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Whistleblowers

Journalist Group Criticizes Obama For Attacks On Journalists

October 11, 2013 Glenn Greenwald, www.theguardian.com , , ,
It's hardly news that the Obama administration is intensely and, in many respects, unprecedentedly hostile toward the news-gathering process. Even the most Obama-friendly journals have warned of what they call "Obama's war on whistleblowers". James Goodale, the former general counsel of the New York Times during its epic fights with the Nixon administration, recently observed that "President Obama wants to criminalize the reporting of national security information" and added: "President Obama will surely pass President Richard Nixon as the worst president ever on issues of national security and press freedom." Still, a new report released today by the highly respected Committee to Protect Journalists - its first-ever on press freedoms in the US - powerfully underscores just how extreme is the threat to press freedom posed by this administration. Written by former Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie, Jr.

US Whistleblowers: ‘US Unchained Itself From Constitution’

October 11, 2013 Staff, www.rt.com , ,
Edward Snowden’s revelations of NSA surveillance programs prove that the US has abandoned the rule of law, betraying its own constitution, whistleblower Thomas Andrews Drake, told RT. A group of US whistleblowers and activists has present Snowden with a Sam Adams Award for ‘Integrity in Intelligence’ in Moscow on Wednesday. “The irony is that the US has abandoned the rule of law,” Drake, who also revealed NSA secrets in the past, said of Snowden’s leaks. “They’ve unchained itself from their own constitution – the mechanism by which we govern ourselves. And when you ban the real law and use a secret law and secret interpretations of law, we’re in a whole new ball game. It’s a Pandora’s Box.” Snowden “had to escape the US to ensure any chance of freedom,” Drake said.

Campaign For Leniency For Hacktivist Jeremy Hammond

October 9, 2013 Justin King, www.digitaljournal.com ,
A letter campaign is underway to provide letters of support for Jeremy Hammond prior to his sentencing on November 15th. Hammond has accepted a plea deal with a statutory maximum of 10 years. In the course of the plea deal, Hammond was forced to admit his role in eight hacks beyond the one count of violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. These admissions will be used by the federal government to add points to his offense level and increase his sentence. Hammond explained his reasoning for the plea in a written statement. During the past 15 months I have been relatively quiet about the specifics of my case as I worked with my lawyers to review the discovery and figure out the best legal strategy. There were numerous problems with the government’s case, including the credibility of FBI informant Hector Monsegur. However, because prosecutors stacked the charges with inflated damages figures, I was looking at a sentencing guideline range of over 30 years if I lost at trial. I have wonderful lawyers and an amazing community of people on the outside who support me. None of that changes the fact that I was likely to lose at trial. But, even if I was found not guilty at trial, the government claimed that there were eight other outstanding indictments against me from jurisdictions scattered throughout the country.

Email Surveillance Could Reveal Journalists’ Sources, Expert Claims

October 1, 2013 Alex Hern, www.theguardian.com , , ,
"The risks associated with exposing metadata to potential eavesdroppers was highlighted when the Guardian revealed that the National Security Agency had been collecting data about phone calls from Verizon. The US government insisted that that data was not private, but in aggregate it can build a detailed picture of people’s lives. Zimmermann argues that unprotected metadata isn’t just dangerous in aggregate. “You're a journalist for the Guardian," he told this reporter. "You know that the Guardian sometimes writes stories that are of great interest to intelligence agencies. Well, what if the intelligence agencies want to see if a journalist at the Guardian is talking to a particular sensitive source?”“You don't have to do a lot of data mining for that. All you have to do is find that so-and-so, some government employee, is talking to some journalist at the Guardian. Then somebody's in a heap of trouble.”

