In 1971, one-time Pentagon official Daniel Ellsberg was entering the Boston Federal Court, ready to turn himself in to authorities for leaking 7,000 classified documents to the <\/span>New York Times<\/span><\/i>. The trove of records, collectively known as the Pentagon Papers, disclosed the efforts of the U.S. government to obfuscate the outsized scope of its actions during the Vietnam War. <\/span>Stopped by the press and asked to consider the implications of his surrender, Ellsberg pithily observed, \u201cWouldn\u2019t you go to prison to help end this war?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s a line that effectively cemented Ellsberg\u2019s activism and that now features in a NFT project, jointly spearheaded by Ellsberg and his fellow traveler, Edward Snowden.<\/span><\/p>\n The pair of whistleblowers have collaborated on a one-for-one Ethereum-based video NFT, fittingly titled <\/span>Wouldn\u2019t You Go to Prison to Help End This War?<\/span><\/i> It centers on archival footage of Ellsberg\u2019s interview amid a press scrum on the steps of the Boston courthouse, superimposed by a generative scroll of documents from the Pentagon Papers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The work was created by the Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF), where Ellsberg and Snowden are board members, using custom-built code and software. On January 12 at 3 p.m. EST, it will be released in a live auction presented by PleasrDAO via its new initiative, PleasrHouse. Funds raised by the sale will go toward the FPF and the Ellsberg Initiative for Peace and Democracy.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cMore people need to know who Daniel Ellsberg is,\u201d Chris Eberle, PleasrDAO\u2019s head of marketing, told Artnet News of the project\u2019s motivating force. \u201cThat at 91 he is still speaking truth to power. That he was the one who pushed Snowden to come forward in 2013.\u201d (Ellsberg apparently has a photograph of both of them hanging in his home.)<\/span><\/p>\n The PleasrHouse logo. Photo courtesy of PleasrDAO.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Wouldn\u2019t You Go to Prison to Help End This War?<\/span><\/i> also marks the launch of PleasrHouse, billed as \u201ca new experiment created to disrupt the shared experience of live art auctions.\u201d Each episode of PleasrHouse will encompass discussion and conversations around a piece of art, and a live auction of the work. Ellsberg and Snowden will be interviewed live on the first episode of PleasrHouse, and a short documentary on Ellsberg will be released after the show airs.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYou can think of it as the <\/span>Tonight Show<\/span><\/i> meets Twitch meets Sotheby\u2019s combined into one live episodic moment,\u201d said Jamis Johnson, PleasrDAO\u2019s chief of pleasing, in <\/span>an interview with Bankless<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n PleasrDAO became acquainted with Snowden in 2021 when the collective purchased the NSA whistleblower\u2019s first NFT, <\/span>Stay Free<\/span><\/i><\/a>, for $5.4 million. The sale \u201cfunded a year-plus of the [Freedom of the] Press Foundation operating costs,\u201d <\/span>according to Eberle<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n Since then, PleasrDAO, which initially formed to acquire a work by Emily Yang, has snapped up IX Shell\u2019s Dreaming at Dusk <\/em>(2021) and more prominently, Wu-Tang Clan\u2019s one-of-a-kind 2015 album, <\/span>Once Upon a Time in Shaolin<\/span><\/i><\/a>, previously owned by pharma bro Martin Shkreli. Some members of the group also formed UkraineDAO<\/a> in 2022 to raise funds to aid the country\u2019s war efforts.<\/span><\/p>\n In the words<\/span><\/a> of the collective, \u201cAfter <\/span>Stay Free<\/span><\/i>, we went from a makeshift DAO to a movement.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Edward Snowden,\u00a0Stay Free (Edward Snowden)<\/em>. Courtesy of the artist.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Eberle deems <\/span>Wouldn\u2019t You Go to Prison to Help End This War?<\/span><\/i> a \u201cspiritual successor\u201d to <\/span>Stay Free<\/span><\/i>, noting its similar stylistic format and ideological imperative. The need for truth-telling, as exemplified by Ellsberg and Snowden\u2019s whistleblowing, remains pressing, he added, particularly at a time when disinformation and mistrust are rampant.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cFrom Ellsberg\u2019s leak of the Pentagon Papers in 1971 to Snowden\u2019s leak on global surveillance in 2013, much had changed in the world, and in 2023 it is harder than ever to know the truth,\u201d he said. \u201cMore people need to come forward, and share the truth and demand the truth from those in power.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n More Trending Stories:<\/b> A Minnesota University Is Under Fire for Dismissing an Art History Professor Who Showed Medieval Paintings of the Prophet Muhammad<\/a><\/p>\n English Quarry Workers Have Struck Elizabethan-History-Lover\u2019s Gold With the Discovery of a Rare 16th-Century Ship<\/a><\/p>\n Russian Cyber Attacks Disrupt Banksy\u2019s Print Sale Benefiting Humanitarian Efforts in Ukraine<\/a><\/p>\n OxyContin Heiress Madeleine Sackler\u2019s Forthcoming Film, About Healing From Pain and Grief, Sparked Objections From Some of Its Crew<\/a><\/p>\n Artist Anton Van Dalen Takes Us Inside His East Village Studio, Where He Rears Pigeons and Paints Them Into His Work<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Edward](\"https:\/\/news.artnet.com\/app\/news-upload\/2021\/06\/nft-791x1024.png\")
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French Archaeologists Make \u2018Unprecedented Discovery\u2019 of What May Be the Remains of a Roman-Era Mausoleum<\/a><\/p>\n