WikiLeaks Press Conference on Snowden's Asylum Application

WIKILEAKS PRESS CONFERENCE
06/24/13
10:00 am ET
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ON EDWARD SNOWDEN'S EXIT FROM HONG KONG
06/24/13
10:00 am ET
Operator: Welcome to today’s program. At this time, all participants are in a listen-
only mode. You may register to ask a question by pressing * and 1 on your
touchtone phone. We’ll take questions in turn during our Q&A session.
Please note today’s call is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to
introduce Trevor Fitzgibbon. Please begin.
Trevor Fitzgibbon: Hey, thanks everybody for joining the call. Sorry, we’re getting started a
little late. There were some journalists getting on. I just want to briefly let
you know who is going to be speaking today. First of all, we’re going to
have Michael Ratner from the Center for Constitutional Rights as well as
the U.S. attorney for WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, will be our first
speaker. Second speaker will be Julian Assange, the founder of
WikiLeaks. The third speaker is going to be either Jen Robinson, who is a
human rights attorney as well as a legal adviser to WikiLeaks, as well as
Kristinn Hrafnsson who is the WikiLeaks press spokesperson. After each
person’s speech – and they’re going to speak fairly quickly just to provide
enough data and make some key points – we will immediately open it up
to Q&A and the operator will prompt you to be able to ask a question.
Without further ado, I would like to hand it over to Michael Ratner, who is
the President of the Center for Constitutional Rights, as well as the U.S.
attorney for Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. Michael?
Michael Ratner: Thank you and it’s good to be with you. I just wanted to discuss a few of
the legal issues before we hear from Julian and others. The first is the
issue of the application that has apparently been made by Edward
Snowden for asylum from Ecuador. Minister Patino has talked about that
in the recent press conferences, as well as mentioned it, but the Center for
Constitutional Rights actually did some work on the initial application for

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asylum by Julian Assange when he was applying to Ecuador, and
something that I think most people don’t realize is that under the Refugee
Convention, whistleblowers is an activity – or rather, are people who are
protected by the Refugee Convention under the idea that they’re being
persecuted for political opinion. The Refugee Convention protects people
who are being persecuted for political opinion. Whistleblower activities
come within that. The United States itself has recognized that. It has
protected people from China, from other countries in Africa, who are
whistleblowers on their own government’s criminality, on their own
government’s corruption. So it’s surprising to me now – although maybe
not surprising in this case – to see the United States really ignoring that
and trying to interfere with an application for asylum by a person who has
been a, who is a clear whistleblower with regard to the activities of the
U.S. government and other governments in the world. I want to make that
strong point that people should understand, that whistleblowing and the
protection under the Refugee Convention also trumps any efforts to
extradite Edward Snowden. If it’s for the same crime, their alleged crime
that they’re trying to extradite him for, it’s the very act that he is protected
for under the laws of the Refugee Convention and asylum.
A second part of that is that there’s supposed to be a non-interference with
efforts to gain political asylum. The U.S. is doing everything to interfere
with that effort. They’re bullying countries all over the world, even though
they have no basis for doing so, bullying them to try and essentially get Ed
Snowden rendered to the United States where he can be prosecuted for the
alleged crimes that they’re trying to prosecute him for.
There’s no basis for that. There’s no international legal arrest warrant that
we know of. The crimes are classic political crimes under any extradition
treaty, and so that effort is really an effort by a big country to bully other
countries ‒ the biggest country to say, “Send him here,” ‒ when there’s

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actually no legal basis for it. He’s not a fugitive in any sense of the word.
As I said, there’s no arrest warrant. A third point, which I just will
reiterate, is that asylum trumps extradition, and a fourth point is that what
we should be discussing ‒ unlike what seems to be the attention primarily
right now, is that where is Ed Snowden? What country is he going to? ‒ is
the massive surveillance system that is being carried out by the United
States, the UK, and perhaps other countries all over the world, and the
violation of rights of people all over the world, the narrow rights or the
rights of – first, they’re hacking into everybody’s computers all over the
world and the internet, etcetera, all over the world. There are violations of
that, violations of all of our rights to privacy, violations in my view on this
massive scale of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution of the United
States, violations of all kinds of statutes. So we’re seeing a discussion ‒
rather than of the violations of law of the massive invasion of all of our
privacy ‒ what we’re seeing is looking at the person who is the
whistleblower rather than really discussing what we should be discussing
‒ a massive worldwide surveillance system. So thank you. I just wanted to
make sure you understand that there’s a significant and important legal
basis for Ed Snowden’s application for asylum.
Trevor Fitzgibbon: Thanks very much, Michael. With that, we’ll turn it over to Julian
Assange. Julian?
Julian Assange: Thank you. Edward Snowden left Hong Kong on the 23rd
of June, bound
for Ecuador via a safe path through Russia and other states. Mr. Snowden
has submitted an asylum application to Ecuador and possibly to other
countries. The Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Patino has said that the
asylum application is being carefully considered. Mr. Snowden requested
that WikiLeaks use its legal expertise and experience to secure his safety.
The current status of Mr. Snowden and Ms. Harrison ‒ both are healthy
and safe. Both are healthy and safe and they are in contact with their legal

