Jamie Kastner and Laura Baron Kastner

In 2015, American filmmaker Laura Poitras was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary for CITIZENFOUR, a film about the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden which included footage of Poitras's one time partner, Jacob Appelbaum. Though he was only a secondary character in that film, Appelbaum considered suspending his self-imposed exile in Europe to attend the Oscars red carpet with Poitras. In the end, still fearing he would be arrested for his work with Wikileaks, he did not go to Los Angeles. CITIZENFOUR won the Oscar.

The following year, Poitras' next film RISK, which featured him more prominently, premiered at the Cannes festival in France. In May when the film premiered, Jacob had already been suspended from his job at the Tor Project. He was under internal investigation, and the stories about his abuse were swirling in the insular and secretive Tor community. A couple weeks after Cannes, Appelbaum resigned from Tor. The collective of anonymous witnesses published their documentation website about his crimes.

Poitras had to recut RISK after its 2016 Cannes premiere, to include information about the abuse allegations against Appelbaum, adding a voiceover that was rich with self-reflection about the history of misoginy in Wikileaks. The second cut of RISK was released in 2017. Margaret Ratner Kunstler and three other female Wikileaks lawyers then issued a statement condemning Poitras for her decision to re-edit the film.

A month after signing that statement, Kunstler reconnected with Jamie Kastner, an ambitious Canadian filmmaker in search of his next project. Kastner spoke to a film blogger about the genesis of his Appelbaum film:

Maybe it was 2017, in fact... I just asked [Ratner Kunstler] what she was working on and she mentioned she was defending him. And then around that time, there was a film by Laura Poitras that, was coming out called RISK. This was [Poitras's] less known follow up to CITIZENFOUR and, in fact, I believe was the film she was working on prior ... It's a film about Wikileaks, in which she got quite a bit of access to Julian Assange and others. And Jacob Applebaum is in this film, in RISK. And, he kind of, even though he is not the main character, he really jumped off the screen to me.

Kastner and his production company began to negotiate with their prospective main subject. Kastner reportedly agreed to abide by the strict information control conditions that Poitras had eschewed in 2017 to maintain her editorial independence on RISK. In 2021, Kastner and his wife and co-producer Laura Baron Kastner, recieved a $400,000 grant from the Rogers Media Fund to put towards their documentary project, working title "Hackstar in Exile".

That year, the filmmakers began contacting former victims and colleagues of Appelbaum through a proxy, Stephanie Weimar. When the film finally premiered, Weimar was listed in its credits as an associate producer.

In 2021, Weimar was portraying herself as a researcher, and "an LGBTQ+ woman in documentary film", who would connect the potential sources with her boss after an initial intake that began with an emailed message:

Hello (victim of harassment #1):

My name is Stephanie Weimar and I am a documentary researcher. I'm part of a team working on an upcoming film about internet security, and the online privacy community, the ideals it aspires to and promotes in the world, and the realities it struggles with, sometimes within the community itself.

I am very interested to speak with you about your work and advocacy, as I admire your work in cyberfeminism and public speaking. I am also interested in talking with you about your activism regarding Jacob Appelbaum.

I may not be in the same industry as you but being an LGBTQ+ woman in documentary film making I certainly share experiences of countless incidences of inappropriate behavior, boundary violation and unwanted sexual advances. I deeply sympathize with you continually speaking up in support of the victims and sexual harassment and assault in general.

I know in the past some of Appelbaum's victims have been understandably dismayed by the biased coverage this story has received. I can assure you this could be no further from our aim. Hearing your truth is absolutely crucial to us and this story.

Might it be possible to set up an initial, off the record and confidential conversation on a platform of your choice? I'd be very happy to connect with you. Also, attached is my public PGP key, any emails from here onwards will be encrypted.

Thanks a lot and have a wonderful day, I really appreciate your time,

Stephanie Weimar

Another instance of this message, with slight variations to personalize the message noted in bold:

Hello (victim of harrassment #2):

How are you? My name is Stephanie Weimar and I'm a documentary researcher. I'm part of a team working on an upcoming film about the online privacy community, the ideals it aspires to and promotes in the world, and the realities it struggles with, sometimes within the community itself.

