Whistleblowers

Long Before Scott Pruitt, EPA Colluded With Industry

May 31, 2018 Johnathan Latham, Salon.com Educate! EPA, Repression, Whistleblowers

When Scott Pruitt took the helm of the Environmental Protection Agency in 2017, public health activists, environmentalists and ordinary citizens expressed outrage. How could a politician with close ties to the Koch-backed American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) be counted on to champion the Agency’s mandate? Why turn the EPA over to a lawyer who was involved in multiple lawsuits against it, and, who, as attorney general of Oklahoma, disbanded that state’s Environmental Protection Unit? Less than two years later, Pruitt's record as EPA head has only reinforced his detractors’ worst fears. While Scott Pruitt’s tenure provokes almost daily controversy, what remains less known is that the EPA has long been a compromised institution.

The Isolation Of Julian Assange Is The Silencing Of Us All

April 10, 2018 Staff, Johnpilger.com Educate! Free Speech, Julian Assange, Whistleblowers

In this letter, twenty-seven writers, journalists, film-makers, artists, academics, former intelligence officers and democrats call on the government of Ecuador to allow Julian Assange his right of freedom of speech. If it was ever clear that the case of Julian Assange was never just a legal case, but a struggle for the protection of basic human rights, it is now. Citing his critical tweets about the recent detention of Catalan president Carles Puidgemont in Germany, and following pressure from the US, Spanish and UK governments, the Ecuadorian government has installed an electronic jammer to stop Assange communicating with the outside world via the internet and phone. As if ensuring his total isolation, the Ecuadorian government is also refusing to allow him to receive visitors.

Bad Track Record Gets Worse As New Whistleblower Outed By The Intercept

April 2, 2018 By Whitney Webb, Mintpressnews.com Educate! FBI, Leak, Media, Whistleblowers

MINNEAPOLIS – On Wednesday, Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) reported that former Minneapolis-based FBI agent Terry James Albury had been charged with leaking classified government information to the online publication The Intercept. Albury’s legal defense, led by Jane Anne Murray and Joshua Dratel, identified him as a whistleblower, stating that his decision to leak the documents was “driven by a conscientious commitment to long-term national security and addressing the well-documented systemic biases within the FBI.” Albury’s defense also noted that he has accepted “full responsibility for the conduct set forth in the Information,” referencing the fact that the document charging Albury was a two-page felony information.

Whistleblowers Sue City’s Top Health Insurance Providers

March 20, 2018 By Brigid Bergin, Wnyc.org Educate! Health Insurance, Lawsuit, Whistleblowers

Three whistleblowers representing New York City employees and retirees are suing the city’s top health insurance providers for defrauding taxpayers of more than a billion dollars. The lawsuit unsealed in New York Supreme Court last month alleges that GHI, along with parent company EmblemHealth and their partner, Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield, engaged in a long-running scheme that provided inadequate healthcare to city employees and retirees — while collecting $3 billion in premiums from the city each year. The GHI-Empire plan covers 600,000 people — about 75 percent of city workers, retirees and families. In a 63-page complaint, the plaintiffs say the companies filed false claims to overstate their expenses by an average of $55 million dollars a year between 2008 and 2014.

Julian Assange’s Health In ‘Dangerous’ Condition

January 29, 2018 Ewen MacAskill, Theguardian.com Educate! Activists, Julian Assange, Whistleblowers, Wikileaks

Julian Assange’s long stay in the Ecuadorian embassy in London is having a “dangerous” impact on his physical and mental health, according to clinicians who carried out the most recent assessments of him. The pair renewed calls for the WikiLeaks publisher to be granted safe passage to a London hospital. Sondra Crosby, a doctor and associate professor at the Boston University’s school of medicine and public health, and Brock Chisholm, a London-based consultant clinical psychologist, examined Assange for 20 hours over three days in October. In an article for the Guardian, they wrote: “While the results of the evaluation are protected by doctor-patient confidentiality, it is our professional opinion that his continued confinement is dangerous physically and mentally to him and a clear infringement of his human right to healthcare.”

NSA Deleted Data It Promised To Keep For Court Proceedings

January 22, 2018 Terri Webster, The Blaze. Educate! Mass Surveillance, NSA, Whistleblowers

The NSA told U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey White Thursday that data and “backup tapes that might have mitigated the failure were erased in 2009, 2011 and 2016,” Politico reported. On Friday, President Donald Trump extended a law that includes provisions for the NSA to work with U.S. internet providers and tech companies for its surveillance efforts, according to reports. “The NSA sincerely regrets its failure to prevent the deletion of this data,” an NSA official identified publicly as Elizabeth B. wrote in a declaration. “NSA senior management is fully aware of this failure, and the Agency is committed to taking swift action to respond to the loss of this data.”