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team. I cannot give further information as to their whereabouts or present
circumstances, other than to say that the matter is in hand.
Today, we have seen a range of extreme bellicose statements from the
U.S. Administration attempting to bully Russia and other nations from
facilitating Mr. Snowden’s asylum. Every person has the right to seek and
receive political asylum. Those rights are enshrined in United Nations’
agreements of which the United States is a party. It is counter-productive
and unacceptable for the Obama Administration to try to interfere with
those rights. It reflects poorly on the U.S. Administration, and no self-
respecting country would submit to such interference or such bullying by
the U.S. in this manner. This morning, the U.S. Secretary of State called
Edward Snowden a traitor. Edward Snowden is not a traitor. He is not a
spy. He is a whistleblower who has told the public an important truth. The
U.S. Secretary of State is wrong in law. A traitor must adhere to U.S.
enemies and there’s also a requirement that the conduct is in
Congressionally-approved wartime, neither of these feature here.
The Obama Administration was not given a mandate by the people of the
United States to hack and spy upon the entire world, to breach the U.S.
Constitution and the laws of other nations in the manner that it has. To
now attempt to violate international asylum law by calling for the
rendition of Edward Snowden, further demonstrates the breakdown in the
rule of law by the Obama Administration, which has sadly become
familiar to so many. Let us not forget that today, while Edward Snowden
is seeking asylum, the young soldier Bradley Manning is on trial for
telling us the truth. Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning, unfortunately,
are not anomalies. Their prosecution is part of a pattern of misconduct, a
part of the Obama Administration's war on whistleblowers.
The use of the 1917 Espionage Act against journalistic sources by the
Obama Administration must be condemned. The Obama Administration

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has now pursued eight journalistic sources using the Espionage Act ‒ that
is more than twice of all previous presidents combined, stemming back to
1917. The Obama Administration hopes to erect a new interpretation of
law, which defines journalistic sources as spies, and that is not acceptable.
If such a precedent is permitted, it will result in the complete destruction
of national security journalism within the United States, and already
serious national security journalists are speaking about how their
government sources are too scared to reveal government misconduct in a
national security sphere. That’s an extremely serious matter at the same
time as the national security sector of the United States is increasing its
share of the U.S. tax burden and at the same time where unprecedented
levels of criminality and abuse are being uncovered. It seeks to weaken the
press, which is the only effective mechanism of bringing it to account.
In the Obama Administration’s attempt to crush these young
whistleblowers with espionage charges, the U.S. government is taking on
a young generation of people who find the mass violation of the rights of
privacy and open process unacceptable. In taking on a generation, the
Obama Administration can only lose. Pursuing Edward Snowden and
pursuing Bradley Manning is not the way to fix the weaknesses of law and
process in the United States. The only way to fix these are to change the
policies, to stop spying on the world, to eradicate secret law, to cease
indefinite detention without trial, to stop the Obama Administration’s
assassination program, to stop invading other countries and sending young
Americans off to kill and be killed. It is these problems which is
stimulating national security whistleblowers to come forward. The Obama
Administration doesn’t want government sources to speak to the press. It
should stop engaging in conduct which is so outrageous as to cause them
to come forward. The charging of Edward Snowden is not a matter of
justice, it is an attempt to intimidate any country that might be considering
standing up for his rights to tell us all the truth. Such behavior must not be

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tolerated and will not be tolerated by any self-respecting nation or by the
press at large. Everyone should tell their governments to step forward and
assist Mr. Snowden in his asylum, and the press also has an obligation to
do so. That’s it from me.
Trevor Fitzgibbon: Okay. Thanks so much, Julian. Did Kristinn make it on the call? If not…
Kristinn Hrafnsson: Yes, I’m here.
Trevor Fitzgibbon: Okay. Kristinn, I’d like to turn it to you. Kristinn Hrafnsson – and the
spelling of your last name is H-R-A-F-N-S-S-O-N – and he is WikiLeaks
official press spokesperson. Kristinn, I’d like to turn it over to you, and
then we’re going to hear from Jen Robinson afterwards and then we’ll
open it up for questions. Kristinn?
Kristinn Hrafnsson: Thank you. My addition will be a brief one. Obviously, it’s fairly well
known, I think, today what WikiLeaks did with regard to Mr. Snowden is
to connect the legal teams together and assist in his process in seeking for
an asylum and secondly, I think, as a go-between carrying the requests and
messages to officials in government. It’s already public, of course, that I
as a journalist did approach the Icelandic government with a formal
request from Mr. Snowden for political asylum in Iceland, and similar
processes were carried out elsewhere. I just want to echo what Michael
Ratner said in the beginning that he hoped that journalists will not lose the
focus on the real important story here, which is of course the incredibly
important revelations that Mr. Snowden has offered to the world. It is of
such a scale that it is, of course, shocking the world, and it calls for a deep
analysis and a demand for answers and accountability on behalf of the
government. It is, of course, outrageous that a person that exposes mass
spying on not just U.S. individuals but the population of the world should
be charged with espionage and called a spy. That is Kafkaesque in nature.
That is all for me at the moment.