Barrett Brown’s Judge – A Look At The Man Beneath The Robes

September 19, 2013 Jill Simpson and Jim March, www.PopularResistance.org ,
Through his wife's interest in the oil business, Judge Samuel Lindsay has rubbed elbows with some of the richest, wealthiest oil business elites in Texas and was asked to serve as a trustee on the Center for American and International Law and to this day remains as a trustee. CAIL as it is called down in Texas is a “non-profit institution dedicated to the continuing education of lawyers and law enforcement agents in the US and throughout the world” and Samuel Lindsay has been a trustee of this organization since his days of helping to train the employees that worked for him under the Dallas City Attorney's office. This raises a substantial number of questions about whether it is ethical for a judge who has trained and worked with FBI agents in his past to hear cases by the same local FBI?

EPA Victims Ask: Who Will Protect Us From Our Protectors?

September 18, 2013 Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, www.blackagendareport.com , , , , ,
The EPA's dismal record of discrimination and intolerance gives the Agency the odious distinction of having had its retaliatory and intimidating policies cited in the first whistleblower protective legislation of the 21st century when Congress and the Executive in 2002 took the first tentative steps toward reigning in this rogue agency that has come to symbolize institutionalized governmental coercion and systematic fear tactics applied by criminal elements within the upper ranks of government against lower level, conscientious workers. The EPA is an Agency that has historically neglected economically-disadvantaged communities and allowed poor children to disproportionately suffer from asthma and other chronic upper-respiratory diseases, sometimes leading to death. The bulk of these children are Black, Hispanic and others who have nowhere else to go, but remain in toxic dumping grounds throughout the United States.

Kiriakou: Totality of Punishment Is Not Limited to a Prison Sentence

September 13, 2013 Kevin Gosztola, www.dissenter.firedoglake.com , ,
For the past few months, Firedoglake has been publishing Kiriakou’s “Letters from Loretto.” This latest letter being published focuses on a hard lesson Kiriakou has learned since entering prison, which most prisoners learn during their incarceration, “one’s prison sentence is not the totality of his punishment.” There will be other things that happen on top of being sentenced. Kiriakou describes how his wife received a “sharply-worded letter” from the insurance company, USAA – the United States Assurance Association, which had been providing his family auto and homeowners insurance since 1993. USAA notified his family that they do not “insure felons” and were canceling their insurance immediately.” “I told my wife not to panic; call them in the morning and put the insurance in her name,” Kiriakou writes. “She did that, only to be told that USAA doesn’t insure ‘felonious families.’ Thank goodness she was able to find another, more reputable company with which to do business.”

An Unconstitutional Gag Order Threatens to Further Silence Barrett Brown

September 6, 2013 Dustin Slaughter, www.occupy.com , ,
"Legal proceedings surrounding the politically-charged, precedent-setting prosecution of investigative journalist Barrett L. Brown have taken another disconcerting turn as the government has requested a gag order to be placed on both Brown and his defense team."

Daniel Ellsberg: Whistle-Blowers Are Good For Democracy

September 1, 2013 Robert Scheer, www.truthdig.com , , , , ,
The same is true for Manning. He didn’t put out anything over-secret, and he selected, actually, a body of secret cables that he determined did not even include restrictions on distribution, like “no dis” [no distribution] or “lim dis” [limited distribution]. ...I was surprised to see that there was so much incriminating information at that level that was merely secret. . Apparently, it has gotten so routine to report war crimes, like turning people over to be tortured by the Iraqi authorities and so inconsequential that they are in fact keeping a body count of civilian deaths, which the army had denied keeping. That figure was as high as it was for the army’s secret accounts, 60,000, even though that is probably far less than a tenth of the actual civilian casualties. Still, it’s 60,000 more than they had reported to the public. In short, he had reason to believe that there was nothing in there that would be more than embarrassing to the United States government, and so it has proved.

