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Daniel Ellsberg is the man behind the most famous leak of classified government information in the history of the United States. The Pentagon Papers he gave to the New York Times and more than a dozen other newspapers changed the public’s understanding of the Vietnam War, and illuminated a deep pattern of lies perpetuated by a string of U.S. presidents and other top American officials.

Decades later now, Ellsberg says he’s waiting for someone to release the equivalent to the Pentagon Papers on Iraq and Afghanistan. At 79 years old, Ellsberg is still speaking out against the atrocities of war. Two weeks ago, he appeared in London with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

Next week, he’ll head to Honolulu for the ACLU’s . Ellsberg caught up with Civil Beat from California to talk about war, politics and why he fears our Constitutional freedoms are slipping away.

Some of the key remarks from the interview:

On the critical importance of making documents available to the public
“I’d like to see someone emulating the source of the documents of a kind that apparently have been shown to (investigative reporter) Bob Woodward, according to his latest book. In that book, if he had accompanied the documents he was given to write it, those documents would be the Pentagon Papers of Afghanistan. I don’t know any good reason why Woodward hasn’t put any on the web with some redactions. Or the people who showed him the documents, they could put them on the Internet. We would have the Pentagon Papers of Afghanistan.

On Hawaii’s dependence on the military
“Not only Hawaii but so many states like California, Georgia, Texas, a lot of places are so dependent on military spending and bases that Congress in turn is dependent on it for campaign contributions and votes. It’s very hard to wean the country from this addiction. I would say there’s nothing is more important than somehow demilitarizing, freeing our own efforts and energies and resources from this preoccupation.

On putting the number of civilian casualties in Iraq in context
“So when you incorporate the additional 15,000 civilian deaths into these official reports, that makes it about 120,000. I would say that five 9/11s worth of lives is news, should be news.”

On how the Obama administration has protected the Bush administration
“By being very conciliatory to the point of letting Bush officials get away with clearcut violations, and the torture couldn’t be more clear in terms of a blatant violation of criminal law. Obama has decriminalized torture and decriminalized aggressive war. Iraq was not just a ‘dumb war,’ as he called it. It was a blatantly illegal war.”

On how the military has overstated the dangers in Wikileaks’ release of hundreds of thousands of pages of classified field reports from Iraq
“They have no evidence of anyone actually been harmed by these releases. The risks do not seem to be realized. Rather strikingly, a NATO officer in Kabul told CNN then hadn’t found it necessary to warn or protect any individuals.”

On a possible leak of high-level documents about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
“I can’t honestly say if they only had the Pentagon Papers it would make the difference, but I do think it’s worth trying. Even for a small chance, it’s worth risking a life, worth risking going to prison to end these atrocious wars.”

On how candidates ignored the war in the recent U.S. elections
“War wasn’t a factor in these elections on either side, which is shocking.”

On how dependent the U.S. economy is on the military
“In the first World War, Calvin Coolidge said, “The business of America is business.” But the business of America has become arms production and preparation for future wars.”

Read the full interview, below.

There are clear parallels between the Wikileaks and the release of the Pentagon Papers, but there are also differences in the kinds of documents that were released, and how they were assessed prior to being leaked. What strikes you most?
“This is definitely a valid question or criticism to raise. It’s certainly questionable — or, I would advise against, generally — putting out a lot of classified documents that you haven’t been able to read. With Wikileaks, I think they had some technical reasons for doing it that way. With their limited resources and staff and budget and everything, the choice between doing it that way and not doing it at all.

(Wikileaks founder) Julian Assange is very conscious of the fact that this is a war that’s going on every day. People are dying every hour. This war is a continuing atrocity. People are being reminded by the Pentagon all the time about the risks associated with people who are willing to tell secrets. But it’s also risky for people to keep secrets! And those risks have been realized.

For all their concern about the risks here — which have some basis — I’m glad to hear from the Pentagon that they have no evidence of anyone actually been harmed by these releases. The risks do not seem to be realized. Rather strikingly, a NATO officer in Kabul told CNN then hadn’t found it necessary to warn or protect any individuals.