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Trevor Fitzgibbon: Excellent. Thank you so much. Finally, I’d like to turn it over to Jen
Robinson, who is a human rights attorney and a legal adviser to
WikiLeaks who is based in London. Jen?
Jen Robinson: Thanks, Trevor. I’ll also be brief but in the context of Snowden’s asylum
application, we want to emphasize the importance of Bradley Manning’s
case, whose court martial continues in Fort Meade this week. Snowden
himself, in choosing to leave the United States in order to blow the whistle
on NSA’s mass surveillance program, cited the treatment of Bradley
Manning and his assessment that he would not receive a fair hearing
before U.S. justice. It’s also important to note, too, that the treatment of
Bradley Manning was key in the asylum application made by Julian
Assange to the Ecuadorian government that was successful. We should
remember that Bradley Manning spent more than 1,000 days in pretrial
confinement in conditions that the UN Special Rapporteur Juan Mendez
found amounted to inhuman and degrading treatment, and possibly torture.
He is currently facing court martial for a range of charges, the most
serious of which is aiding the enemy, which of course attracts the death
penalty, and he is facing life in prison.
It is clear from the legal strategy and the case theory being put forward by
the United States prosecutors that they are attempting to make the case
that Assange conspired with Manning to publish ‒ a theory that threatens,
has frightening consequences to, the First Amendment and a theory that
can be applied to all the press and all of those who published the
WikiLeaks material.
As we’ve said from the outset since Eric Holder announced the criminal
investigation into WikiLeaks, an investigation that is the most serious,
large and complicated investigation into journalists, publishers and their
sources in history, that this would have ramifications for all of the press
and, as the U.S. prosecutors confirmed in the Bradley Manning

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proceedings, it makes no difference whether this was WikiLeaks or the
New York Times.
As James Goodale, the Pentagon Papers counsel for the New York Times,
himself pointed out just last week, Obama and his Administration are
attempting to make news gathering organizations and reporters criminally
liable for what they do in gathering the news. We have seen the
implications of the criminal investigation into WikiLeaks in the treatment
now of journalists with the mainstream media, including Rosen with Fox
News and most recently with the line of questioning adopted by David
Gregory towards Glenn Greenwald in relation to the Snowden matter,
asking him why shouldn’t he be charged with the crime for simply
receiving and reporting those materials. These have grave implications for
all of the press and it’s important that we remember the implications of
Bradley Manning.
Thanks, Trevor.
Trevor Fitzgibbon: Okay. Operator, we’d like to turn it over for some questions from
journalists. Thank you.
Operator: Again, if you’d like to ask a question, you can do so by pressing * and 1.
We have several questions in queue. We can go first to the line of Mark
Hosenball from Reuters. Your line is open.
Mark Hosenball: Hello. How are you doing? The question I have is to what extent has
WikiLeaks either acquired or is it seeking to acquire any of the materials
that Mr. Snowden has acquired and made available to The Guardian and
the Washington Post, and to what extent would WikiLeaks do anything
with such materials? For Julian Assange.
Julian Assange: Hi, Mark. That’s a sourcing matter, so as a matter of policy…

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Mark Hosenball: Sorry?
Julian Assange: That is a sourcing matter so as a matter of policy, I can’t speak about it. In
relation to publishing such material, of course, WikiLeaks is in the
business of publishing documents that are suppressed by governments.
Mark Hosenball: Is WikiLeaks in the position technically to be able to put out stuff because
you have some technical difficulties?
Julian Assange: WikiLeaks has no problem publishing material. We’ve published over a
million documents in the last 12 months.
Mark Hosenball: Okay.
Trevor Fitzgibbon: Thank you. Next question?
Operator: We’ll go next to the line of Andrea Mitchell with NBC News. Your line is
open.
Andrea Mitchell: Thank you very much. Mr. Assange, can you tell us whether you believe
that as a whistleblower, as you define him, that Snowden could have opted
to go to Congress or to the Inspector General? Why did he go to Hong
Kong, in particular, and now presumably he is still in Moscow?
Julian Assange: It is clear that Mr. Snowden is a whistleblower by all his actions. The
content both of his actions, communicating immediately with the press
about matters of serious criminality; in fact, affecting all of us. Contrary to
the less-informed opinions that appeared early on saying that Mr.
Snowden was a spy for China, clearly we see that is not the case. If it was,
he would’ve stayed in Hong Kong. Yes.
Andrea Mitchell: Do you think he could still come forward and make his case in the United
States or elsewhere as a whistleblower, as you’ve defined him?

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Julian Assange: Sorry. The internal factors. Mr. Snowden has spoken about Thomas Drake
- another National Security Agency whistleblower who used every
conceivable internal mechanism only to be prosecuted for espionage.
Similarly, an NSA whistleblower, William Binney, has spoken about how
internal mechanisms simply serve to identify a whistleblower within an
organization and marginalize or prosecute them before they are effective.
Andrea Mitchell: Thank you.
Trevor Fitzgibbon: Andrea, this is Trevor. I would also say that you may want to connect with
Jesselyn Radack on that because she has a really good take on that, how
many whistleblowers have gone through the process. Well, actually, the
government ends up using it against them. So she’d be a good person for
you to get in touch with, and I can help you do that after the call, if you
like.
Andrea Mitchell: Thanks, Trevor. Yes.
Trevor Fitzgibbon: Next question?
Operator: We’ll go next to the line of Michael Isikoff with NBC News. Your line is
open.
Michael Isikoff: Yes. First of all, questions to all of you. Can any of you shed any light on
where Mr. Snowden actually is as we speak? Then secondly, for Mr.
Ratner, I think you indicated that you have helped with his asylum
applications. How many applications and are you also assisting with his
legal defense into the Justice Department charges? First, where Mr.
Snowden actually is at the moment?
Julian Assange: I can respond to that. We are aware of where Mr. Snowden is. He is in a
safe place and his spirits are high. Due to the bellicose threats coming

