It’s hard to decide whether WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is a hero or a criminal. What’s much clearer is that we live in an era in which we get far too much junk information about celebrities, scandals and unfounded, unscientific notions about things like Mayan end-of-the-world prophecies, and not nearly enough real information about what governments are doing.

People who abhor WikiLeaks and Assange have made it very difficult for that organization to operate, by cutting off its main funding mechanisms. In December 2010, under pressure from some members of Congress, Visa, MasterCard and Pay Pal announced that they would no longer accept transactions for WikiLeaks. Those donations represented an estimated 95 percent of WikiLeaks’ funding. Then, according to the New York Times, WikiLeaks “suspended publication of documents because of financial distress, which it said was a result of what it called ‘a banking blockade.’”

Now, a new non-profit group advocating more transparent government has entered the picture. Launched in December 2012, the Freedom of the Press Foundation says that it plans to act as a conduit for donations to organizations like WikiLeaks. The foundation’s board of directors includes Daniel Ellsberg, a hero of the freedom-of-information world for his actions in the 1970s in leaking the Pentagon Papers, which exposed U.S. policy in Viet Nam.

The foundation’s website outlines it purpose this way:

The Freedom of the Press Foundation is dedicated to helping promote and fund aggressive, public-interest journalism focused on exposing mismanagement, corruption, and law-breaking in government. We accept tax-deductible donations to a variety of journalism organizations that push for government transparency and accountability.

The Freedom of the Press Foundation is built on the recognition that this kind of transparency journalism — from publishing the Pentagon Papers and exposing Watergate, to uncovering the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program and CIA secret prisons — doesn’t just happen. It requires dogged work by journalists, and often, the courage of whistleblowers and others who work to ensure that the public actually learns what it has a right to know.

But in a changing economic and technological age, media organizations are increasingly susceptible to corporate or government pressure. This can lead to watered-down or compromised coverage, or worse: censorship.

Wikileaks will benefit from the new foundation, but so will other groups. So, if you’re not sure that WikiLeaks is a great idea, but you agree that we need more—not less—information about what government is doing, take heart: The Freedom of the Press Foundation will also be taking contributions for:

MuckRock News, which serves as a proxy and a guide for people seeking to make Freedom of Information requests;

The UpTake, a citizen journalism site that generates online video news;

The National Security Archive, a repository of declassified government documents.

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Dear Disappointed,

Daniel Ellsberg feels your pain.  He knows that Obama hasn’t lived up to your expectations. He won’t argue with you on that one. After all, at a hearty eighty-one years of age, Daniel’s nothing if not a die-hard realist. He’s seen quite a few more elections than you have and has raged against the machine in ways that’s put much more on the line than most of you ever will. In short, Daniel–the former military analyst who, in 1970, leaked the Pentagon Papers— has earned his creds. This is a guy with no illusions, and a guy who tells it like he sees it:

The reelection of Barack Obama, in itself, is not going to bring serious progressive change, end militarism and empire, or restore the Constitution and the rule of law.  That’s for us and the rest of the people to bring about after this election and in the rest of our lives—through organizing, building movements and agitating.

So here’s his advice. Take a long, hard look at what a Romney/Ryan win will mean.  Then take another long, hard look at what a Romney/Ryan win will mean not just for the next four years but for the next twenty or thirty or more.

Daniel wants you to get real if you’re thinking about going down the path of a third-party, protest vote. And he’s not one to mince words:

The traditional third-party mantra, “there’s no significant difference between the major parties” amounts to saying: “the Republicans are no worse, overall.”  And that’s absurd.  It constitutes shameless apologetics for the Republicans, however unintended.  It’s crazily divorced from present reality.

Don’t forget, this is one brilliant and courageous guy whose not inclined to let you get away with fuzzy thinking:

And it’s not at all harmless to be propagating that absurd falsehood. It has the effect of encouraging progressives even in battleground states to  refrain from voting or to vote in a close election for someone other than Obama, and more importantly, to influence others to act likewise.  That’s an effect that serves no one but the Republicans, and ultimately the1 percent [emphasis added].

