OMNI
WHISTLEBLOWERS AND LEAKERS NEWSLETTER, Series 2, #6
October 7, 2021.
Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and
Ecology
Series 2
#1 May 18, 2015 http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2015/05/whistleblowers-and-leakers-newsletter.html
#2 Aug. 6, 2016 http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2016/08/whistleblowers-and-leakers-newsletter.html
#3 Dec. 13, 2018
https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2018/12/whistleblower-newsletter-series-2-3.html
#4 Oct. 3, 2019
https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2019/10/whistleblowers-and-leakers-newsletter-4.html
#5 May 9, 2021 https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2021/05/whistleblowers-and-leakers-newsletter.html
#6 October 7, 2021
CONTENTS WHISTLEBLOWERS AND LEAKERS NEWSLETTER,
SERIES 2, #6, 2021. (Words referring to
whistleblowers or whistleblowing, leakers or leaking are printed in red.)
ADVOCATING H.R. 8452, the Protect Brave Whistleblowers Act,
Tim Schwartz. A PUBLIC SERVICE: Whistleblowing, Disclosure and
Anonymity. OR Books, 2021.
Lloyd
C. Gardner. The
War on Leakers: National Security and American Democracy, from
Eugene V. Debs to Edward Snowden. The New Press, 2016.
Chip Gibbons on John Kiriakou
Daniel
Hale.
Jeremy
Kuzmarov on Whistlelowers and Espionage Act.
Thomas Drake and US Surveillance State
Jeremy Kuzmarov on Daniel Hale and President
Obama
Tulsi Gabbard on Assange, Snowden, Abuses of
Power, and H.R. 8452,
the Protect Brave Whistleblowers Act,
Ryan Devereaux on Trump andIntelligence
Tampering at Homeland Security
Sharon Lerner on Trump and N95 Masks
Norman Solomon on Official
Secrets Film and “Joe Biden's Lies About the Iraq
War.“ September 17, 2019 by Common Dreams
Catharine Gun and Official Secrets Film
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/17/chelsea-manning-sentence-commuted-barack-obama
Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu convicted again over meetings with US
citizens
Whistleblower 2016 Year-in-Review.
Newsletter of Government
Accountability Project (GAP) (see other years).
WHISTLEBLOWERS AND LEAKERS TEXTS, SERIES 2, #6
TIM SCHWARTZ. A PUBLIC SERVICE: Whistleblowing,
Disclosure and Anonymity.
OR Books, 2021.
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He Spoke Out Against
Torture. They Put Him In Prison. Now, Hear Him in His Own Words on the Primary
Sources Podcast
9-13-21 |
12:36 PM (1 hour ago) |
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Why was Daniel Hale Silenced? Daniel Hale must be pardoned!
UNAC (2-27-21)
We raise our voice in
deep concern on the silencing and imprisonment of Daniel Hale. Daniel Hale did
not commit a crime.
It is outrageous that
Daniel Hale was charged, prosecuted and sentenced to 45 months in Federal
prison for exposing a criminal program. Daniel Hale should be pardoned!
Daniel Hale leaked
documents that revealed extremely high civilian death rates in U.S. drone
attacks. The 33-year-old Air Force veteran first spoke out publicly against
drone warfare in 2013. Daniel Hale's whistleblowing also uncovered secret U.S.
watch lists, Presidential drone kill lists, and other criminal and unethical
aspects of the U.S. deployment of killer drones.
Since the Nuremberg
Tribunal we have been taught that “just following orders” is not a
defense. Soldiers, even in time of war, have a moral obligation to
oppose illegal orders in every possible way, especially the
killing, for any reason, of non-combatants.
Daniel Hale revealed
that a U.S. government “kill chain” targeted its victims for extrajudicial
execution based on minimal evidence and that, in one 5 month period in
Afghanistan, 90% of the people killed in drone attacks were not the intended targets.
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden explained that that showed that the majority
of those killed were “innocents, bystanders, or not the intended target. We
couldn’t have established that without Daniel Hale’s voice.” Daniel Hale felt a
responsibility to oppose these criminal acts.
With much publicity we
are told that U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq are withdrawing. But attacks
on defenseless civilians through U.S. drone wars and economic sanctions are
intensifying.
Daniel Hale felt
deeply that the people in the U.S. have a right to know the crimes committed in
their names.
We also have a
responsibility to raise our voices in opposition to these continuing wars and
to the sentencing of Daniel Hale.
The war criminals who
authorize the use of thousands of drone strikes and other criminal
killings should be prosecuted.
Initial signers of the above statement: Code
Pink, Ban Killer Drones, International Action Center, Peace Action New York
State, “Rising Together!”, Upstate NY Coalition to End the Wars and Ground the
Drones, Wisconsin Coalition to End the Wars and Ground the Drones, Brandywine
Peace Community, Philadelphia, Occupy Beale Air Force Base, The Nuclear
Resister, Fellowship of Reconciliation USA, Veterans for Peace New York City
Chapter 34, United National Antiwar Coalition
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What you can do to help Sign the Petition for a pardon for Daniel Hale: https://www.codepink.org/danielhale Week of protest: go
to federal buildings, drone bases, public squares and elsewhere in the week
following his sentencing - July 28 to August 3 - with signs and banners
expressing solidarity with and support for Daniel Hale. Take
pictures. Let local media know. Some suggestions for
signs and banners: * Whistleblowing is Not a Crime * President Biden: Pardon
Daniel Hale * Free Daniel Hale - Exposed Killer Drone Crimes * Thank You,
Drone War Whistleblower Daniel Hale * Exposing War Crimes is not a Crime *
Daniel Hale - Hero, not Criminal * We Stand With Daniel Hale, Killer Drone
Whistleblower * Stop the Killing, Stop the Terror, Stop the Drones For more information: https://standwithdanielhale.org/. |
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INTERACTIVE WEBINAR
with DAN ELLSBERG: Exposing U.S. Empire - Philip Agee as a Model for Today’s
Whistleblowers and Dissidents7-10-21
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Presidents change. The
surveillance state remains.
