MacFadyen facilitated and protected whistleblowing activities and organized events at which whistleblowers and former intelligence personnel spoke publicly . He acted as an advocate for Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning , eventually becoming a director of the Centre for Investigative Journalism . Closely linked to Assange , he formed the official Julian Assange Defense Committee , which raises funds to pay the legal expenses of Assange and other WikiLeaks staff . MacFadyen has appeared in a number of documentaries about Wikileaks , including '' We Steal Secrets '' and '' Julian Assange : A Modern Day Hero ? '' MacFadyen was born Gavin Hall Galter on January 1 , 1940 , in Greeley in Colorado , and grew up in Chicago . His mother was a pianist . He adopted the surname of his stepfather , a medical researcher . He studied at Shimer College from 1958 to 1959 , and later worked as a union organizer with trade unions . He was jailed for participating in civil rights demonstrations . He moved to England , joined the International Socialists ( which later became the Socialist Workers Party ( UK ) ) , and graduated from the London School of Film Technique ( now the London Film School ) . He founded a documentary film group to chronicle the political turmoil in the United States during the late 1960s for the BBC . He covered the anti-Vietnam War protests , race riots and the police clash with demonstrators at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968 , where tens of thousands of Vietnam War protesters battled police in the streets , while the Democratic Party fell apart over an internal disagreement concerning its stance on Vietnam . He went on to report from the Nicaraguan Revolution , a war between the right-wing Contras and the Marxist Sandinista National Liberation Front in the 1980s , and Iran-Contra , neo-Nazi violence , Watergate , the history of CIA
Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968
1968 Democratic National Convention
Gavin MacFadyen