Kevin Gosztola interviewed Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, who testified during the second week of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's extradition trial.  

In the interview, a parallel is drawn between Dan's case and the mental health evidence that was presented by the defense in the third week. He has Dan comment on the questions he received from lead prosecutor James Lewis.   

Later, Dan addresses the U.S. Espionage Act, how far the Trump Justice Department thinks they can go in prosecuting Assange, and how the law was deployed against him nearly 50 years ago.  

Kevin and Dan conclude with some discussion on the political nature of this unprecedented prosecution.

Rania Khalek and Kevin Gosztola spend this week's episode discussing some of the latest developments in the extradition trial against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange—primarily because Kevin is covering proceedings every weekday from 4 am to 10 am.

It is expected to wrap by the end of September, and each week has been fairly intense with witnesses important to Assange's effort to convince a British court not to approve extradition to the United States for trial on charges of violating the Espionage Act.

Kevin describes the testimony CIA torture and rendition survivor Khaled El Masri submitted in support of Assange.

Also, there has been a lot of discussion lefty independent media about the media silence around Assange's extradition trial. Rania criticized The Young Turks' Ana Kasparian after she said the outlet "would look into" covering the case.

Both Rania and Kevin discuss establishment media and progressive media that are ignoring this case, and Kevin has an admittedly biased viewpoint that he shares as a reporter actually covering the trial.

Ricardo Vaz, an editor and writer for Venezuelanalysis.com, joins Rania Khalek and Kevin Gosztola to talk about censorship his media organization is dealing with on Twitter.

For nearly two weeks, Twitter locked out Ricardo and other Venezuelanalysis staffers from their account, which they use to distribute reporting and analysis of the latest political developments in Venezuela. (Their access was restored on September 6.)

Anyone who went to @venanalysis, the organization's Twitter page, saw the following: "Caution: This account is temporarily restricted. You’re seeing this warning because there has been some unusual activity from this account. Do you still want to view it?"

What is unusual is that Venezuelanalysis consistently publishes content that challenges the United States government's policy of regime change in Venezuela.

During the latter part of the episode, Ricardo discusses the impact of COVID-19 on Venezuela and how U.S. sanctions have worsened the Venezuelan government's ability to deal with the pandemic. He shares some of his thoughts on what would (and would not change) if Democratic nominee Joe Biden becomes President.

Ricardo comments on where Venezuelanalysis fits in the media landscape and highlights some of the history of the website, which has a lot to do with why they are now a target of censorship on social media platforms.