Whistleblowers

Drone War Whistleblower Daniel Hale Remains Steadfast

July 26, 2021 Kevin Reed, WSWS. Resist! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Daniel Hale, Drones, Whistleblowers

In a 20-page sentencing memorandum in the case of the United States v. Daniel Everette Hale published on July 19, federal prosecutors argue vindictively that the former Air Force analyst stole classified information in order to “ingratiate himself” with journalists and that a “significant sentence is necessary to demonstrate that the unauthorized disclosure of classified information is a serious crime with significant consequences.”

New Yorkers Rally For Drone Whistleblower Daniel Hale

July 19, 2021 David Swanson, Pressenza. Resist! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Daniel Hale, New York (NY), Whistleblowers

A press conference was held on Saturday, July 17th on the High Line in New York City to support former Air Force “intelligence” analyst Daniel E. Hale, who faces 10 years in prison on July 27 after releasing government documents revealing atrocities of the U.S. drone program and details of its inner workings, such as the creation of “kill” lists. The event was organized by BanKillerDrones.org and held at an art installation by Sam Durant called “Untitled (drone).” On Tuesday, July 27th, truth-teller Daniel Hale is scheduled to be sentenced in federal court, possibly up to 10 years in prison, after pleading guilty to one count of violating the 1917 Espionage Act. He is accused of providing government documents to The Intercept and of anonymously writing a chapter for the 2016 book, The Assassination Complex: Inside the Government’s Secret Drone Warfare Program.

On The Sentencing And Courage Of Daniel Hale

July 16, 2021 Robert Shetterly, Common Dreams. Resist! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Daniel Hale, Drones, Whistleblowers

My next portrait for the Americans Who Tell the Truth project will be Daniel Hale, the former Air Force analyst and drone whistleblower who released classified documents showing that nearly 90% of the casualties of U.S. drone assassination missions are civilians—children, women, workers, farmers, and other people who show up as shadows on drone pilot computer screens and are subsequently rendered permanent shadows. Hale will be sentenced on July 27 in Alexandria, Virginia for the crime of truth telling. In all likelihood he will receive 10 years in prison—surely sufficient time to reflect on the error of his ways, which is, primarily, having an overactive conscience, believing that killing innocent civilians, no matter what the national security excuse, is murder.

Bless The Traitors

July 13, 2021 Chris Hedges, ScheerPost.com. Educate! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Daniel Hale, Drones, Whistleblowers

Daniel Hale, an active-duty Air Force intelligence analyst, stood in the Occupy encampment in Zuccotti Park in October 2011 in his military uniform. He held up a sign that read “Free Bradley Manning,” who had not yet announced her transition. It was a singular act of conscience few in uniform had the strength to replicate. He had taken a week off from his job to join the protestors in the park. He was present at 6:00 am on October 14 when Mayor Michael Bloomberg made his first attempt to clear the park. He stood in solidarity with thousands of protestors, including many unionized transit workers, teachers, Teamsters and communications workers, who formed a ring around the park.

US Offer On Assange Is New Evidence, Should Have Been Rejected

July 13, 2021 Joe Lauria, Consortium News. Educate! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Extradition, Julian Assange, Whistleblowers

Writing on his blog two days after District Court Judge Vanessa Baraitser on Jan. 4 in London denied the U.S. request to extradite WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange (on the grounds of his health and U.S. prison conditions that put him at extreme risk of suicide), former British diplomat Craig Murray made a prescient remark in light of what we know now: “I am not sure that at this stage the High Court would accept a new guarantee from the USA that Assange would not be kept in isolation or in a Supermax prison; that would be contrary to the affidavit from Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Kromberg and thus would probably be ruled to amount to new evidence.” Indeed on Wednesday, just as Murray suspected, the U.S., in its application for appeal to the High Court in London to overturn the decision not to extradite, promised not to put Assange under Special Administrative Measures [SAMS], or extreme isolation, and that if convicted, he could serve his potential life sentence in a more humane prison in his native Australia.

