Today's New York Times has an article about how WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and Dan Ellsberg--who leaked the Pentagon Papers, credited with ending the Vietnam War--lashed out together yesterday at the Obama administration's aggressive campaign against whistleblowers.
In particular, they defended the source(s) of the WikiLeaks documents on the Iraq war. But Ellsberg also mentioned former NSA senior official Tom Drake and former FBI linguist Shamai Leibowitz.
I urge you to support Bradley Manning and Thomas Drake.
http://www.bradleymanning.org/
http://criminaljustice.change.org/...
Julian Assange (who just received the Sam Adams award) and Dan Ellsberg spoke at a joint press conference yesterday, which you can watch in full here.
Ellsberg leaked the secret history of the Vietnam War (the "Pentagon Papers"), and Assange leaked secret documents on the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. These documents are indisputably in the public interest to know. The most recent batch of WikiLeaks documents splashed the front pages of every major newspaper in the world yesterday, evidencing vast civilian deaths (more than 100,000 Iraqis); detainee torture by America's Iraqi allies (beatings, burnings, lashings and executions); Iran's support of Shiite militias; and our outsourcing of the war to private contractors on a scale unknown in American history.
As the Times reports,
Both men [Ellsberg and Assange] hit out at what they described as the Obama administration's aggressive pursuit of whistle-blowers, which Mr. Ellsberg said put the United States on a path to the kind of repressive legal framework
similar to Ellsberg's own treatment under President Nixon.
Ellsberg specifically said that the criminal investigations under Obama of three Americans (Bradley Manning, Thomas Drake, and Shamai Leibowitz) accused of leaking government secrets represented a new low. In both the Manning and Drake cases, America is projecting its sins onto the men who brought American crimes to light. Both men are being charged under the Espionage Act--a law meant to go after spies, not whistleblowers.
In the Drake case, he went through all the "proper" internal whistleblowing channels--the NSA Inspector General, the Defense Department Inspector General, and the House and Senate Intelligence Committees--about broken billion-dollar NSA domestic surveillance programs. The Defense Department Inspector General issued a report that substantiated Drake's claims . . . but it was never made public. Eventually, Drake went to the media--as did Ellsberg, Manning, Thomas Tamm (who, like Drake, blew the whistle on NSA warrantless wiretapping), and all the high-placed sources in Bob Woodward's new book.
They ALL allegedly divulged information that the government claims was classified. But the information was more embarrassing to the administration than a boon to our enemies. These brave men placed their Oath to uphold the Constitution--which Drake took 4 times during his lengthy military and government service--above various non-disclosure agreements (what the government likes to call "secrecy" or "loyalty" agreements). And Drake never gave classified information to a reporter--nor is he accused of doing so; rather, he is charged with "willful retention for the purpose of disclosure." That's not even a real crime. It's the bastardization of selected phrases from various laws collapsed together to manufacture a crime under which the government could go after Drake.
So, I have to ask, why is the government using your taxpayer dollars to support war crimes and other illegalities, as well as for selective, malicious prosecutions of people who are trying to get the truth out?