Forty years later, JoBeth Williams and Craig T. Nelson tell all about the horror classics secrets, tragedies, and controversies. Only a select number of people had received the communication, and GCHQ were going to want to know who'd blown the whistle. Katharine Gun in the Liberty office, 2019. 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. 2019 | Maturity Rating: R | 1h 51m | Social Issue Dramas. LONDON FEBRUARY 25: Former employee of Britains 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. Scott Davis was asking the questions.Synopsis: The true story of a British whistleblower who leaked information to the press about an illegal NSA spy operation designed to push the UN Security Council into sanctioning the 2003 invasion of Iraq.A morality tale for the 21st century, Official Secrets tells the true story of British Intelligence whistle-blower Katharine Gun who, during the immediate run-up to the 2003 Iraq invasion, leaked a top-secret NSA memo exposing a joint US-UK illegal spying operation against members of the UN Security Council. Gun also received the Sam Adams Award, which is awarded to intelligence agents who take a stand for ethics and integrity. 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. It was only September 2002 but the carrier was about to leave for the Gulf. It would show that there isnt a double standard. AMY GOODMAN: So it was sort of chicken scratch on the back. I couldn't control myself I was a total state, crying and trembling.". Hood's film dramatizes events in 2003 and 2004, beginning with British whistleblower Katharine Gun's decision to leak a memo exposing the criminality of the Iraq War and ending with her . I do not gather intelligence so that the government can lie to the British people. The CIA knows it. But I felt like straightaway it was emblazoned across my forehead: Its me! How scary was it for you to go ahead and do what you did? Wise man. I actually felt like, if I do this anonymously, nobody will realize its me and Ill carry on as usual. But about a month after leaking the letter, Gun was stunned to see that The Observer had published the document in full on its front page. And you were what? Several weeks later she was surprised to see the email she had printed out on the front page of a newspaper. MARTIN BRIGHT: So, the header information included the name Frank Koza, who was the NSAs head of regional targets at the time. She was angered by how nonchalant the email was in asking GCHQ to carry out an illegal operation but she didnt know what to do. whistleblower and former specialist for Britains Government Communications Headquarters. Someone within the antiwar movement, who was a former journalist, took the memo initially to another newspaper. 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 . I was very much aware of what the leaders of our countries, Tony Blair and George W. Bush, were saying at the time. I had bought a couple of books which had been rushed into print at that pointone called War Plan Iraq and the other was called Target Iraq. I was convinced that there was nothing Iraq had done [to warrant the invasion]. And I knew that I needed help. And he had told me over two meetings, A, we know that Saddam Hussein has no weapons of mass destruction. Whos that? I said, Im ringing about the GCHQ memo that you sent. Click. Also with us, the director of Official Secrets, Gavin Hood. But this needed finding Koza. She has then attributed to being a huge source of information to the medias watch. "I got into the office, turned on my computer and looked through my emails," says Katharine, more than 16 years later. Their legal battles exposed the highest levels of government in both London and Washington #OfficialSecrets #KeiraKnightley #MattSmith---------------------For syndication or usage opportunities please contact syndication@heyuguys.co.uk.---------------------More from HeyUGuys:Website http://HeyUGuys.comFollow us on Twitter http://twitter.com/HeyUGuysSubscribe here! 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 . I did, rather naively, try calling the press office and getting an interview. When Gun exposed that the U.S. and U.K. wanted information on United Nations diplomats to persuade the vote on the invasion of Iraq, George W. Bush was President of the United States and Tony Blair was the British Prime Minister of the U.K. Guns information affected Blairs politics and government at the time, but he has seemingly recovered from the incident. Its like hes more me than I am. When you go to court, you face years in prison. That contact had connections with the antiwar movement. Former British intelligence officer Katharine Gun didn't set out to become a whistle-blower. And it was. 