Will Supreme Court Declare War on Whistleblowers?
Army Pvt. Bradley Manning, whose leaked video clip in 2010 exposed the murder of 11 innocent Iraqi civilians by a U.S. attack helicopter, is one of six whistle-blowers charged by the Obama administration for violating the Espionage Act of 1917. He is held in prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas awaiting trial, most likely in August. If his case or any of the others ends up in the Supreme Court, as some expect will happen, a ruling in favor of the government would instantly criminalize all disclosures of classified information to the public.
The act has been used against whistle-blowers only three times before Obama took office.
Manning is accused of giving 700,000 hacked documents and video clips to whistle-blower website WikiLeaks. In the now notorious video clip of the helicopter killings, a Reuters reporter and his driver were also shown getting killed by the U.S. soldiers in an Apache helicopter.
Manning faces 22 charges under the Espionage Act including aiding the enemy, theft of public property or records and wrongfully causing intelligence to be published on the Internet. If convicted, he could get life in jail without parole.
The other six leakers who are currently awaiting trial have also worked for various government agencies. They include: Shamai Leibowitz, a translator for the FBI; Thomas Drake, a whistle-blower for the NSA; Stephen Kim, who was with the State Department, and Jeffrey Sterling and John Kyriakou, who worked for the CIA.
Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, which published the video clips allegedly provided by Manning, is expected to be the seventh person to be charged in a leak case under the Act.
Daniel Ellsberg,who leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971, was charged under the Espionage Act and faced 12 felony charges and 115 years in prison. The Pentagon Papers was the informal name of the U.S. government’s secret encyclopedic history of the Vietnam War and the lead-up to it. Ellsberg eventually had the charges dropped due to government misconduct against him that included illegal wiretaps and burglarizing his psychiatrist’s office, for which President Richard Nixon faced impeachment hearings.
“Everything that Richard Nixon did to me, for which he faced impeachment and prosecution, which led to his resignation, is now legal under the Patriot Act, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and the National Defense Authorization Act,” said Ellsberg in a recent interview with Chris Hedges of truthdig.com.
Although Ellsberg’s case was dismissed, this is not likely to happen today as the U.S. government seems headed into a police-state era.
In the upcoming election, perhaps it would be better for the government to change the title of president to “pharaoh” or “emperor,” and we, his humble servants, should address him as “your majesty.”
Whistleblower who revealed CIA torture sentenced to prison
rt.com
Former CIA agent John Kiriakou pleaded guilty Tuesday morning to crimes related to blowing the whistle on the US government’s torture of suspected terrorists and was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Kiriakou, 48, agreed to admit to one count of disclosing information identifying a covert agent early Tuesday, just hours after his attorney entered a change of plea in an Alexandria, Virginia courtroom outside of Washington, DC.
Ever heard of the Espionage Act?
nytimes.com[Excerpts copied from NYtimes.com. Story written by David Carr]
The Espionage Act, enacted back in 1917 to punish those who gave aid to our enemies, was used three times in all the prior administrations to bring cases against government officials accused of providing classified information to the media. It has been used six times since the current president took office.
These kinds of prosecutions can have ripples well beyond the immediate proceedings. Two reporters in Washington who work on national security issues said that the rulings had created a chilly environment between journalists and people who work at the various government agencies.
During a point in history when our government has been accused of sending prisoners to secret locations where they were said to have been tortured and the C.I.A. is conducting remote-controlled wars in far-flung places, it’s not a good time to treat the people who aid in the publication of critical information as spies.
And it’s worth pointing out that the administration’s emphasis on secrecy comes and goes depending on the news. Reporters were immediately and endlessly briefed on the “secret” operation that successfully found and killed Osama bin Laden. And the drone program in Pakistan and Afghanistan comes to light in a very organized and systematic way every time there is a successful mission.
There is plenty of authorized leaking going on, but this particular boat leaks from the top. Leaks from the decks below, especially ones that might embarrass the administration, have been dealt with very differently.
[Full article]