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from the U.S. Administration, we cannot go into further details at this
time.
Michael Ratner: This is Michael Ratner. Can you hear?
Michael Isikoff: Can you say what country he’s in? Or just follow up. Can you tell us what
country he’s in right now?
Julian Assange: Unfortunately, we cannot reveal what country he is in at this time.
Michael Isikoff: Mr. Ratner?
Michael Ratner: Okay. Michael, I’m sorry. I have a bad connection so I probably wasn’t
heard well. As they’ve said, the Center for Constitutional Rights and
myself represent Julian Assange and WikiLeaks in the U.S. We don’t
represent Edward Snowden. What I was referring to is the work we did
when Julian Assange applied for asylum with Ecuador is we looked at the
Refugee Convention and found that whistleblowers do have protection for
whistleblowing under the Refugee Convention as a form of political
opinion. Countries around the world recognize that. [sound breaks up] is
that that principle applies [sound breaks up].
Michael Isikoff: You’re breaking up, Michael. Yes.
Michael Ratner: That principle applies four-square to Edward Snowden’s application
[unintelligible]…
Michael Isikoff: And maybe I misunderstood your earlier remarks, but did you assist with
Edward Snowden’s asylum applications?
Julian Assange: Perhaps I can answer that. The WikiLeaks legal team did assist with Mr.
Snowden’s application and its drafting as we have significant experience
in drafting such an application, having gone through the process already
for me.

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Michael Isikoff: That includes the Center for Constitutional Rights, Michael's group?
Michael Ratner: No, I can answer that. It did not.
Michael Isikoff: Oh, it did not? Okay.
Michael Ratner: No.
Michael Isikoff: I’m sorry.
Trevor Fitzgibbon: Ok, next question.
Operator: We’ll go next to the line of Scott Shane with New York Times. Your line
is open.
Scott Shane: Hi. My question is I guess directed at Julian Assange and Michael Ratner.
Just to clarify, what aspects of the NSA surveillance do you object to?
Much of the criticism is focused on the phone metadata collection in the
United States and the false statement of the Director of National
Intelligence about that, and the question of invading Americans’ privacy.
Do you, either of you, separately object to the idea that a country, whether
it’s the United States or Russia or China or any other country, uses these
systems to spy on other countries - in other words, intercept foreign
communications, whether it is terrorist groups or foreign diplomats or any
other kind of foreign target because, of course, traditionally for decades
now, all the countries that are capable of doing that kind of spying do it.
So, that’s just to clarify. I’m asking you whether you object only to
violations of Americans’ privacy by the NSA, or do you object to the
whole concept that any country should go and spy on other countries?
Julian Assange: Michael?
Michael Ratner: Julian, why don’t you start with that?

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Julian Assange: Okay. There are not multiple types of human beings, American human
beings and other human beings. There’s only one type of human being in
this world, and that’s why we speak about human rights. The UN
Conventions, which United States is a party to, protect human rights but if
we ‒ and the National Security Agency has been violating them en masse
‒ which is not a matter of the U.S. targeting terrorist groups ‒ everyone,
of course, would find that to be acceptable. It is conducting at least 1.7
billion interceptions per day and it is doing so en masse. It is hacking into
the civilian infrastructure of countries with which it is not at war, and in
that, it is violating the rights of organizations, governments and
individuals.
To my way of thinking, there is a larger, more significant political
problem, which is when an organization like the National Security Agency
has intercepted nearly the entire world’s communications at such scale and
is storing it, indexing it, processing it, it leads to a concentration of power
which is so dangerous that it must not be tolerated. The National Security
Agency whistleblower William Binney has referred to this as “turnkey
totalitarianism” where the infrastructure for an undreamt-of totalitarian
state has been built and it only requires a small shift in the political nature
of the U.S. Administration for that infrastructure to be so badly abused
that even more serious results can come about, both to people of the
United States and to the people of the rest of the world.
Now, one may argue that we are already seeing that. It’s not that we just
have worldwide mass surveillance being conducted by the National
Security Agency but in the process of doing so, the National Security
Agency is violating United Nations agreements, American Law and the
laws of other countries and is doing so in secret. It seems in order to
protect the people involved in that spying from criminal prosecution, the
Obama Administration has further gone on to corrupt the oversight