4-23-21 |
8:39 AM (30 minutes ago) |
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Former
President Obama is the Problem, Not Daniel Hale
DANIELHALE
Whistleblower
“Drone King Obama Enjoys Life in $11 Million
Mansion, While Drone Whistleblower Daniel Hale Goes to Jail for Exposing War
Crimes” By Jeremy Kuzmarov. CovertAction Magazine (April 9, 2021)
Daniel Hale at peace
demonstration against drone warfare. [Source: diy.rootsaction.org]
Hale’s case reflects the twisted morality and
corruption of the legal system in an imperialist nation.
In our upside-down world, good guys often go
to jail, and bad guys get promoted and live luxuriously.
Ex-President Barack Obama, a key architect of
modern drone warfare, today lives in an $11.75 million, 6,892 square-foot
waterfront mansion on a 30-acre property on Martha’s Vineyard, and is regarded
by many people as a great moral leader.
The Obama mansion.
[Source: mansionglobal.com]
Donald Trump, who expanded the drone war even
further than Obama, is also enjoying life these days at his $160 million
Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.
Donald Trump’s
Mar-a-Lago estate [Source: townandcountrymag.com]
Daniel Hale, by contrast, a principled former
Air Force officer and defense contractor who publicly exposed the drone
program, will likely be spending at least the next two years in federal prison.
Daniel Hale in a police photo taken at the
time of his arrest in 2019. [Source: knowdrones.com]
On March 31st, Hale pleaded guilty
in the Eastern District of Virginia to one count of illegally retaining and
transmitting classified national defense information in violation of the
Espionage Act of 1917.
The documents pertaining to the U.S. drone war
were transmitted to The Intercept reporter Jeremy Scahill in
2014/5 and published as part of a series called “The
Drone Papers.”
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Assange, Snowden and
Exposing Abuses of Power
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Protect Brave Whistleblowers Act of 2020 by Tulsi Gabbard
google search 1-11-21
H.R.8452
- 116th Congress (2019-2020): Protect Brave ...
www.congress.gov ›
bill › house-bill › 8452
8452 - Protect
Brave Whistleblowers Act of
2020116th Congress (2019-2020). Bill. Hide Overview.
Sponsor: Rep. Gabbard, Tulsi [D-HI-2] ...
Text - H.R.8452 - 116th Congress (2019-2020): Protect
Brave ...www.congress.gov › bill ›
house-bill › 8452 › text Nov 26, 2020 — H.R.8452 - Protect
Brave Whistleblowers Act of
2020116th Congress (2019-2020) | Get ... Gabbard, Tulsi [D-HI-2] (Introduced 09/30/2020).
HR 8452 (116 th ): Protect Brave Whistleblowers Act of
2020www.govtrack.us › congress ›
bills › hr8452Tulsi
Gabbard. Sponsor.
Representative for Hawaii's 2nd congressional district. Democrat. Thumbnail
of bill text. Read Text » Last Updated ...
TRUMP
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BlueLeaks Documents Bolster
Whistleblower Account of Intelligence Tampering at Homeland Security Ryan Devereaux The
Intercept (9-12-20) The Department of
Homeland Security has become an armed extension of Trumpism. |
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Whistleblower Details How Trump’s
Bureaucrats Refused to Secure N95 Masks as Pandemic Loomed Sharon Lerner. The
Intercept (5-9-20). |
HISTORY OF SUPPRESSION OF
LEAKERS AND WHISTLEBLOWERS
Lloyd
C. Gardner. The War on Leakers:
National Security and
American Democracy, from Eugene V. Debs to Edward Snowden. The New Press,
2016.
A bold new history of the motivations and role of national
security leakers—the essential backstory to understanding the Snowden case, NSA
eavesdropping, and the future of privacy.
“Always at the heart of the matter was the Obama administration’s decision to invoke the 1917 Espionage Act. Indeed, that act had become the central issue
in the government’s efforts to shut down leaks of classified information. . . .
The flip side of the Great War on Terror had become a War on Leakers.”
—from The War on Leakers
Four days before Pearl Harbor, in December
1941, someone leaked American contingency war plans to the Chicago
Tribune. The small splash the story made was overwhelmed by the shock waves
caused by the Japanese attack on the Pacific fleet anchored in Hawaii—but the
ripples never subsided, growing quietly but steadily across the Cold War,
Vietnam, the fall of Communism, and into the present.
Torn from today’s headlines, Lloyd C.
Gardner’s latest book takes a deep dive into the previously unexamined history
of national security leakers. The War on Leakers joins the
growing debate over surveillance and the national security state, bringing to
bear the unique perspective of one our most respected diplomatic historians.