Whistleblower: Omidyar’s Campaign To Neuter Wikileaks

January 21, 2018 Whitney Webb for MintPress News. Educate! Julian Assange, The Intercept, Whistleblowers, Wikileaks

The pressure against WikiLeaks has reached fever pitch, with Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ calling Assange’s arrest a “priority” and CIA Director Mike Pompeo labeling it a non-state hostile intelligence service. Last Thursday, former CIA analyst and whistleblower John Kiriakou stated his belief that “the Americans want Assange’s head on a platter.” All of this has followed Wikileaks’ publication of the Podesta emails and DNC leaks in 2016 prior to that year’s U.S. presidential election, as well as its more recent publication of CIA hacking secrets in the “Vault 7” and “Vault 8” releases.

Tribute To James Dolan, Co-Creator Of SecureDrop; Tragically Passed Away

January 12, 2018 By Trevor Timm, Freedom.press Educate! Death, Technology, Veterans, Whistleblowers

Beyond a couple references on our website, that New Yorker story is virtually all that is in the public domain about James’s involvement in the project—and that’s how he preferred it. James was an intensely private and modest person, and despite the fact the SecureDrop soon got a lot of attention when Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) took the project over, he constantly insisted that Aaron deserved all the credit. Yet SecureDrop would not currently exist without James, and he deserves all the commendation in the world for making it what it is today. In January 2013, Aaron Swartz himself committed suicide as the US government was attempting to prosecute him for violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act related to allegedly copying academic articles from JSTOR. SecureDrop was an unrelated side project he was working on at the time.

2017 – A Year In Courage

December 14, 2017 Staff, couragefound.org Resist! Civil Liberties, Freedom of Press, Repression, Whistleblowers

As we approach the end of a year that saw increased threats on freedom of the press, right-wing governments on both sides of the Atlantic launch attacks on civil liberties, and the continued persecution of hackers, whistleblowers, and truthtellers of all stripes, we look back on the highlights and lowlights from the front lines of the war for information and the public’s right to know. January: after years of international pressure and outrage against her unprecedented sentence and degrading treatment, Chelsea Manning’s 35-year prison sentence is commuted in one of President Obama’s final acts in office. As we noted at the time, Chelsea’s physical freedom could not be more welcome – but because she wasn’t pardoned, Chelsea’s legal appeal against her egregious sentence, and the dishonorable discharge that comes with it, continues – and continues to need support.

Whistleblower Quits With Letter Over Trump Interior Dept. Leadership

October 9, 2017 Sabrina Shankman, www.insideclimatenews.org Resist! Climate Change, Trump Administration, Whistleblowers

By Sabrina Shankman for Inside Climate Change - A senior Interior Department official announced his resignation on Wednesday, accusing the Trump administration of poor leadership, wasting taxpayer dollars and failing to address climate change. Joel Clement's resignation comes four months after he invoked the protections of whistleblower law for what he said was an illegal attempt by the department's leaders to intimidate him for speaking out about climate change. "You and President Trump have waged an all-out assault on the civil service by muzzling scientists and policy experts like myself," Clement wrote in his resignation letter to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. "You have disrespected the career staff of the Department by questioning their loyalty, and you have played fast and loose with government regulations to score points with your political base at the expense of American health and safety." In the letter, Clement listed some of the groups of Americans who are reckoning with the impacts of climate change—including families and businesses in the path of hurricanes and flooding, the fishermen and farmers coping with new realities, medical professionals working to understand new diseases—and issued a warning.

Sam Adams Associates: Sy Hersh First Mainstream Journalist Awarded

October 1, 2017 Annie Machon, By, www.rt.com Educate! Intelligence, Sam Adams Award, Sy Hersh, Whistleblowers

By Annie Machon for RT. Since 2002 the unique Sam Adams Award for Integrity in Intelligence has been given annually in either the US or Europe. This year the awards took place in Washington DC, and the prize went to veteran journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Seymour Hersh. Why unique? Well, the group comprising the Sam Adams Associates is made up of former Western intelligence, military and diplomatic professionals, many of whom have spoken out about abuses and crimes committed by their employers. For their pains, most have lost their jobs, and some have also lost their liberty. Laureates include US army whistleblower Chelsea Manning, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley (Time person of the year in 2002 and the first SAA laureate), publisher Julian Assange, UK Ambassador Craig Murray, and coordinator of the US National Intelligence Estimate on Iran in 2007, Dr. Tom Fingar.

Harvard Kennedy Succumbs To CIA Pressure, Revokes Chelsea Manning’s Fellowship

September 16, 2017 Kevin Gosztola, www.commondreams.org Resist! Chelsea Manning, CIA, Harvard, Repression, Whistleblowers

By Kevin Gosztola for The Guardian - The Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School revoked an invitation for United States military whistleblower Chelsea Manning to serve as a visiting fellow after intense pressure from the CIA. According to the Harvard Crimson, the school newspaper, "high-ranking current and former CIA officials" convinced the Dean of the Kennedy School of Government to reverse course. Mike Pompeo, the current CIA director, canceled his appearance at the school on September 14. He wrote a letter to the director of the Intelligence and Defense Projects at Harvard Kennedy that declared, "Ms. Manning betrayed her country and was found guilty of 17 serious crimes for leaking classified information to Wikileaks. Indeed, Ms. Manning stands against everything the brave men and women I serve alongside stand for." Former CIA director Mike Morell resigned from his position as a senior fellow at the Belfer Center at the Harvard Kennedy School. His statement bore a distinct similarity to Pompeo’s statement. "Please know that I am fully aware that Belfer and the IOP are separate institutions within the Kennedy School and that, most likely, Belfer had nothing to do with the invitation of Ms. Manning to be a fellow at IOP," Morell stated. "But, as an institution, the Kennedy School's decision will assist Ms. Manning in her long-standing effort to legitimize the criminal path that she took to prominence, an attempt that may encourage others to leak classified information as well."