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process. While Bush engaged in a much smaller scale abuse of executive
power to encourage some of the telcos like Verizon to submit calling
records en masse to the National Security Agency, Obama has engaged in
a more systematic abuse: corrupting the FISA court into approving orders
which were in law only intended for a limited number of people instead to
apply to the entire population; corrupting the DOJ assessment process of
the law to create secret interpretations of the Patriot Act to provide legal
cover for this mass surveillance process; and corrupting the Senate
Oversight Committees.
So, we have secret courts, the FISA court. We have secret legal
interpretations conducted by the DOJ. We have secret oversight
committees and we have secret action. Everyone knows that any function
of government which is conducted in complete secrecy, including its
oversight committees over a long period of time, inevitably becomes
abusive. That is an inevitable reality and it’s true for every government
that has ever existed.
Trevor Fitzgibbon: Thank you so much, and Michael, I don’t know if you have anything to
add to that.
Michael Ratner: No. I think we should go on. That’s fine.
Trevor Fitzgibbon: Yes. I just want to point out we have about 30 questions in the queue right
now, so I would encourage everybody to try to keep questions and
answers short. Unfortunately, we’re not going to be able to do follow-up
questions so everyone will be able to get one question so we can move
through these as quickly as possible in order to meet all the journalists’
needs. Next question?
Operator: We’ll go next to the site of Raphael Satter with Associated Press. Your
line is open.

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Raphael Satter: Hi, Julian. Hi, Jen, Kristinn and Mike. Two questions. One is, are you in a
position to name the other countries that Edward has applied for asylum
in? The second question was that there was a report published this
morning in Izvestiya suggesting that Edward was being debriefed by the
GRU and FSB officers from the Russian Intelligence Services. I don’t
know if you’re in a position to talk about that because it speaks to the
credibility of Edward Snowden as a whistleblower, and if he’s in contact
with Russian Intelligence, that ‒ I think that that might be seized upon by
some as evidence that he’s not. So if you could answer those questions, I’d
be grateful.
Julian Assange: In relation to the second question, Mr. Snowden – the report is false.
Raphael Satter: Thanks.
Julian Assange: Can someone else take the first?
Kristinn Hrafnsson: With regard to the first question, it is only reported, of course, that there
was an application for asylum in Iceland and now we know that Ecuador
was approached, but I think we would refrain from at this point to discuss
other applications or approaches that were made.
Raphael Satter: Okay, so just to be sure that I understood, you said Ecuador and Iceland
but the others you can’t speak about?
Kristinn Hrafnsson: Correct.
Raphael Satter: Okay. Thanks, Kristinn.
Operator: We’ll go next to the line of Anthony Faiola with Washington Post. Your
line is open.

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Anthony Faiola: Yes, thank you. For Mr. Assange or anyone there. When Snowden left
Hong Kong, can you describe whether he was traveling on a U.S. passport
or some issuance from the Ecuadorian government, and if his passport has
been revoked, how will he travel now?
Julian Assange: The rights of citizenship should not be revocable under the UN
Conventions to which the United States is a party. Citizens must be
permitted to have free movement to enter and to leave their country. No
one wants, when traveling overseas under difficult conditions, to have – to
effectively have their citizenship being revoked by removing its most
important instrument: a passport. That unilateral action without any due
process against Mr. Snowden is another example of a secret process
[sound breaks up] the United States [sound breaks up]. In relation to Hong
Kong, Mr. Snowden was supplied with a refugee document of passage by
the Ecuadorian government.
Anthony Faiola: And is that a precursor to approval, or a sign that they would positively
weigh his application for asylum?
Julian Assange: That is, the refugee process has a number of steps and if we look in terms
of rights – that’s UN rights where people have the right to apply, to seek
asylum ‒ and so it’s part of the, an action of the right to seek asylum. It
does not have a legal bearing on whether asylum will be received.
Anthony Faiola: Thank you.
Trevor Fitzgibbon: That’s great. Next question.
Operator: We’ll go next to the line of Paul Adams of the BBC. Your line is open.

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Paul Adams: Yes. Good morning. Thank you very much for this. I wonder, Mr.
Assange, what you make of the obvious irony of seeking the cooperation
of the Chinese and Russian authorities in securing Mr. Snowden’s
freedom given their somewhat problematic relationship with the sorts of
values of privacy and freedom of speech that you hold dear. And if
Edward Snowden ends up in Ecuador, doesn’t the same irony pertain? I
wonder, are you simply involving those countries because they’re happy
to stick one in the eye to the United States rather than upholding those
values that you represent?
Julian Assange: I simply do not see the irony. Mr. Snowden has revealed information
about mass unlawful spying, which has affected every single one of us.
The U.S. Administration has issued a series of bellicose unilateral threats
against him and against others who are attempting to support his rights.
That is a very serious situation, and any country wishing to assist in
upholding his rights must be applauded for doing so.
Paul Adams: Even when they don’t uphold those rights for their own citizens?
Julian Assange: That’s another matter. In these cases, we do not criticize people for
seeking refugee status in the United States despite its use of torture, drone
strikes, secret court processes, executive kill lists, and so on. No one is
suggesting that countries like Ecuador are engaged in those types of abuse.
Trevor Fitzgibbon: Okay, thank you very much. Next question?
Operator: Moving next to the line of Jonathan Tirone with Bloomberg News. Your
line is open.