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. At great personal and professional risk, journalist Martin Bright published the leaked document in The Observer newspaper in London, and the story made headlines around the world. Martin faced potential charges too. Yasur is a Turkish Kurd who is married to 47-year-old Katharine. GCHQ began a leak inquiry, interviewing everyone. You see this headline splashed across the front page. Thats the critical point. The Case Against Mary Katherine Higdon 43:11. Katharine Gun. A New Film Tells Her Story, Part 2: 15 Years Later: How U.K. Whistleblower Katharine Gun Risked Everything to Leak a Damning Iraq War Memo, Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License, Senate Holds Equal Rights Amendment Hearing as U.S. Court Denies Attempt to Include in Constitution, Bola Tinubu of Ruling Party Wins Nigeria Election Amid Low Turnout, Rigging Charges, Hundreds of Iranian Schoolgirls Suffered Toxic Poisonings in Last Four Months, Biden Names Labor Advocate Julie Su to Lead Labor Dept. They were going use information gathered from the intelligence to either bribe or blackmail them into voting for this war. But I watched Blair with his smug smile and his sterile speeches that tell us nothing . January of 2003. The film is coming out August 30th in theaters around the country. So, we had a terrible moment where we had seen organizations follow the story up. On January 23 2003, Gun, who worked at GCHQ translating messages from Mandarin Chinese into English, discovered an email from American intelligence agent Frank Koza. GAVIN HOOD: So, yes, tremendous amount of pressure coming down on these countries, because if Blair and Bush had been able to get that U.N. resolution for the invasion, the weapons of mass destruction issue would have been almost pretty much irrelevant, because theres two legal ways to go to war. I mean, its every journalists dream to have these, you know, front-page splash stories that get followed up around the world. And my husband Yasar was still in bed. The question remains: Why did they invade Iraq? This presented a problem. There was speculation that this was done to keep the governments legal advice on the war a secret, though that has been denied. "Public opinion was just so obviously against the invasion that I thought it wouldn't happen," she recalls. AMY GOODMAN: So you had nothing to do with what was going on, covering stuff in Iraq or working on that issue. As a young translator at GCHQ, she leaked a secret email. And what did you think? Whistleblower Katharine Gun and journalist Martin Bright are interviewed for their new movie Official Secrets for the film's LFF screening. Instead, helicopters skimmed over the rooftops, so as not to allow any insurgents the chance to fire a rocket propelled grenade. In his memoir of office, Decision Points, George W. Bush writes about going to see Tony Blair in the Azores in the last days before the invasion of Iraq in 2003. And this was before Isis, which exists, in part, because of events set in train by the war. Whistleblower Katharine Gun and journalist Martin Bright are interviewed for their new movie Official Secrets for the films LFF screening. 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. AMY GOODMAN: GCHQ leads an investigation. Yes, its a new Hollywood movie thats coming out, but it is the real-life story of Katharine Gun. JUDGE HYAM: [played by Kenneth Cranham] Katharine Teresa Gun, youre charged with an offense of the Official Secrets Act. Drawing on more than 100,000 leaked documents, a. 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. And the whole process, I think, was just a parallel process that didnt have a. They want to interview Martin Bright, because youve got the story of this memo. "Yeah, I suppose so," she says. Know all ye by these presents that Katharine Gun is hereby awarded The Corner-Brightener Candlestick, presented by Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence. Now her story has been adapted into the film Official Secrets starring Keira Knightley. Ten years ago, a young Mandarin specialist at GCHQ, the government's surveillance centre in Cheltenham, did something extraordinary. Gun, the consciencestricken spy, will almost certainly remain the only British official charged with anything to do with the war in Iraq. 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. Gun, a translator with the British intelligence service known as Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), received a document just before the war from an NSA manager, seeking British intelligence support in spying on . Theyre cooking this up. KATHARINE GUN: Actually, time-wise, I was bailed for eight months. Now the public knew. AMY GOODMAN: And the idea was they would figure out which way they were going to vote, so that they could sway them. AMY GOODMAN: So, bugging these six countries. And so, all the header information that you would usually have was not there. Gun put her career and her very liberty at risk trying to prevent the launching of an illegal war. TINTIN: And now youre upset at being asked to do that to members of the Security Council. . 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. So, that was Angola, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Chile, Guinea and Pakistan. Nerves tingling, she went home. And likewise the other performances, extraordinary in this film. She explained that when she was first arrested, her name wasnt released publicly for eight months. 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