In bugging, in spying on, in eavesdropping, wiretapping, whatever? She was arrested and held at the police station in Cheltenham for 24 hours before being bailed. It took a maddeningly long periodeight months of existential limbobefore Gun was charged with violating the Official Secrets Act. KATHARINE GUN: If we do not go public, we would be conceding that no one can ever tell the people when their government is lying. Yes, in 2003, Gun was working for British intelligencethat's GCHQ, the intelligence agency similar to the . Were talking about Official Secrets. Katharine had assumed a journalist would use the letter as a springboard for their own wider investigation. She is played (with simmering intensity) by Keira Knightley. Katharine spent that night in a cell underneath the local police station. So I was bailed until . And likewise the other performances, extraordinary in this film. And, Ed, youre played by Rhys Ifans brilliantly in this movie, Official Secrets. GUN: Thats right. Whistleblower Katharine Gun and journalist Martin Bright are interviewed for their new movie Official Secrets for the films LFF screening. Iraq War was in March. After the meeting, the Brits and the Americans shook hands on the tarmac and walked to their planes. She had leaked a secret email revealing what was called at the time an illegal dirty tricks campaign to fix the UN vote. Her life had been turned upside down, and for what? 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. I think of journalists as being bullet-proof in a way. Again, this is before the Iraq War. MARTIN BRIGHT: It was NSA 'dirty tricks' at the U.N. Yeah, yeah. because my husband wouldn't . Yasar's wife is a British linguist who worked as a translator for the GCHQ, Government Communications Headquarters. Hundreds of thousands, millions of people have been affected by it, and those effects continue to this day. Katharine Ross's body measurement is 32-38-32 inches, and she wears a shoe size of 7.5 US. 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. today: https://democracynow.org/donateFOLLOW DEMOCRACY NOW! And I justyou know, I just collapsed. e-mail; 239. shares. Youve got CNN, youve got BBC, youve got everyone on the line. Chicago Mayor Lightfoot Loses Election; Candidates Backed by Police & Teacher Unions Head to Runoff, Death Toll from Migrant Shipwreck Reaches 67 While Italy Cracks Down on, Student Debt Relief in Jeopardy as Conservative Supreme Court Justices Question Bidens Plan, Longest Alabama Strike Ends as Warrior Met Coal Miners Return. The diplomats were due to vote on a second United . It was a crisis meeting because they had failed to get a second UN resolution, to give legal cover for the war. In 2003, she leaked top-secret information to The Observer, concerning a request by the United States for compromising intelligence on diplomats from member states of the 2003 Security Council.The diplomats were due to vote on a second United . 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. I had found a source called Mel Goodman, namesake of yours, who was the ex-head of the Soviet desk at the CIA, had kept his clearance. But we werewithin The Observer, AMY GOODMAN: Of course, thats the time you should run the fastest to the editor, but. I gather intelligence so that the government can protect the British people. But the difficulty was that it was just words typed on a piece of paper. Soon after, they moved to Turkey in 2011, and for the most part, the family has stayed away from the public . AMY GOODMAN: And the idea was they would figure out which way they were going to vote, so that they could sway them. They wont just put you through to a man who doesnt exist in a place that doesnt exist. Katharine Teresa Gun (ne Harwood) (born 1974) is a British linguist who worked as a translator for the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). I talked to a couple of colleagues about it, about even taking it to the editor, because you dont want to take a half-baked story to your editor, particularly at the time of intense prewar preparation. MARTIN BRIGHT: Yeah, so, initially, we were quite nervous. On the night of the 19th of March, 2003, the bombs began to fall. Katharine's house was searched before she was sat down to be interviewed the following morning. The film stars Ma. Gun, her husband, and their four-year-old daughter shed their coveted privacy long enough to allow Katharine to be one of two former Sam Adams Award winners to present this year's award. 