UK High Court Allows US To Appeal Ban On Assange Extradition

July 7, 2021 Joe Lauria, Consortium News Educate! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Julian Assange, Whistleblowers

Baraitser had ruled that Assange’s physical and mental health put him at high risk of suicide if he should be sent to a U.S. prison to stand trial on charges of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion and of espionage in his work as a journalist publishing government secrets revealing evidence of state crimes.

The Twisted Case Of Craig Murray

July 6, 2021 Alexander Mercouris, Consortium News. Educate! Craig Murray, Criminal Justice and Prisons, United Kingdom (UK), Whistleblowers

The recent decision of the High Court of Judiciary in Edinburgh arguing that the journalist and whistleblower Craig Murray should not appeal his conviction and sentence for contempt of court to the United Kingdom Supreme Court was not unexpected.

#FreeAssange: Wikileaks Founder Turns 50 While Still Detained In Prison

July 3, 2021 Julian Delia, The Shift News. Resist! Extradition, Julian Assange, Whistleblowers, Wikileaks

On June 26 of this year, Stundin reported how Sigurdur Ingi Thordarson, a diagnosed sociopath and serial fraudster who cosied up to US authorities seeking to further their case against Assange, admitted that he’d spun a false narrative to advance his own interests. This was not the first time that evidence related to charges against Assange turned out to be fabricated or trumped-up.

Media Blackout After Key Witness Against Assange Admits Lying

July 2, 2021 Media Lens. Educate! Julian Assange, Media, Whistleblowers, Wikileaks

As we have pointed out since Media Lens began in 2001, a fundamental feature of corporate media is propaganda by omission. Over the past week, a stunning example has highlighted this core property once again. A major witness in the US case against Julian Assange has just admitted fabricating key accusations in the indictment against the Wikileaks founder. These dramatic revelations emerged in an extensive article published on 26 June in Stundin, an Icelandic newspaper. The paper interviewed the witness, Sigurdur Ingi Thordarson, a former WikiLeaks volunteer, who admitted that he had made false allegations against Assange after being recruited by US authorities. Thordarson, who has several convictions for sexual abuse of minors and financial fraud, began working with the US Department of Justice and the FBI after receiving a promise of immunity from prosecution.

Major Developments In Julian Assange’s Case Could Be Game-Changing

July 1, 2021 Steve Topple, The Canary. Educate! Department of Justice, Extradition, Julian Assange, Whistleblowers

This was all rather predictable. As The Canary‘s Tom Coburg wrote back in 2018, Thordarson was never a credible witness. He: is a convicted felon in relation to several offences, including paedophilia (involving nine boys). He had pleaded guilty to these offences. Also, in December 2014, Thordarson was convicted and sentenced to two years in prison on 18 charges of embezzlement, theft, and fraud. So, with British MPs applying pressure and the legal case against him falling apart, Assange’s future is once again in question. Whether parliamentary pressure and this new evidence will be enough for the imprisoned journalist to secure his freedom, though, is sadly debatable.

Revealing The Pentagon Papers: From Capitol Hill To Beacon Hill

June 27, 2021 Mike Gravel and Joe Lauria, Consortium News. Educate! Daniel Ellsberg, Media, Pentagon Papers, Whistleblowers

If the press wouldn’t continue publishing the Papers, I would. I sought a commercial publisher for the 4,100-page subcommittee record. Americans had to know the whole story about how government lies ultimately killed more than 58,000 Americans and three million Southeast Asians—just as we need today to expose all the lies about Iraq. I received many rejections that summer of 1971, including from Harvard University Press and MIT Press. Publishers knew the risk. But Gobin Stair, executive director of Beacon Press in Boston, didn’t care. Like me, he felt the press was letting the public down. He explained Beacon’s motive: “The public, we feel is entitled to reasonable public disclosure of the material rather than sketchy journalistic synopses. We are undertaking this vital project because we are concerned at how rapidly the American press lost interest in the Pentagon study once the Supreme Court confirmed the public’s right to this information.”