Gardner examines how our government and our media have grappled with national
security leaks over nearly five decades (in often sharply contrasting ways);
what the relationship of “leaking” has been to the exercise of American power,
during and after the Cold War; similarities and differences between leakers
over time; and the implications of all this for how we should think about the
role of leakers in a democracy.
Gardner’s eye-opening new history offers a
sharp reframing of our raging debates—asking us to consider why America has
invested so much of its resources, technology, and credibility in a system that
all but cries out for loyal Americans to leak its secrets.
News and Reviews
Midwest Book Review
Dr. Ann Skea reviews The War
on Leakers for Midwest Book Review.
See more
Salon
Lloyd Gardner speaks with Salon about the national
security state.
See more
Kirkus
Kirkus reviews The War on Leakers, a "worthwhile
contribution to our ongoing national debate about the balance between national
security and privacy."
See more
Books by Lloyd C. Gardner
|
Iraq and
the Lessons of Vietnam Or,
How Not to Learn from the Past Lloyd
C. Gardner, Marilyn B. Young |
The
Rise of an American Empire in the Middle East After World War II Lloyd
C. Gardner |
A
21st Century Teach-In on U.S. Foreign Policy Lloyd
C. Gardner, Marilyn B. Young |
Egypt
and the United States from the Rise of Nasser to the Fall of Mubarak Ll |
BIDEN
Norman Solomon. The 'Official Secrets' Movie vs. Joe Biden's Lies About the Iraq War. Published on September 17, 2019 By Common Dreams
The current Democratic
frontrunner did everything he could to enable the Iraq war, and—still—takes no
responsibility for doing so.
Then-U.S.
Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE) during a taping of "Meet the Press" at
the NBC Studios December 19, 2004 in Washington, DC. (Photo: Alex Wong/Getty
Images)
Joe
Biden’s recent efforts to deny his record of support for invading Iraq are
marvels of evasion, with falsehoods that
have been refuted by one well-documented appraisal
after another after another. This month, Biden
claimed that his vote for war on the Senate floor was somehow not a vote for
war. Ironically, while he was spinning anew to deny the undeniable, theaters
nationwide began screening a movie that exposes the deceptive approach to the
Iraq war that Biden exemplifies.
Historically
factual, “Official Secrets” is concerned with truth—and the human consequences
of evading or telling it. Katharine Gun, portrayed by actress Keira Knightley,
was a worker at the British intelligence agency GCHQ. Risking years in prison,
she did everything she could to prevent the Iraq war, and took responsibility
for doing so.
Biden
did everything he could to enable the Iraq war, and—still—takes no
responsibility for doing so.
More
than 16 years ago, Biden and Gun were at cross purposes as the Iraq invasion neared.
Subterfuge vs. candor. Misinformation vs. information. War vs. peace. Today,
their public voices contrast just as sharply.
Gun
recalls that both President George W. Bush and especially British Prime
Minister Tony Blair were “desperate to get U.N. cover” for the impending
invasion of Iraq in early 2003. On the last day of January of that year, Gun
saw a memo from the U.S. National
Security Agency that showed the two governments were working together to
wiretap and otherwise surveil diplomats from countries on the U.N. Security
Council—for purposes such as blackmail—to win a vote to authorize an invasion.
Gun
became a whistleblower by providing the memo to the Observer newspaper
in London. As she said in a recent interview
with Salon, “My
intention was to prevent the war. . . . I felt there was this information that
was absolutely crucial, it had the potential to derail the rush to war, and I
felt people had the right to know.”
Biden—who
played a pivotal role in the rush to war as chair of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee—proceeded as though people had no right to know. He excluded critical voices and key information from
the committee’s high-profile hearings in mid-summer 2002, deceptively serving
as the most important lawmaker ushering the war resolution to the Senate floor,
where he voted for it in mid-October. The war began five months later. It has
never ended.
But
now, on the campaign trail, Biden is eager to scramble and rewrite history.
He’s displaying the kind of disregard for facts that paved the way for the
invasion of Iraq in the first place.
A
basic flaw in Biden’s latest Iraq doubletalk has to do with his inversion of
actual timing. Either he can’t remember when the Iraqi government agreed to
allow U.N. weapons inspectors back into Iraq—or he’s so desperate to keep lying
about his actual record on the Iraq war that
he can’t bring himself to be truthful.
Biden
is claiming that he voted for the war resolution so it would be possible to get
U.N. weapons inspectors into Iraq. During the ABC debate last week, Biden said that he voted for the Iraq
invasion authorization “to allow inspectors to go in to determine whether or
not anything was being done with chemical weapons or nuclear weapons.” But his
claim has the timing backwards.
The
Iraqi government announced on September 16,
2002—with a letter hand-delivered to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan—that it
would allow the U.N. weapons inspectors back in “without conditions.” The New York Times reported
the big news under the headline "U.N. Inspectors Can Return Unconditionally, Iraq Says."
That was a full 25 days before Biden voted with virtually every Republican and
most Democratic senators to approve the Iraq war resolution.
How
could that resolution he voted for on October 11 be viewed as a tool for
leverage so the Iraqi government would (in Biden’s words) "allow
inspectors to go in”—when the Iraqi government had already agreed to allow
inspectors several weeks earlier?