Also, Wikileaks does seem to have changed its handling of (leaks), and with the second big release they redacted a lot of names. According again to the Pentagon none of the 300 names (of Iraqis who helped American troops) they were worried about are in the version that was leaked. So I think those dangers were overplayed a great deal. 

Now, as for differences between them, the documents were a different level of reporting or analysis. The Pentagon Papers were top-secret records of high-level decision making, recommendations by the joint chiefs of staff, decisions and arguments of the Department of Defense and the president and so forth. They were the highest policy level. Now, various memoirs have shown we were deceived into the Iraq War, but we don’t have the Pentagon Papers of Iraq or Afghanistan. Not the way we had the Pentagon Papers of Vietnam, the ones I released. This is not what Wikileaks has released, and those remain to be leaked.”

Do you expect the public will ever see those documents?
“I certainly don’t expect them to be released, and we certainly need them now rather than later. I’d like to see someone emulating the source of the documents of a kind that apparently have been shown to (investigative reporter) Bob Woodward, according to his latest book.

In that book, if he had accompanied the documents he was given to write it, those documents would be the Pentagon Papers of Afghanistan. I don’t know any good reason why Woodward hasn’t put any on the web with some redactions. Or the people who showed him the documents, they could put them on the Internet. We would have the Pentagon Papers of Afghanistan.

But these documents (from Wikileaks) are mostly field reporting, and they are dismissed by the Pentagon as unimportant, without anything new, but they do reveal 15,000 previously unreported civilian deaths.

They were partly unreported because they were in twos and threes at checkpoints rather than in large massacres from the air. That certainly is very important to know in terms of the continuing cost of the war, the human cost of that war, which the American public has been protected from, shielded from.

Just as (President George W.) Bush refused to let people photograph the coffins coming home from Iraq, the American people are protected from the atrocities of war.

So when you incorporate the additional 15,000 civilian deaths into these official reports, that makes it about 120,000. I would say that five 9/11s worth of lives is news, should be news.

And moreover, as well as the fact that we were being lied to continuously when they said were not collecting civilian casualties. That was a lie that was being carried out in Vietnam as well. Public inattention is not just accidental, it was constructed by the Pentagon. Some effort has gone into deceiving the public.

And then the torture, which was not reported on earlier. It is a direct violation of our international obligation on torture, and calls for real investigation and prosecution in a way that the Pentagon Papers didn’t. The Pentagon Papers, at their high level, they didn’t reveal low crimes, they raised the question of the crime against the peace, but these (Wikileaks) papers do challenge the administration to observe the rule of law and open criminal investigations into torture, in some cases directly by Americans and in other cases where we knew it was taking place. All of that is important news we’re receiving, and I applaud Wikileaks.”

You’ve talked about the power raw documents have to move the public. Would it take the exposure of higher-level documents about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for the public to really grasp what’s going on? Does the public even care to?
“It would help. Frankly, I have to say honestly that the public isn’t caring much. It’s the mood of the country now, with the American casualties being as low as they are — although they’re in the thousands, they are not in the level of the 30,000 the 50,000 of Vietnam — and the much lower news coverage.

War wasn’t a factor in these elections on either side, which is shocking. Two wars are going on, and secret wars as well, in Yemen and in Pakistan. The public is not taking a stand because the public is not paying attention. I can’t honestly say if they only had the Pentagon Papers it would make the difference, but I do think it’s worth trying. Even for a small chance, it’s worth risking a life, worth risking going to prison to end these atrocious wars.

Trying affects people. People who were going to prison, people who were resisting the draft nonviolently in order to have some effect on somebody, they had an effect on me. They did the right thing, and I realized it was the right thing.”

It also appears the Obama administration is trying to make examples out of whistleblowers like Thomas Drake and Bradley Manning.
“When I tell people that this president is prosecuting as many people for leaking as all previous presidents put together — and that’s three, of course, a small number — I have never run into someone else who realizes it.