I'd love to connect with you and talk about your expertise in the field as well as the years of tireless work you've dedicated to making "online" a safer space.

We're also exploring hacking and "hero worship" within the community. I understand you tried to raise the alarm about Jacob Appelbaum but that your concerns were not heard. We're exploring the story of his conduct and it may form an important part of the film.

I may not be in the same industry as you but being an LGBTQ+ woman in documentary filmmaking I certainly share experiences of countless incidences of inappropriate behavior, boundary violation and unwanted sexual advances. I admire your writing on the subject and deeply sympathize with your account of the situation re Jacob Appelbaum.

I know that in the past some of Appelbaum's victims have been understandably dismayed by the biased coverage this has received. I can assure you this could be no further from our aim. Hearing your truth is absolutely crucial to us and this film. It's extremely important to us that his victims get the time and space to speak up.

Would it be possible to arrange an initial, off-the-record and confidential chat on a platform of your choice? You can reach me on Signal at [redacted].

Thanks a lot - I'm looking forward to hearing from you,

Stephanie

Some of the targets of these emails responded, then did not hear back.

Jillian C. York is the Director of International Freedom of Expression at San Francisco's Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which has provided legal services to Jacob Appelbaum and other Wikileaks individuals over the years. York is not a lawyer. The EFF is an advocacy and software development organization in addition to fighting strategic litigation cases. York lives in Berlin, is the EFF's only staffer in Europe, and was an early whistleblower warning people about Jacob Appelbaum's interpersonal violence.

Some of the people who recieved the Kastner's outreach, responded that they did not wish to participate in the film, only to have their off-the-record conversations included in the final cut. Concerningly, the version of the film that was sent to festivals and aired on Canadian cable TV included the full, unredacted phone number of a victim of sexual assault in one instance when the filmmakers broke confidentiality and disclosed an off-the-record conversation on screen. The streaming service that published the documentary, CBC Gem, removed the film from circulation for a few days to deal with this breach of personally identifiable information.

When displaying a legal document, the Kastners also included the passport number and social security number of their main subject in the first cut of their documentary:

Karen Reilly, a former Tor Project employee, declined to participate in the film as they signed a non-disclosure agreement. The link Reilly is pictured as sending off the record to the filmmakers was to the following (now locked) tweet, and refers to DJB, Appelbaum's academic advisor:

Jamie Kastner later shared that, in order to be allowed to film with him, Appelbaum required the filmmaker to edit using only free software, on an air-gapped computer, kept in a locked safe, guarded by a motion-activated hunting camera:

I and I alone would be allowed to film ... footage shot would be backed up daily onto two encrypted hard drives the passwords of which I would memorize, the original memory cards on which we filmed would be overwritten before my crossing any international borders; footage would never enter the United States.

And once we finally made it to the editing stage, in addition to the hunting camera outside and the gun safe within (to guard the material from possible physical attacks), the suite must be "air-gapped": the editing computer itself must be bought new for the project, preferably paid for in cash (less susceptible to being bugged in advance), must never go online, nor must any phone (their microphones vulnerable to external control even when off) ever enter the suite.

Memory keys and hard drives entering the suite must never leave again, i.e., ever go back online, creating a data "loop" that could allow the film's data (or meta-data) to be tracked online. This meant that using, say Google Docs, a typical tool for directors and editors to work with a live script, would be impossible. 

This requirement, painful for one so technically challenged, would lead us to many awkward workarounds. In this case, a piece of "open source" software called Etherpad, a Soviet-style clunky offline version of Google Docs was set up, through the hardwiring of two other offline computers old enough to possess ethernet ports.

So, the Kastners had some frame of reference to understand Appelbaum's coercive control of his one-time friends and colleagues. The final word of their film, uttered by another accused rapist named Nadim Kobeissi, who was a victim of Appelbaum's bullying tactics, was:

"I don't want to associate with this guy, he brings nothing but problems. He's not worth it. He's a messed up asshole loser. I don't give a shit about him. Screw this guy."

Screenshots courtesy of https://appelbaum.lol where the full film can be viewed for free.