I
have a vivid memory
of when the news of that agreement broke. I was in Baghdad near the end
of a trip with an independent delegation organized
and sponsored by the Institute for Public Accuracy (where I’m executive
director) that included then-Congressman Nick Rahall and former Senator James
Abourezk. We had just met with Iraq’s number two official, Tariq Aziz. In its
coverage, the Washington Post reported on September 16:
“Iraq maintains that all its weapons of mass destruction have been destroyed.
The deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, insisted . . . that even if his
government readmitted the weapons inspectors, the United States and Britain would
proceed with military action. ‘It's doomed if you do, doomed if you don't,’ he
said.”
Hours
later, when the news came that Iraq would allow U.N. weapons inspectors without
restrictions, it removed the get-the-inspectors-into-Iraq excuse for the war resolution
that was then making its way through Congress. But it’s an excuse that Biden
has now dusted off and pressed into service, twisting the timeline of actual
events.
The
congressional resolution that
Biden spoke for and voted for on the
Senate floor was clear, stating: “The President is authorized to use the Armed
Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in
order to (1) defend the national security of the United States against the
continuing threat posed by Iraq; and (2) enforce all relevant United Nations
Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.”
Four
months later, in February 2003, at a time when Katharine Gun was anxiously
waiting to see whether the NSA document that she had leaked to a British news
outlet would actually be revealed to the public, Biden was proclaiming his
support for the imminent invasion. He told a Chamber of Commerce
meeting in Delaware: “I supported the resolution to go to war. I am not opposed
to war to remove weapons of mass destruction from Iraq.”
After
the invasion, Biden continued to support the war. At the end of July 2003, four
months after the war began, he said in a speech at the
Brookings Institution: “Nine months ago, I voted with my colleagues to give the
president of the United States of America the authority to use force, and I
would vote that way again today. It was the right vote then and it would be a
correct vote today.”
After
another year had gone by, Biden wrote a magazine article
that tactically criticized how the war was being waged while still defending
his role in helping to launch it: “A year and a half ago, I voted to give
President Bush the authority to use force in Iraq. I still believe my vote was
just—but the president’s use of that authority was unwise in ways I never
imagined.”
As
the Washington
Post recently noted, “Not until November 2005
did Biden acknowledge that his vote was a mistake.” Even then, on NBC’s “Meet
the Press,” Biden tried to shift the blame onto President Bush for turning out
to be unworthy of his trust. “In hindsight,” the interviewer asked, “knowing
everything you know now about the absence of weapons of mass destruction, was your
vote a mistake?” Biden replied: “It was a mistake. It
was a mistake to assume the president would use the authority we gave him
properly.”
Only
one of Biden’s opponents for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination was in
Congress at the time of the Iraq war resolution. Bernie Sanders (who I’m
actively supporting) voted no.
This
summer, Biden has spun out with new mendacity about the Iraq invasion. On the
debate stage at the end of July, he upped the dishonest ante by claiming: “From
the moment ‘shock and awe’ started, from that moment, I was opposed to the
effort, and I was outspoken as much as anyone at all in the Congress.” The
historical record shows that claim to be preposterous.
And
backwards timing is not the only major flaw in Biden’s claim that he voted for
the war resolution to increase the prospects for U.N. weapons inspectors to get
into Iraq. An underlying problem with his current narrative is the reality that
going to the United Nations Security Council for authorization to launch a war
on Iraq was always a quest for a fig leaf to cover U.S. plans for naked
aggression.
New York
Times pundit Thomas Friedman was unusually candid when, on
November 13, 2002—one month after Biden had voted to approve the war
resolution—he wrote in a column: “The Bush team
discovered that the best way to legitimize its overwhelming might—in a war of
choice—was not by simply imposing it, but by channeling it through the U.N.”
It
was this bogus push to supposedly legitimize the pending invasion that
Katharine Gun took such a huge personal risk to expose, informing the world about
the intense surveillance underway to gain illicit leverage over U.N. Security
Council delegations.
“Gun’s
revelation showed that the U.S. and British governments were not only lying to
get to invade Iraq, they were engaging in outright violations of international
law to blackmail whole countries to get in line,” Institute for Public Accuracy
senior analyst Sam Husseini wrote. He told me: “The
insidiousness of Biden is that he’s effectively saying that Bush should have
manipulated the U.N. better.”
Overall,
as he pursues the presidency, Joe Biden is persisting with dismal innovations
to falsify his record on the Iraq war. In the process, he’s operating
completely at odds with what the “Official Secrets” film and Katharine Gun are
all about.
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3:46 PM (5 hours ago) |
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The name of the movie is
"Official Secrets".
The woman who was the inspiration for this movie is Catharine Gun.
I got to see Official Secrets on the big screen. Hopefully it will be out on
Netflix or one of those.
I doubt it will come to
Fayetteville, but maybe it will.
Link to her interview on
Democracy Now below.
https://www.democracynow.org/2019/7/19/15_years_later_how_uk_whistleblower Louie
The Intercept 9-7-19
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The Best Movie Ever Made About the Truth Behind the Iraq War Is
“Official Secrets” The
new movie starring Keira Knightley as a British whistleblower is equally inspiring,
demoralizing, hopeful, and enraging. |
[syriasolidarity]
Nobel Prize Winning Chemical Weapons Watchdog Found "Fixing" its
Findings on Syria
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On October 15, 2019, a
blue ribbon panel of international experts and dignitaries, met in secret with
a whistleblower from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons
(OPCW). The OPCW is considered the gold standard of impartial scientific
detection and analysis of the possession and use of chemical weapons throughout
the world, and won the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize for its work in Syria.