I think Obama is taking advantage of the virtually really rather lawless atmosphere that was bequeathed to him by eight years of Bush which is really chopping away at the Constitution. The reason there have been so few of these cases, of which mine was the very first, is that the Espionage Act was not intended to be used for this purpose against disclosure to the public.

It’s always been held in the past to use it like that was almost surely unconstitutional. Administrations didn’t want to test that and use the law to intimidate leakers because they were afraid to have the law discounted as unconstitutional.

Now, and for 10 years now, the question of Constitutionality is not as much of a limit as it used to be. They have a new Supreme Court, a new attitude in the public. They are able to do what is clearly a violation: Torture, things like indefinite detention, the abuse of the so-called state secrets privilege, and — what was earlier clearly unconstitutional — warrantless wiretapping. That was a factor in ending my trial. Nixon faced impeachment for it. Now, it’s been legalized — with the vote of Obama, by the way, when he was in the Senate — and the whole climate has changed here. The outcome of my case would have been very different today.”

So then is Obama protecting Bush, shielding the public from his administration’s decisions?
“By what Obama’s done, he seems to have had the idea. By being very conciliatory to the point of letting Bush officials get away with clearcut violations, and the torture couldn’t be more clear in terms of a blatant violation of criminal law. Obama has decriminalized torture and decriminalized aggressive war. Iraq was not just a ‘dumb war,’ as he called it. It was a blatantly illegal war. He’s in effect decriminalized it the way they talked about decriminalizing marijuana in California. No doubt, he hoped to reach across the aisle and get some collaboration with Republicans but of course that’s a total failure. Tuesday’s elections, in part, reflect that failure.

To some extent, he’s protecting himself. Abusive powers have been bequeathed to him, and I’m not sure any president would give up those powers voluntarily. It really would take Congress to take away those powers. The Democrats aren’t going to take away power from the person they elected, and the Republicans aren’t going to take away powers than were given to a Republican. The Constitutional outlook is not good.”

Do you find it impossible to trust the government on any level at this point?
“I think the appropriate attitude for a Democratic citizen is not to trust but to practice vigilance. It’s our responsibility to keep the governor under watch, and monitor it and correct it by voting and by campaigning and free speech. It’s really up to us, and the media and the Congress and the courts to be more protective of our freedoms than any of those institutions have been in the past 10 years, with the exception of some dissenters.”

We have a huge military presence in Hawaii, but we talk about it relatively little here.
“Yeah, I am aware of that. I spent months there at the Cincpac Headquarters on Oahu way back in 1960. I’m aware of the bases there. We have become an increasingly militaristic nation.

We never really converted back after the Cold War, after World War II for that matter. The Cold War was used to maintain spending throughout that period, and at the end of the Cold War, the militaristic forces rallied very effectively to keep the spending going, and even increasing. In the first World War, Calvin Coolidge said, “The business of America is business.” But the business of America has become arms production and preparation for future wars.

Of course, not only Hawaii but so many states like California, Georgia, Texas, a lot of places are so dependent on military spending and bases that Congress in turn is dependent on it for campaign contributions and votes. It’s very hard to wean the country from this addiction. I would say there’s nothing is more important than somehow demilitarizing, freeing our own efforts and energies and resources from this preoccupation. We could then work on peace, we could work on the education and the health care and the infrastructure that we need in this country, which would create more jobs.

That would accomplish far more than the high-tech military can. I saw this back in Vietnam but it seems more true than ever, we need that peace dividend that was never delivered to us.

In no case did we ever really benefit by a move toward a conversion of our economy. This election has not helped, so that means the public — a large part of the public — are part of the problem.

I think there really is a worse period coming. I think things are going to be worse. The republicans did not run as hawks. They didn’t talk about war at all. But what we got are some of the most hawkish candidates yet. So the change of really getting out of Iraq or getting our of Afghanistan is even less now this morning than it was two days ago. So, there’s a lot of work for us to do. There’s a lot of work for those of us who think this country can do better.”