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Jonathan Tirone: Thanks. Mr. Assange, would it at least not be desirable for more specific
details of the NSA activities to come out specifically that pertains to
network architecture and actually figuring out whether the NSA would
even be in a position to purge their databases of private information and
therefore to prevent abuses, and, I guess, do you expect that more details
will eventually come out?
Julian Assange: We would like to see much greater detail of the NSA programs. What has
come out so far is the ‒ largely the bird’s-eye view, and that is the most
important way to see what is going on, that it is a global problem; the
statistics of the number of interceptions in March for each country running
into the billions; the mass violations of law that is occurring in London,
with its fiberoptic cable intercepts of the traffic of many different
countries. But I think it is now necessary to move into looking at particular
– specific violations from individual organizations and parliaments and
individuals and also to reveal precisely what other companies have been
coerced or bribed into participating in the National Security Agency
interception program. I believe such information is likely to appear.
Jonathan Tirone: Thank you.
Trevor Fitzgibbon: Ok, next question please.
Operator: We’ll go next to the line of Carrie Rabin with CBS News. Your line is
open.
Carrie Rabin: Yes, hi. Can you tell us a little bit about the travel out of Hong Kong? Was
this a normal drive to an airport? Was there any cloak and dagger
involved? Also, I know you can’t tell us where Mr. Snowden is, but can

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Page 19
you tell us if his travel plans have changed? When you mentioned the
bellicose threats to other nations, has that changed his travel plans?
Julian Assange: In relation to the travel out of Hong Kong, that is a fascinating story that
I’m sure will one day would be told, but today is not the day. The Ecuador
– sorry, the Hong Kong government has released a statement saying that
the exit from Hong Kong was legal, and that is in accordance to what we
know. For the security situation, as a result of the U.S. threats, I cannot
speak further about that.
Trevor Fitzgibbon: Next question…
Carrie Rabin: You can’t speak further about his travel plans being changed either?
Julian Assange: No.
Trevor Fitzgibbon: Thanks so much. Next question, please?
Operator: We’ll go next to the site of Catherine Herridge with Fox News. Your line
is open.
Catherine Herridge: Thanks for taking my question. First of all, was there any kind of
debriefing or questioning by the Chinese authorities before the exit from
Hong Kong? And can you just speak more broadly as to what other
documents Mr. Snowden has with him and they plan to release? Thank
you.
Julian Assange: In relation to that other question, I cannot speak to that. In relation to the
alleged interaction with the Chinese, as far as I am aware, that is false.

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Operator: We’ll go next to the line of Kevin Johnson with USA Today. Your line is
open.
Kevin Johnson: Good morning. A couple of questions. One, in trying to guarantee Mr.
Snowden’s safe passage through Russia, what advanced communications
did you all have with Russian officials there to indicate that he was on his
way? And can you tell us who they were? Also, is it Mr. Snowden’s desire
never to come back to the US? I mean, is he essentially gone for good?
Thank you.
Julian Assange: [Pause] [Laughter] Yeah, I can’t speak to what Mr. Snowden’s desires are
other than to repeat what he has said; that he is an American and a patriot.
His actions really come about as a result of a concern for the people of the
United States. He has family in the United States, so I'm ‒ I think he
would like very much to return, but that seems unlikely under the present
administration.
Trevor Fitzgibbon: That’s great. Next question, please?
Operator: We’ll go next to the line of Matthew Mosk with ABC News. Your line is
open.
Matthew Mosk: Yes, hi. For Mr. Assange, we’ve heard that Mr. Snowden has a great deal
of material in his possession. We’ve heard about four laptops. Have you
offered any advice about how to maintain custody of that material? Are
you concerned about the material he is carrying falling into the hands of
governments whose motives might be different than yours or Mr.
Snowden’s?

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Julian Assange: Mr. Snowden’s material has been secured by the relevant journalistic
organizations prior to travel.
Matthew Mosk: Can you elaborate on that at all?
Julian Assange: I’m afraid I cannot.
Trevor Fitzgibbon: Next question, please?
Operator: We’ll go next to the line of Miranda Green with The Daily Beast. Your
line is open.
Miranda Green: Yes, thank you. My question is did WikiLeaks pay for Edward Snowden’s
plane ticket, lodging and legal counsel, and if not, who did?
Julian Assange: You broke a couple a little bit during the asking of the question. Can you
repeat?
Miranda Green: Sure, yes. The question I have is, is WikiLeaks responsible for paying for
Edward Snowden’s plane ticket, lodging and legal counsel? To what
extent did you help with that, and if not, who was responsible for helping
him pay for that?
Julian Assange: It is correct. We paid for those arrangements. No government or other
organization assisted.
Miranda Green: And was that from the beginning, when he first arrived in Hong Kong, that
you have been assisting him with that?

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Julian Assange: In relation to his lodging in Hong Kong, that is a matter for Mr. Snowden.
But as far as we are aware, the lodging was paid for by Mr. Snowden.
Trevor Fitzgibbon: Thank you so much. Next question, please?
Operator: We’ll go next to the line of Jeanne Whalen from Wall Street Journal. Your
line is open.
Jeanne Whalen: Hi. I just wanted to repeat the question that another fellow asked earlier
that I think Julian didn’t quite answer, which is what advanced
communications did you have with Russian officials to ensure Snowden
could land there? Can you tell us who they are and how you actually got
contact with them in the first place?
Julian Assange: In relation to Mr. Snowden’s safe passage to asylum, there was no
advanced communication with Russian officials prior to its departure from
Hong Kong.
Jeanne Whalen: So he just landed there without the Russians knowing that he was coming?
Julian Assange: I’ve already answered the question.
Jeanne Whalen: So your answer to that was yes?
Julian Assange: My answer was what it was.
Operator: We’ll go next to the line of Heba Kanso with CBS News. Your line is
open.