The information and
documents provided by the whistleblower showed that the OPCW had suppressed and
distorted its data, analysis and conclusions in order to make it appear that
the Syrian government had used banned chemical weapons, when the testing had
shown just the opposite. The panel had been requested by the
whistleblower himself, who had been outraged by the dishonesty, and who said
that other scientists at the organization had been equally upset, but were not
yet willing to speak out.
The panel included Dr.
Jose Bustani, first Director General of the OPCW and former Ambassador to
the United Kingdom and France, Richard Falk, Professor of International
Law, Emeritus, Princeton University; Visiting Professor, Istinye University,
Istanbul and former UN rapporteur for Palestine, and five other respected
dignitaries. They met with the whistleblower in Brussels, and made public
their findings in a report published on October 23 by the Courage Foundation,
an organization for the protection of whistleblowers.
It will come as no
surprise to many that this malfeasance has not been picked up by the mainstream
media despite its substantive contribution to the deaths of hundreds of
thousands, mainly Syrian, many more wounded and disabled, and millions
displaced and impoverished. The whole point of manipulating the results
was in fact to justify these deaths and misery, and to permit them to
continue. Coverage of the scandal by the mainstream media would have the
opposite effect, and might cause heads to roll among those responsible, as well
as those who aided and abetted the deception.
It is therefore
incumbent upon the rest of us, in the alternative media and the public at
large, to embarrass the irresponsible media and politicians by getting this
report into the hands of as much of the public as possible.
https://www.couragefound.org/2019/10/opcw-panel-statement
Taylor Barnes. “NSA Whistleblower Reality Winner Was Held in Isolation for a Week and
No One Has Explained Why.”
The Intercept (9-29-18). mronline.org 5-14-19.
MAY
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What we owe NSA
whistleblower Thomas Drake
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In ADG 10-15-17
US HOUSE VOTED 420-0 TO INCREASE PROTECTIONS FOR WHISTLEBLOWER
IN CIVIL SERVICE.
Dems and Repubs can get together!
Giraffe Heroes Project
New Giraffes Part 2 Fall 2017
It seemed like a great job when Blake Percival was
hired by U.S. Investigations Services—USIS—a private company that
conducted personnel background investigations for the U.S. Office of
Personnel Management. If you're up for a federal job that requires a
security clearance, you have to pass a background check – Percival
was doing those checks.
He was rapidly
promoted in the company, then he was fired, and his world fell apart.
He and his wife and daughter moved into his mother’s house, and
Percival applied for unemployment.
What happened was
this: When he had taken over as director of the company's branch
in Pennsylvania, he had noticed that a lot of his managers seemed
downcast. They said that they had been ordered by higher-ups to “dump” files,
lots of files. They needn’t actually investigate; they could just OK the
applicant. That was “dumping."
Percival saw the
company's claim that four investigators had completed more than 13,000
reports in one week. USIS was giving the government fake data. National
security was being threatened as people were given security clearances without
being vetted.
Percival was clear: No
more dumping. “If anyone tells you to dump,” he said to his managers, “you send
them to me.”
So USIS fired
Percival, offering him a nice severance, but with the requirement that he
waive his right to file a lawsuit. He refused and found lawyers willing to
sue USIS for defrauding the government and endangering national security.
The U.S. Justice
Department joined the suit, asserting that between 2008 and 2012, USIS had
dumped 665,000 cases, raking in millions of unearned dollars for their fake
reports.
The next few years
were rough as Percival took on a series of menial jobs, while the Congressional
hearings and the lawsuit moved slowly along.
In 2015 USIS
filed for bankruptcy and the Justice Department reached an agreement with
USIS’s parent company to settle for $30 million. Percival was to receive 10% of
the settlement.
After years of
hardships he chose to endure so USIS's malfeasance could be stopped, Blake
Percival now runs his own consulting, speaking, and training company, focusing
on business ethics.
CIA Director Mike Pompeo blames surge of intelligence leaks
on 'worship' of Edward Snowden
·
Associated Press
(also NADG 6-26-17)
24 JUNE 2017 • 10:05PM
CIA Director Mike Pompeo says he thinks disclosure of America's secret intelligence is on
the rise, fueled partly by the "worship" of leakers like Edward
Snowden.
"In some
ways, I do think it's accelerated," Pompeo told MSNBC in an interview that
aired Saturday. "I think there is a phenomenon, the worship of Edward Snowden, and those who steal
American secrets for the purpose of self-aggrandizement or money or for
whatever their motivation may be, does seem to be on the increase."
Pompeo said the United States needs to redouble its efforts to
stem leaks of classified information.
"It's tough.
You now have not only nation states trying to steal our stuff, but non-state,
hostile intelligence services, well-funded -- folks like WikiLeaks, out there
trying to steal American secrets for the sole purpose of undermining the United
States and democracy," Pompeo said.
Besides
Snowden, who leaked documents revealing extensive U.S. government surveillance,
WikiLeaks recently released nearly 8,000 documents that it says reveal secrets
about the CIA's cyberespionage tools for breaking into computers. WikiLeaks
previously published 250,000 State Department cables and embarrassed the U.S.
military with hundreds of thousands of logs from Iraq and Afghanistan.