Revealing The Pentagon Papers In Congress: Getting The Papers

June 23, 2021 Mike Gravel and Joe Lauria, Consortium News. Educate! Daniel Ellsberg, Media, Pentagon Papers, Whistleblowers

The 7,100-page study, which had been obtained and secretly given to me, detailed in 4,100 pages of analysis–I was missing as many as 3,000 pages of supporting documents–how the federal government had consistently lied to the American people about our military involvement in Vietnam. They revealed a detailed portrait of an arrogant, authoritarian and secretive leadership, spanning Democratic and Republican administrations from Harry Truman to Lyndon Johnson, irresponsibly leading the nation gradually into a war they knew they could not win. Among many deceptions exposed over three decades, the Papers showed, for instance, that despite President Lyndon B. Johnson’s public promise that he would not expand the war, he secretly did just that, with bombing raids on Laos and North Vietnam as well as the insertion of U.S. marine combat units, long before the public found out.

Revealing The Pentagon Papers In Congress

June 22, 2021 Mike Gravel and Joe Lauria, Consortium News. Educate! Daniel Ellsberg, Media, Pentagon Papers, Whistleblowers

It was a fairly steamy, early summer afternoon in the drained swamp of a city that had become Washington, DC, as I struggled with the two black flight bags up the steps of the Capitol. I walked briskly past the police and some inquisitive tourists through the cool, marble hallways to my office. I feared the FBI might be after me. I had asked Vietnam Veterans Against the War to send me the most disabled soldiers they could find. When I got to my office they were there, arrayed in their wheelchairs, medals pinned on, ready to do battle. They would have thrown their broken bodies in the way if the FBI tried to get in. These crippled men guarded the heavy flight bags behind the door until I was ready to take them onto the floor of the Senate. It was June 29, 1971.

It’s Not Just About Assange, It’s About Press Freedom

June 20, 2021 Cody Bloomfield, Defending Rights And Dissent. Educate! #HomeRun4Julian, Joe Biden, Julian Assange, Whistleblowers

It’s fitting that an event in support of Julian Assange took place on the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of the Pentagon Papers. The court cases surrounding the publication of the Pentagon Papers once laid bare the lengths the government will go to prevent the public from knowing the full extent of the American national security state and war machine. Now, the fate of press freedom is once again at a crossroads. The Department of Justice’s prosecution of Julian Assange is an attack on the key premise of democracy: that the public has a right to know. On June 13, 2021, Defending Rights and Dissent’s Policy Director Chip Gibbons joined former presidential primary candidate Marianne Williamson, Intercept D.C. Bureau Chief Ryan Grimm, and members of Julian Assange’s family on a panel in support of Assange. Watch the full event here.

The Pentagon Papers’ Success Hinged On A Personal Conversion To Nonviolence

June 18, 2021 Robert Levering, Waging Nonviolence. Educate! Daniel Ellsberg, Pentagon Papers, Wars and Militarism, Whistleblowers

Daniel Ellsberg’s release of the Pentagon Papers 50 years ago this week represents one of the most dramatic — if not the most dramatic — nonviolent actions of the movement that helped end the Vietnam War. It was also one of the most impactful as it precipitated events that led to the downfall of Richard Nixon. Less known is how the success of this action hinged on Ellsberg’s personal conversion to nonviolence. The media had a field day with the Pentagon Papers story. No wonder. It captured front-page headlines and network news for weeks: top secret documents revealed decades of governmental duplicity; a whistleblower eluded a massive FBI manhunt; the New York Times defied the president and published the papers; major newspapers joined in the defiance; a landmark Supreme Court decision vindicated the media; the whistleblower avoided a 100-plus year prison term because of governmental misconduct.

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