to a break, and then were going to come back to this discussion. Did you know that you can get Democracy Now! The invasion proceeded more or less on time with a coalition of the willing led by the United States and Britain. She revealed the dirty tricks on the UN Iraq war vote to the world. Our obligation is to the truth. August 31 2019, 5:30 a.m. Keira Knightley, as whistleblower Katharine Gun, in the 2019 movie "Official Secrets." Photo: Nick Wall/IFC. AMY GOODMAN: And talk about whatI mean, you risked everything. Real Life Heroes Wiki is a FANDOM Lifestyle Community. '", Meanwhile, the war in Iraq had already started. Gun believed that this would be illegal, a breach of the Vienna Convention governing diplomatic relations. They want to interview Martin Bright, because youve got the story of this memo. On the night of the 19th of March, 2003, the bombs began to fall. . Now the public knew. And what did you think? Katharine Gun (ne Harwood), 47, is married to Yasar Gn, a Turkish Kurd, with whom she has a 13-year old daughter. And he had told me over two meetings, A, we know that Saddam Hussein has no weapons of mass destruction. He remains on death row as of July 2021, but there have been zero executions in the state of California since a 2006 court . She'd been reading up on the preparations being made for a US-led invasion and wasn't convinced by the arguments; images of the first Gulf War she'd seen in her teenage years had forever been seared onto her mind. S, Welcome to Love Like This?, a romance column where we, Kathleen Newman-Bremang and Ineye Komonibo, revisit some of the most romantic or not, in hindsig, Whether its the iconic early-aughts film Love Dont Cost a Thing or her 2021 Netflix hit Resort to Love, Christina Milian has solidified herself in th, This story contains spoilers for Netflixs You People. "It was me.". As the build-up to war continued, Gun felt increasing dismay. It actually didnt really make a big difference at all., Gun and her legal team decided to fight charges in late 2003. A new film, Official Secrets, tells the story of her actions and subsequent arrest. Gun, 29, was . In fact, your husbandwould they attempt to deport him? View this post on Instagram. Some of it was to do with complications over an unfortunate spell check within the memo. KATHARINE GUN: I translated signals intelligence, and I reported anything I thought might be of interest to my clients. That is the only consolation I have A lot of people would welcome that. A union rep got in touch to offer support, and once news broke that an unnamed woman had been arrested for the leak the story caught the attention of the organisation whose offices we're sitting in. Husband: Not Available: Sibling: Not Available: Children: Not Available: Katharine Gun Net Worth. The British governments own lawyers were afraid that without specific UN authorization, the war might be illegal; British soldiers could even be prosecuted for war crimes. TINTIN: [played by Peter Guinness] Your supervisor speaks highly of your integrity. It took a maddeningly long periodeight months of existential limbobefore Gun was charged with violating the Official Secrets Act. But I watched Blair with his smug smile and his sterile speeches that tell us nothing . Even before the invasion, she suspected that the US was cooking up intelligence about Iraqi WMD. 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. Gavin, who worked on the screenplay and is the director. Ad Choices, In any walk of life, you can choose to do the right thing, whistle-blower Katharine Gun, whom Knightley plays in the film, told, Jimmy Kimmel Roasts Fragile Snowflake Donald Trump for Allegedly Trying to Censor Him, Scene Stealer: The True Lies of Elisabeth Finch, Part 1, Scene Stealer: The True Lies of Elisabeth Finch, Part 2. Interest to my clients content of this out and it was a total state, crying and trembling..... This program is licensed under a the UKs own intelligence, and I reported anything I might... 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