There are
several other recent cases, including Chelsea Manning, the Army private
formerly known as Bradley Manning. She was convicted in a 2013 court-martial of
leaking more than 700,000 secret military and State Department documents to
WikiLeaks while working as an intelligence analyst in Iraq. Manning said she
leaked the documents to raise awareness about the war's impact on innocent
civilians.
Last year, former NSA contractor Harold Thomas Martin III, 51, of
Glen Burnie, Maryland, was accused of removing highly classified information,
storing it in an unlocked shed and in his car and home. Court documents say
investigators seized, conservatively, 50 terabytes of information, or enough to
fill roughly 200 laptop computers.
Pompeo said the Trump administration is focused on
stopping leaks of any kind from any
agency and pursuing perpetrators. "I think we'll have some successes both
on the deterrence side — that is stopping them from happening — as well as on
punishing those who we catch who have done it," Pompeo said.
On other issues, Pompeo said:
— North Korea
poses a "very real danger" to U.S. national security. "I hardly
ever escape a day at the White House without the president asking me about
North Korea and how it is that the United States is responding to that threat.
It's very much at the top of his mind." He said the North Koreans are
"ever-closer to having the capacity to hold America at risk with a nuclear
weapon."
—Pompeo said
U.S. national security also is threatened by Iran, which he described as the
world's largest state sponsor of terror.
"Today, we
find it with enormous influence, influence that far outstrips where it was six
or seven years ago," said Pompeo, a former Republican congressman from
Kansas.
"Whether
it's the influence they have over the government in Baghdad, whether it's the
increasing strength of Hezbollah and Lebanon, their work alongside the Houthis
in Iran, the Iraqi Shias that are fighting along now the border in Syria --
certainly the Shia forces that are engaged in Syria. Iran is everywhere
throughout the Middle East."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/17/chelsea-manning-sentence-commuted-barack-obama (Also story in Nuclear Resister)
Ed Pilkington in New York and David
Smith and Lauren Gambino in Washington
Wednesday
18 January 2017 02.21 ESTFirst published on Tuesday 17
January 2017 16.34 EST
Chelsea Manning, the US
army soldier who became one of the most prominent whistleblowers of modern
times when she exposed the nature of warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan, and who
then went on to pay the price with a 35-year military prison sentence, is to be
freed in May as a gift of Barack Obama in his final days as president.
In the most audacious – and contentious – commutation decision
to come from Obama yet, the sitting president used his constitutional power
just three days before he leaves the White House to give Manning her freedom.
Manning, a transgender woman, will walk from a male military
prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, on 17 May, almost seven years to the day
since she was arrested at a base outside Baghdad for offences relating to the
leaking of a vast treasure trove of US state secrets to the website WikiLeaks.
Nancy Hollander, Manning’s lawyer, spoke to the Guardian before
she had even had the chance to pass on to the soldier the news of her release.
“Oh my God!” was Hollander’s instant response to the news which she had just
heard from the White House counsel. “I cannot believe it – in 120 days she will
be free and it will all be over. It’s incredible.”
Manning, 29, is a former intelligence analyst in Iraq who was sentenced in 2013after a
military court convicted her of passing more than 700,000 documents, videos,
diplomatic cables and battlefield accounts to WikiLeaks. It was the biggest
breach of classified material in US history.
In 2010, WikiLeaks worked with media organisations including
the Guardian to
publish material that offered unprecedented insight into the workings of US
diplomacy. Among the files Manning leaked was a gunsight video of a US Apache
helicopter firing on suspected Iraqi insurgents in 2007, killing a dozen people
including two Reuters journalists.
On a call with reporters, a White House official said repeatedly
that the president believed Manning’s crimes were “serious” and “harmful to national
security” but refused to label her a “traitor”.
Human rights groups welcomed Tuesday’s decision. Margaret Huang,
executive director of Amnesty International USA, said: “Chelsea Manning exposed
serious abuses, and as a result her own human rights have been violated by the
US government for years.
Manning exposed serious abuses, and as a result her own human
rights have been violated by the US government for years
Margaret Huang, Amnesty International USA
“President Obama was right to commute her sentence, but it is
long overdue. It is unconscionable that she languished in prison for years
while those allegedly implicated by the information she revealed still haven’t
been brought to justice.”
But the commutation was condemned by leading Republicans. Senator
John McCain, chairman of the Senate armed services committee, described it as a
“grave mistake” that he fears “will encourage further acts of espionage and
undermine military discipline. It also devalues the courage of real
whistleblowers who have used proper channels to hold our government
accountable.”
McCain added: “It is a sad, yet perhaps fitting commentary on
President Obama’s failed national security policies that he would commute the
sentence of an individual that endangered the lives of American troops,
diplomats, and intelligence sources by leaking hundreds of thousands of
sensitive government documents to WikiLeaks, a virulently anti-American
organisation that was a tool of Russia’s recent interference in our elections.”
WikiLeaks last year published emails hacked from the accounts of the Democratic National Committee and John
Podesta, chairman of Hillary Clinton’s election campaign. US intelligence
agencies concluded that the hacking was authorised by senior figures in the Russian government
and intended to sow chaos and harm Clinton’s chances against Donald Trump.
Assange has denied receiving the material from Russia.
Paul Ryan, the House speaker, said: “This is just outrageous.