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. interviewed Katharine Gun. At the end of the day, we are accountable to our conscience. Real-Time Crime & Safety Alerts . It didnt just end when George Bush said, Mission accomplished. Its heartbreaking that its affecting so many lives, and for what? Members of the Security Council were outraged and any chance of a UN resolution in favour of war collapsed. Katharine Gun in the Liberty office, 2019. The diplomats were from member states of the 2003 Security Council, and they were due to vote on a second United Nations resolution on the future 2003 invasion of Iraq. LONDON - FEBRUARY 25: Former employee of Britain's global surveillance center GCHQ (Government Communications Head Quarters) Katharine Gun smiles as she speaks to the media during a press conference February 25, 2004 in London, England. Yasur Gunnis is the husband of Katharine Gun, a linguist who specializes in translating Mandarin Chinese into English. 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. The following Monday, she walked out of work, a printed copy of the email folded up and hidden in her handbag. TINTIN: You eavesdrop on private conversations. KATHARINE GUN: Well, I was just appalled. The following Monday morning, Katharine could immediately tell there was an atmosphere in the office. Official Secrets. [1]Katharine Gun arbetade som versttare fr Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). "And I immediately decided the public should know the lengths the Americans were going to in order to secure legitimacy for this war. And Rhys Ifans plays the outraged insanity rather well, to my embarrassment, but he does a good job. And then, in November, came the call from her lawyer. You may not know the name Katharine Gun unless you live in the United Kingdom, but she was a pivotal figure in the run-up to the Iraq War.Or at least, she could have been. She explained that when she was first arrested, her name wasnt released publicly for eight months. "I need to have a word with you," she gulped. KATHARINE GUN: I work for the British people. Her late husband, Tom, a former special agent of the FBI and one-time head of counter-intelligence in New York, co-authored the Gun . Katharine feared she'd be fobbed off and then put under surveillance should she report it, so instead she kept silent and headed home for the weekend. AMY GOODMAN: As the British government says its identified the person who leaked cables that forced out the British ambassador to the United States for calling President Trump inept, we look at the real-life political thriller of a British intelligence specialist who risked everything to blow the whistle on U.S. dirty tricks at the United Nations in the lead-up to the Iraq invasion. AMY GOODMAN: And it is explosive. Official Secrets is a 2019 British drama film based on the case of whistleblower Katharine Gun, who leaked a memo exposing an illegal spying operation by American and British intelligence services to gauge sentiment of and potentially blackmail United Nations diplomats tasked to vote on a resolution regarding the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Katharine read the content carefully, and immediately felt sick to her stomach: it was a classified directive from the American authorities asking the British to spy on six UN Security Council members. In February, Gun attended a demonstration in opposition to the Iraq War. I work for the British people. . The question remains: Why did they invade Iraq? Yasar Gun is the husband of a British whistleblower, Katharine Gun, who revealed top-secret information. Robbie Robertson Reflects on His Legendary Rock Career, Iraq War Whistle Blower Katharine Gun Shares Her Story, Jack Goldsmith Discusses the Limits of Executive Power, + Major support for Amanpour and Company is provided by the Anderson Family Charitable Fund, Sue and Edgar Wachenheim, III, Candace King Weir, Jim Attwood and Leslie Williams, Mark J. Blechner, Seton J. Melvin, Bernard and Denise Schwartz, Koo and Patricia Yuen, the Leila and Mickey Straus Family Charitable Trust, Barbara Hope Zuckerberg, Jeffrey Katz and Beth Rogers, the Filomen M. DAgostino Foundation and. 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. Gun is in her forties now and living quietly in Turkey. The legal case against Gun was eventually dropped by the British government in 2004, after her lawyer, Ben Emmerson QC (played in the film with fabulous charisma by Ralph Fiennes), threatened to use disclosure to put the legal basis of the war itself on trial. But you see this memo that went out to everyone in your area. And yeah, it was just a request from the NSA tofor GCHQ to assist them in bugging the domestic and office communications of the six U.N. Security Council delegates. Nerves tingling, she went home. 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