From Audience To Allies: Building Public Movement For Press Freedom

August 31, 2013 Josh Stearns, www.stearns.wordpress.com , ,
Historically, the way to push back against press suppression has been through the courts. David Miranda, Greenwald’s partner, announced that he will seek legal recourse against the U.K. government over his detention (and he will likely have a good case). His lawsuit will be a critical test of the U.K. government’s willingness to use anti-terror laws to intimidate journalists and intercept their communications. In the United States a collection of strange bedfellows — including public interest groups (including Free Press), churches and gun owners — are suing the NSA for infringing on their First Amendment right to assemble and organize. As important as these lawsuits are, today, it’ll take more than court cases to push back on the criminalization of journalism.

Pentagon Papers Lawyer: Today’s Whistleblowers Face Unprecedented Danger

August 23, 2013 Jaisal Noor, www.therealnews.com
Well, I think that there are two major factors that have played into making the time period that we're in right now distinctly more dangerous than it was back in 1971. The first of these, of course, is the 9/11 attacks. Subsequent to those attacks, the United States [inaud.] blindly went forward and enacted the Patriot Act, 95 percent of the members of Congress never having even read any of it, and voted that into place. And then they later enacted the National Defense Authorization Act. These are the two sets of statutes, along with the traditional Espionage Act, that is being used by the administration, the Obama administration, to try to harass journalists and to suppress sources. Now, back in 1971, when the United States Supreme Court decided the Pentagon Papers case and The New York Times case, there were actually ten written opinions issued and that decision.

Bradley Manning Sentence: Chilling Message To Whistleblowers

August 22, 2013 Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, www.popularresistance.org ,
President John F. Kennedy stated: “War will exist until that day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.” Today with the outrageous sentencing of Pvt. Bradley Manning to 35 years in prison (functionally life in prison) the US has continued to distance itself from any notion of respect for the conscientious objector or commitment to democracy. Through the court martial and sentencing of Bradley Manning the government has sent an unambiguous and chilling message to the American public and in particular to present-day and future whistleblowers that it will not tolerate dissent, transparency or exposing government corruption.

Bradley Manning: “I Will Recover From This”

August 21, 2013 Alexa O'Brien, www.thedailybeast.com , , ,
Just after receiving a sentence of 35 years in prison for transmitting hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables and U.S. Army reports to WikiLeaks in 2010, Bradley Manning was in a surprisingly “cheerful mood,” according to his attorney. “He said, 'Hey It's OK. It's alright. I know you did everything you could for me. Don't cry. Be happy. It's fine. This is just a stage in my life. I am moving forward. I will recover from this,’” his defense lawyer David Coombs said in an interview conducted immediately after the sentencing. Presiding military judge Col. Dense Lind, sternly handed down the sentence to a packed courtroom, stating only, “Pfc. Bradley E. Manning, this Court sentences you to be reduced to the grade of Private E-1, to forfeit all pay and allowances, to be confined for 35 years, and to be dishonorably discharged from the service.”

The Whistleblower’s Mad Moral Courage

August 20, 2013 Christopher Yates, www.theguardian.com , ,
The whistleblower is arguably more mindful of an organisation's stated values and standards than the vast majority of its members and affiliates – so much so that keeping quiet or going along with it or walking away is not an option. The final irony lies in the whistleblower's faith in normal people, the assumption that they will welcome being less deceived, and use the revelations to press for reform in their governments and institutions. For these delusions, whistleblowers have been punished, again and again, throughout history. But for whatever reasons, still they do it.

Prosecution Asks For Minimum 60 Years In Manning Case

August 19, 2013 Staff, www.rt.com , ,
As a military judge prepares to sentence Army Private first class Bradley Manning over the largest intelligence leak in United States history, prosecutors asked Monday for the WikiLeaks source to receive no fewer than 60 years behind bars. Before closing arguments in the sentencing phase of Pfc. Manning’s court-martial came to a close Monday afternoon, US prosecutors asked Col. Denise Lind to send the convicted soldier to prison for “no less than 60 years.” David Coombs, the lead civilian attorney for Pfc. Manning, asked Lind for "a sentence that allows him to have a life." Manning would be able to apply for parole once one-third of that time is served.
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