Chelsea Manning’s treachery put American lives at risk and exposed some of our
nation’s most sensitive secrets. President Obama now leaves in place a
dangerous precedent that those who compromise our national security won’t be
held accountable for their crimes.”
Tom Cotton, a senator for Arkansas and a military veteran, said:
“When I was leading soldiers in Afghanistan, Private Manning was undermining us
by leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks. I don’t
understand why the president would feel special compassion for someone who
endangered the lives of our troops, diplomats, intelligence officers, and
allies. We ought not treat a traitor like a martyr.”
Responding to Cotton, a White House official said it was worth
considering that the Republican supported the presidency of “someone who
publicly praised WikiLeaks” and who “encouraged a foreign government to hack
his opponent”, in reference to Trump.
Obama’s surprise move also raises questions over the future of
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, holed up at the Ecuadorian embassy in
London after
claiming asylum. Two women in Sweden have accused him of rape and other sexual
offences, which he denies.
In a tweet soon after Tuesday’s announcement, Assange thanked
“everyone who campaigned for Chelsea Manning’s clemency. Your courage &
determination made the impossible possible.”
He did not mention his earlier pledge that he would agree to US extradition if
Obama granted clemency to Manning. But, Melinda Taylor, who serves on Assange’s
legal team, said he would not be going back on his word. “Everything that he
has said he’s standing by,” she told the Associated Press.
WikiLeaks(@wikileaks)
If Obama grants Manning clemency Assange will agree to US
extradition despite clear unconstitutionality of DoJ case https://t.co/MZU30SlfGK
The White House insisted on Tuesday that Assange’s offer to
submit to extradition if Obama “grants Manning clemency” did not influence the
president’s action.
“The president’s decision to offer commutation was not influenced
by public comments by Mr Assange or the WikiLeaks organisation,” the White
House official said on the call. “I have no insight into Mr Assange’s travel
plans. I can’t speak to any charges or potential charges he may be facing from
the justice department.”
Manning, who is a columnist for the Guardian, was the
symbol of one of the harsher aspects of the Obama administration, as an
official leaker who suffered a longer custodial sentence than any other
whistleblower of modern times. She was one of several leakers who were
prosecuted under the 1917 Espionage Act – with more individuals falling foul of
that anti-spying law than under all previous US presidents combined.
The soldier has experienced some very hard times while in
military prison. In 2010 she was transferred from Iraq and Kuwait to the
military brig at Quantico, Virginia, where she was put through prolonged solitary confinement.
Manning, formerly known as US army private first class Bradley
Manning, revealed after being convicted of espionage that she identifies as a
woman. She has said she was confronting gender dysphoria at the time of the leaks while deployed in
Iraq.
She has endured recent challenges with her morale and mental
health, having attempted suicide on at least one occasion last year. The US
military responded to that attempt by punishing her with further solitary confinement. She was
not due to be released until 2045.
Jay Brown, communications director of the Human Rights Campaign,
America’s biggest LGBT civil rights organisation, said: “President Obama has a
strong record regarding the humane treatment of prisoners and a long commitment
to LGBTQ equality. The decision to commute Private Chelsea Manning’s remaining
sentence – after she served nearly seven years for her crimes – reflects that
record. We hope Private Manning soon can access the care and treatment that
she, and every transgender person, deserves.”
Obama has commuted the sentences of 1,385 individuals, more than
any other US president. The White House official said more commutations are
expected “most likely on Thursday”.
The official said the president believed six years in prison was
sufficient relative to sentences given to others who committed similar crimes.
“Manning is somebody who
accepted responsibility for the crimes she committed,” the official said. “She
has expressed remorse for those crimes.”
Earlier on Tuesday, the White House press secretary, Josh
Earnest, was asked if the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden,
currently living in Russia, could also be in line for a pardon. But Earnest
argued that there are key differences between the two cases. “Chelsea Manning
is somebody who went through the military criminal justice process, was exposed
to due process, was found guilty, was sentenced for her crimes, and she
acknowledged wrongdoing,” he said.
“Mr Snowden fled into the arms of an adversary and has sought
refuge in a country that most recently made a concerted effort to undermine
confidence in our democracy.”
Although the documents Manning provided to WikiLeaks were
“damaging to national security”, Earnest said, those leaked by Snowden were
“far more serious and far more dangerous”.
Snowden tweeted in response to the Manning decision: “In five
more months, you will be free. Thank you for what you did for everyone,
Chelsea. Stay strong a while longer! … Let it be said here in earnest, with
good heart: Thanks, Obama … To all who campaigned for clemency on Manning’s
behalf these last hard years, thank you. You made this happen.”
Chelsea
Manning: to those who kept me alive all these years, thank you
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/13/chelsea-manning-prison-sentence-commutation?CMP=share_btn_tw
When I was afraid, you taught me
how to keep going. When I was lost, you showed me the way
‘When the prison tried to break one of us, we
all stood up.’ Photograph: Elijah Nouvelage / Reuters/Reuters
Monday 13 February 2017 11.54
To those who have kept me
alive for the past six years: minutes after President Obama announced the
commutation of my sentence, the prison quickly moved me out of general
population and into the restrictive housing unit where I
am now held. I know that we are now physically separated, but we will never be
apart and we are not alone. Recently, one of you asked me “Will you remember
me?” I will remember you. How could I possibly forget? You taught me lessons I
would have never learned otherwise.