Chelsea Manning Hung Up Phone On Harvard Dean Who Delivered Fellowship Snub

September 16, 2017 Ed Pilkington, www.theguardian.com Resist! Chelsea Manning, Harvard, Repression, Whistleblowers

By Ed Pilkington for The Guardian - Chelsea Manning, the former US soldier who leaked hundreds of thousands of state secrets and served seven years in military prison, abruptly terminated a phone call with the dean of the Harvard Kennedy school in an expression of her dismay at his decision to revoke her visiting fellowship in the face of severe pressure from the CIA. Manning ended the conversation on Thursday as the dean, Douglas Elmendorf, tried to justify to her his decision to cancel the fellowship only a day after it had been announced. The dean had said he needed to talk to Manning “urgently” after CIA figures first raised their objection to Harvard offering the whistleblower a place among its 2017-18 visiting speaker program – raising the prospect that one of America’s most prestigious academic institutions had kowtowed to pressure from the intelligence services. Manning’s invitation to address students of the school’s Institute of Politics was denounced by Mike Pompeo, the CIA director who cancelled an appearance at Harvard on Thursday, and by former deputy director of the agency Mike Morell, who resigned his own visiting fellowship in protest at what the two men described as the honoring of a “traitor”. Details of the phone call were shared with the Guardian by a source who was present at the time of the conversation. Manning had just stepped off stage in San Francisco where she was receiving a global freedom of information award from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

The Silencing Of Chelsea Manning Puts Power Before Freedom Of Speech

September 16, 2017 Benjamin Clayton, www.independent.co.uk Resist! Chelsea Manning, Harvard, Repression, Whistleblowers

By Benjamin Clayton for Independent - There are difficult questions for Chelsea Manning to answer. As a visiting fellow – someone expected to speak publicly, answer questions, and be confronted by different opinions – everyone might have benefited. It is ironic that the most powerful most fear powerlessness. Enter Harvard University. This week, wobbled by pressure from the CIA and other institutions, the Harvard Kennedy School of Government rescinded its invitation to Chelsea Manning to become a visiting fellow at its Institute of Politics. With that, the most powerful university in the world silenced a twenty-nine-year-old transgender traitor-cum-hero. The facts of the case are these. In 2007, then-Bradley Manning enlisted in the Unites States Army. Six weeks later, she was almost discharged, partly due to the effects of being bullied by recruits. Amidst a national deficit of soldiers, however, the discharge was revoked and she was later trained in intelligence before being deployed to Iraq. Her first contact with WikiLeaks occurred in January 2010, and on 3 February she sent them roughly 490,000 documents. Over time, she sent more, including footage of a helicopter attack on Iraqi civilians in 2007. Manning was arrested in May 2010, convicted by court-martial in July 2013, and sentenced to thirty-five years confinement in August 2013; ultimately, this sentence was commuted by Barack Obama shortly before he left office.

Chelsea Manning At Harvard: The Fear Of Veritas

September 16, 2017 Binoy Kampmark, www.globalresearch.ca Resist! Chelsea Manning, Harvard, Whistleblowers

By Binoy Kampmark for Global Research - The last assertion is precisely the reason why Manning should be garlanded with floral tributes of acknowledgement on getting to the Kennedy School. Even President Barack Obama, whose administration proved crack addicted to prosecuting whistleblowers under the Espionage Act, had to concede as a presidential candidate that revealing abuses and corruptions were indispensable to the health of the republic. Despite hardening on getting to the White House, Obama did issue an executive order and sign a law beefing up whistleblower protections in 2012. As ever, he preferred to keep the intelligence community in its traditional, singular nook, where officials remain squeamish about notions that a whistleblower might be anything better than a flag tarnishing traitor. Obama did make one concession on Manning’s legacy in reducing her draconian 35-year old prison sentence, deeming it “very disproportionate relative to what other leakers had received.” Not exactly the sort of statement to expect for a person who had supposedly put US soldiers at such mortal risk. The president, nevertheless, made it unquestionably clear that Manning was an example of gold standard deviance, what should not be done when advancing a cause. “I feel very comfortable that justice has been served and that a message has still been sent.” The Manning appointment cast an eager cat amongst very puzzle pigeons. Appearances were cancelled, notes sent more in sorry than anger.

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