What does Daniel want you to know?   That the stakes in this election couldn’t be higher and that you need to face facts and acknowledge that

 . . . to punish Obama in this particular way, on Election Day—by depriving him of votes in swing states and hence of office in favor of Romney and Ryan—would punish most of all the poor and marginal in society, and     workers and middle class as well: not only in the U.S. but worldwide in terms of the economy (I believe the Republicans could still convert this recession to a Great Depression), the environment and climate change.  It could well lead to war with Iran (which Obama has been creditably resisting, against pressure from within his own party).  And it would spell, via Supreme Court appointments, the end of Roe v. Wade and of the occasional five to four decisions in favor of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

In short, Daniel’s pleading with you to resist the temptation to throw away your vote. And if you’re still uncertain which way you’re going to go, just remember two fateful words:  Florida 2000.

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You have to be deep into middle age to know, first-hand, what Daniel Ellsberg did in the early 1970s to expose the top-level lies that created and perpetuated the Vietnam War. Ellsberg was the Defense Department insider who leaked the now famous Pentagon papers to the New York Times and helped turn the tide of public opinion against the war. Ellsberg’s is a story of courage and principle that deserves retelling to a new generation, and that should be a role model for action.

Whether Ellsberg’s story is old news or completely new to you, the documentary, “The Most Dangerous Man in America,” offers a powerful chronicle not to be missed. Released earlier in 2010, it’s making the rounds of film festivals, receiving award nominations, and is, at last, available on DVD.

With Ellsberg himself as the narrator, the documentary reveals his gradual transformation from conventionally defined “patriot” to anti-war activist. In a matter-of-fact tone, he describes his evolutionary path from a stint as an officer in the U.S. Marines, to State and Defense Department policy analyst, to anti-war activist labeled a “traitor” and convicted of illegal possession of top-secret documents. Each step is documented via still photos, contemporaneous news film, dramatically staged re-enactments, and interviews with politicians, news reporters, Ellsberg’s family, his contemporaries and his co-conspirators.

Putting one’s subject in the role of principal narrator of his own story always runs the risk of creating a self-laudatory portrait. Ellsberg’s commentary is anything but that. He bares it all: his unabashed, gung-ho attitude as a Marine; his complicity in helping to create paper-thin rationales that enabled military escalation in Viet Nam; his inability to speak out when top-level, Johnson-administration officials publicly lied about facts he knew to be untrue; and his regret at having jeopardized the careers of co-workers.

Eventually, no longer able to tolerate the lies and fabrications, Ellsberg risked it all—his livelihood, his reputation, his family, his freedom—to do what he knew was right. In a particularly poignant moment in the film, we see Ellsberg—now 79, and still speaking out against government hypocrisy—sitting at a table with Randy Kehler, another renowned war protester. As he talks with Kehler, Ellsberg chokes up, remembering how Kehler inspired him to act, and how that moment was the turning point in his life.

The film is a masterful retelling of a time in American history that still has relevance today. Who among us would respond as Ellsberg did, when asked by a reporter, outside the federal courthouse where he was being tried, whether he was willing to go to jail for what he had done? Ellsberg replies, “Wouldn’t you go to jail to stop this war?”

Ellsberg’s act of conscience had repercussions that still resonate today. When the New York Times published the first excerpts from the Pentagon papers, the Nixon administration attempted to block further publication. The Supreme Court ruled against Nixon’s attempt at “prior restraint,” thereby institutionalizing a firewall between government and the press. How well that firewall has held is a question that is worth discussing: Today’s corporate news media can be seen as an extension of America’s plutocracy. Seeking profits over facts, newsrooms are underfunded, under-trained and understaffed, resulting in lazy journalism that routinely fails to challenge the statements of public officials.

Another issue raised by Ellsberg’s story is the believability of government pronouncements. We learn in the documentary that every President who was involved in Southeast Asia—Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon—lied about America’s rationale for and management of the war in Viet Nam.  We already know that the Bush administration lied about “weapons of mass destruction” as a reason for pre-emptive action in Iraq. Watching “The Most Dangerous Man in America,” one cannot help but wonder about what additional lies we have been told—and may be hearing right now—about  our involvement in Iraq, Afghanistan and potential action regarding Iran.

I attended the movie with a small group of high-school students who are interested in current events. Their reaction was that, as Ellsberg’s story was completely unknown to them before they walked into the theatre, it would have helped to have had some explanatory material at the beginning. For them, the movie assumed too much prior knowledge. I can only hope that they left the theatre with an urge to be more courageous and with the inspiration to be part of a new generation of truth-seekers and principle-driven activists in the spirit of Daniel Ellsberg.

[Editor’s note: This review first appeared on Occasional Planet in April 2010.]

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