When
I was afraid, you taught me how to keep going. When I was lost, you showed me
the way. When I was numb, you taught me how to feel. When I was angry, you
taught me how to chill out. When I was hateful, you taught me how to be
compassionate. When I was distant, you taught me how to be close. When I was
selfish, you taught me how to share.
Sometimes,
it took me a while to learn many things. Other times, I would forget, and you
would remind me.
We
were friends in a way few will ever understand. There was no room to be
superficial. Instead, we bared it all. We could hide from our families and from
the world outside, but we could never hide from each other.
We
argued, we bickered and we fought with each other. Sometimes, over absolutely
nothing. But, we were always a family. We were always united.
When
the prison tried to break one of us, we all stood up. We looked out for each
other. When they tried to divide us, and systematically discriminated against
us, we embraced our diversity and pushed back. But, I also learned from all of
you when to pick my battles. I grew up and grew connected because of the
community you provided.
Those
outside of prison may not believe that we act like human beings under these
conditions. But of course we do. And we build our own networks of survival.
I
never would have made it without you. Not only did you teach me these important
lessons, but you made sure I felt cared for. You were the people who helped me
to deal with the trauma of my regular haircuts. You were the people who checked
on me after I tried to end my life. You were
the people that played fun games with me. Who wished me a Happy Birthday. We
shared the holidays together. You were and will always be family.
For
many of you, you are already free and living outside of the prison walls. Many
of you will come home soon. Some of you still have many years to go.
The
most important thing that you taught me was how to write and how to speak in my
own voice. I used to only know how to write memos. Now, I write like a human
being, with dreams, desires and connections. I could not have done it without
you.
From
where I am now, I still think of all of you. When I leave this place in May, I will still think of all of you. And to
anyone who finds themselves feeling alone behind bars, know that there is a
network of us who are thinking of you. You will never be forgotten.
Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu convicted
again over meetings with US citizens
·
Raf
Sanchez http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/23/israeli-nuclear-whistleblower-mordechai-vanunu-convicted-meetings/ (Also in Nuclear Resister)
23 JANUARY
2017 • 6:56PM
Mordechai Vanunu, the Israeli whistleblower who revealed his country’s
secret nuclear weapons programme to the Sunday Times, has been convicted of
violating the terms of his release and may be heading back to prison.
The former
nuclear technician spent 18 years behind bars but was released in 2004 with a long and stringent set of restrictions. He was arrested last year and charged with three counts of
violating his release.
The Israeli
court system announced on Monday that he had been convicted of one of those
three counts: meeting with two US citizens in east Jerusalem in 2013 without
permission from Israeli authorities.
Mr Vanunu was
cleared of two other counts related to moving apartments without permission and
of giving an interview to an Israeli television channel.
Israel imposed strict restrictions after
Mr Vanunu's release in 2004 CREDIT: EPA/ABIR SULTAN
The conviction decision was made in secret in mid-January but was
only made public on Monday, an Israeli court spokesman said. He will appear
back in court in March for sentencing. He has been jailed twice before for
short stints for similar violations.
The conviction
is the latest twist in a drama that began more than 30 years ago.
Mr Vanunu began
working at Israel’s secret nuclear facility at Dimona, a city in the Negev
desert, in 1970s.
In the
mid-1980s he secretly took photographs inside the Dimona plant and gave them to
the Sunday Times, which published them and exposed Israel’s nuclear programme
to the world.
Israel was
determined to prosecute him for leaking classified secrets but was wary of
kidnapping him in Britain and risking a diplomatic incident with Margaret
Thatcher’s government.
Instead, the
Israeli spy agency Mossad carried out a “honey pot” operation and sent a female
agent to lure Mr Vanunu from London to Rome.
Other Mossad
spies were waiting for him in the Italian capital, where they kidnapped him and
took him out of Italy back to Israel. He was convicted of treason and espionage
in 1988.
Mr Vanunu was
released in 2004 but argues that his persecution at the hands of Israeli
authorities has continued. He is banned from leaving the country and is unable
to join his wife, a Norwegian theology professor who lives in Oslo.
Mr Vanunu
converted from Judaism to Christianity in the 1980s and says that Israel is
particularly harsh on him because he is no longer a Jew.
Israel is the
only nuclear power in the Middle East but its official policy is to neither
confirm nor deny that it has nuclear weapons.
The Winter 2016 Whistleblower Newsletter, 2016 Year in Review from GAP.
Contains 9 reports
including violations at “high-speed” pork plants, why Snowden could not go through official
channels, expanding struggle to protect whistleblowers at intergovernmental
organizations, Brandon Coleman at the VA, Wall Street, and big oil deceptions.
“GAP Gets Affidavits
from Federal Inspectors.” Whistleblower 2016 Year-in-Review.
CONTENTS WHISTLEBLOWERS AND LEAKERS NEWSLETTER,
SERIES 2, #5, MAY 9, 2021
Webinar May 18, Noon, Distinguished Panel of Radack,
Kiriakou, Kelly
Corporate Ag-Gag v. First Amendment
Whistleblowers and Leakers
Katharine Gun
Jeffrey Sterling
Joel Clement
Thomas Drake
John Kiriakou
Chelsea Manning
Julian Assange
Daniel Ellsberg
Edward Snowden
Mordechai Nannunu
END WHISTLEBLOWERS
AND LEAKERS NEWSLETTER, Series 2, #6, October 7, 2021
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