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Heba Kanso: Hi there. This is actually toward Michael Ratner. As an attorney, what do
you see as other possible countries for Assange [sic] to seek asylum in? In
relation to that, too, it could be also Mr. Assange asking or answering this
as well, what are your hopes for Snowden’s future?
Michael Ratner: Right. I actually spoke to this a while ago. Countries that he could apply–
other than Ecuador. This has to be [sound breaks up] in a country that’s
strong enough to stand up against the United States. So it has to be either a
big country that can do it, and the obvious big countries that are out of
China, Russia. Apparently, those aren’t going to be the countries. The
other countries are those in South America who have been willing to take
an independent stand from the United States: Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia,
Argentina, Cuba. That doesn’t mean anything about what he’s done, I just
want to be clear. That’s just speaking directly as to what I’ve seen over the
last few years of countries being willing to stand up to the United States
and not be intimidated by political, military, economic means, which the
United States has tremendous power in those areas.
Operator: We’ll go next to the line of Jane Mayer with New Yorker magazine. Your
line is open.
Jane Mayer: Hi. You’ve used the – referenced the term “rendered” or “renditioned” for
what the United States is trying to do to Snowden.
Julian Assange: That’s correct.

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Jane Mayer: I wondered, many of us think of that as a particular process. Is there any
evidence that the CIA [crosstalk]…?
Julian Assange: Right. It’s a particular non-process.
Jane Mayer: Non-process, okay. [Laughter] Is there any evidence that the CIA or
special forces or other parts of the United States government have tried to
or are trying to snatch him in some way?
Julian Assange: My comments were in relation to the statements made earlier today by the
U.S. Administration calling on, in strong language, on Russia to expel Mr.
Snowden to the United States. In terms of law, that means extradition
without process, which is rendering.
Jane Mayer: Okay.
Trevor Fitzgibbon: Thanks, Jane. Next question?
Operator: We’ll go next to the line of Atika Shubert with CNN. Your line is open.
Atika Shubert: Hi. I just wanted to know a little bit more about how WikiLeaks became
involved in this. If you could give us a few more details, I know you said
that Snowden asked for WikiLeaks’ expertise. I’m wondering if we could
ask some more details of how that happened and when it happened
specifically.
Julian Assange: As a result of the security situation, we cannot talk about communications
methods or times.
Atika Shubert: Do we have a – is there any details you can give on when this happened?

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Julian Assange: We can’t go into detail with that, either. [Pause] It should be that, you
know, if we lived in a better world, we would be able to go into those
details. Unfortunately, we live in a world as revealed by Mr. Snowden,
where most people's communications are intercepted by the National
Security Agency unlawfully. We also live in a world where – when a
security agency in the United States like the National Security Agency is
exposed and engaging in unlawful conduct, it pulls in other parts of the
U.S. Administration, like the State Department, to enact revenge on those
people who’ve done the public a favor.
Operator: We’ll go next to the line of Courtney Kube with NBC News. Your line is
open.
Courtney Kube: Thank you very much. My question has actually been answered already,
but Mr. Assange, I’m just curious, I know you’ve been reticent on the
conference call here today to talk about any personal communications
between you and Mr. Snowden, but I’m wondering if either to you or to
anyone on your team, has he expressed any regret in coming forward with
his identity before he got to some final location ‒ to you or any of your
colleagues?
Julian Assange: No, he has not. And he has expressed no regret in his decision to reveal
this important information to the public, at any time.
Courtney Kube: I just asked because you, and I think Mr. Ratner, mentioned that since he’s
come forward, that there has been so much attention on where he is, where
he’s going and whatnot. As you said, it’s taken the attention off of what he

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was attempting to expose here. So I mean in that context, he hasn’t
expressed any kind of regret that the narrative of the story right now is
changed from what he was trying to put into the public’s attention?
Julian Assange: It is not from Mr. Snowden, but I was in a very similar situation just three
years ago where the – where we had unpublished, we had 251,000 U.S.
diplomatic cables that were yet to be published and the various U.S.
intelligence agencies knew that, as did the FBI. In these situations where
there is a perception that – let me rephrase in terms of Snowden so it will
be easier to reprint. In a situation where Mr. Snowden was perceived –
Sorry. In a situation where the U.S. government perceived, wrongly or
rightly, that eliminating Mr. Snowden would eliminate the exposure of its
worldwide spying program, the kidnapping or incapacitating of Mr.
Snowden must have been considered. So I believe Mr. Snowden was well-
advised to go public at the time that he did in order to protect his personal
safety and the safety of the journalists involved.
Courtney Kube: Thank you.
Trevor Fitzgibbon: Thank you so much. Next question, please? Folks, it’s 11:09 now. We’re
going to go for about five more minutes until 11:15. Next question.
Operator: We’ll go next to the line of Carol Cratty with CNN. Your line is open.
Operator: [pause] Again, your line is open. Checking the function, please?
Trevor Fitzgibbon: Okay, next question, please?
Operator: We’ll go next to Oren Dorell with USA Today. Your line is open.

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Oren Dorell: Hi. Thanks for taking this – my call. I wanted to ask you, Mr. Assange,
what is your situation right now? What are your prospects for – I believe
you’re – are you still at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London? What are
your prospects for – of getting out of there?
Julian Assange: I have been at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for just over one year;
protected in this embassy by the commitment of the Ecuadorian people, to
which I am grateful. I formally applied for asylum on entry to the embassy
on the 19th
of June, 2012 and received political asylum on the 16th
of
August, 2012. In relation to the ongoing standoff, it is the Ecuadorian
government’s legal analysis ‒ and our legal analysis had the same result ‒
the United Kingdom is in breach of its obligations to the UNHCR by
surrounding the embassy with police and refusing my safe passage. The
UK government has admitted publicly that it has spent $10 million on the
surveillance program of me in the embassy in the past one year. Their
figure is £6 million.
Oren Dorell: Okay. So are you expecting to get out of there [crosstalk]…?
Trevor Fitzgibbon: I’m sorry. We have too many questions right now. We need to move on to
the next question. I apologize.
Operator: We’ll go next to the line of Danny Kemp with AFP. Your line is open.
Danny Kemp: Hi. This is a question for Mr. Assange. You mentioned earlier about the
fact that the [unintelligible] on the part of the NSA to, and the U.S.
Administration to enact revenge on people who have gone counter to it.
Do you, in helping Mr. Snowden, do you get any sense, any feeling of
satisfaction or feeling of vengeance against the United States given that’s
– given what you believe they’ve done to you over the least three years?

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Julian Assange: I have personal sympathy with Mr. Snowden, having lived through a very
similar experience, but the WikiLeaks organization more broadly exists to
defend the practical rights of whistleblowers to bring their information to
the public.
Danny Kemp: Thanks.
Trevor Fitzgibbon: Okay, thank you so much. Next question, please?
Operator: We’ll go next to the line of Matthew Sledge with Huffington Post. Your
line is open.
Matthew Sledge: Yes. This question is for Mr. Assange. Is it in Mr. Snowden’s best interest
to kind of bind himself to the WikiLeaks organization in the way that he
seems to be doing?
Julian Assange: Kristinn, do you want to answer that?
Kristinn Hrafnsson: Yes, hello. I don’t think that Mr. Snowden [sound breaks up] and
WikiLeaks [sound breaks up]…
Trevor Fitzgibbon: Kristinn, we can’t hear you.
Kristinn Hrafnsson: Can you hear me now?
Julian Assange: No. No, not really. I’ll answer the question. Mr. Snowden found himself in
a grave situation. He should not have been placed into that situation by the
United States government. He should have felt that the U.S. legal system
would protect his rights. However, his assessment is that it would not,

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Page 29
based on the treatment of Bradley Manning, is as far as we are concerned
correct. WikiLeaks has over six years of experience of dealing with threats
to publishing and to whistleblowers, and specifically we have three years
of experience in dealing with precisely an analogous situation to what Mr.
Snowden found himself in.
Trevor Fitzgibbon: That’s great. Next question, please?
Operator: We’ll go next to the line of Larry Abramson with National Public Radio.
Your line is open.
Larry Abramson: Hi. Did you have any contact with Mr. Snowden before he left the U.S.
and were you part of the decision that he made to go to Hong Kong first?
Julian Assange: The question is to Mr. Assange. Is that correct?
Larry Abramson: Yes, please. Thank you.
Julian Assange: I instructed the organization to assist Mr. Snowden, and I cannot go into
further details at this stage.
Trevor Fitzgibbon: One final question, please?
Operator: We’ll go to the line of Jay Newton-Small with TIME magazine. Your line
is open.
Jay Newton-Small: Hi. Two questions. First, what do you say, Mr. Assange, to American
officials who claim that these programs have saved U.S. lives by
preventing terrorism, is it worth it? And, secondly, have you personally
spoken with Mr. Snowden, and if so, how many times?

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Julian Assange: I just answered the last question. In relation to the first one, the comments
presented to date by the U.S. Administration in its attempt to justify this
worldwide flagrant violation of individual rights and sovereign rights have
been pitiful, and the U.S. press has exposed that many of those attempted
justifications were false, but in the end there remains a question that it is
the governments – in the end, we must understand that it is a basic
principle of – in the end, we must understand that as a basic principle
governments do not have rights. It is their duty to uphold the rights of
citizens. And that includes their rights to privacy, their rights to life, their
rights to be secure in their effects ‒ those rights which are listed under the
US Bill of Rights. In choosing to preference one of those rights above all
others as justification for the U.S. intelligence apparatus's enormous
budgets of power and secrecy, the U.S. Administration is abridging those
other rights, which it is constitutionally mandated to uphold.
Trevor Fitzgibbon: Okay, thanks everybody for joining us on the call. I really appreciate it. I
know we couldn’t get to all the questions, but we tried to get to as many as
possible. Thank you again very much and talk to you soon.
END

WikiLeaks Press Conference on Snowden's Asylum Application

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WikiLeaks Press Conference on Snowden's Asylum Application