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<font size=3><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>Original Content at
<a href="http://www.opednews.com/articles/Charging-Wikileaks-Source-by-Jesselyn-Radack-100707-862.html" eudora="autourl">
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Charging-Wikileaks-Source-by-Jesselyn-Radack-100707-862.html<br>
</a><hr>
<b>July 7, 2010<br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=4>Charging Wikileaks Source: The Nail in
the Coffin of Whistblowers<br><br>
</b></font><font face="Verdana" size=2><i>By Jesselyn Radack<br><br>
</i>Even the
<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/06/AR2010070602330.html">
<i>Washington Post</a></i> gets it. In its article on the criminal
charges brought against Army intelligence analyst Pfc. Bradley Manning,
the sub-headline to the article reads: <br><br>
</font>
<dl>
<dd>U.S. TAKING TOUGH LINE ON LEAKS <br><br>
</dl>The opening paragraph states that the military charging Bradley
Manning <br><br>
<dl>
<dd>is likely to further deter would-be whistleblowers. <br><br>
</dl>I don't care if it's Bush or Obama at the helm. The biggest crimes
of our generation--torture, warrantless wiretapping, and extraordinary
rendition--would not have come to light but for the unauthorized
disclosure of classified information. For the hand-wringing "but we
can't willy-nilly reveal classified information" crowd, do you think
Abu Ghraib wasn't classified? <br>
We are told (though there has been not a shred of evidence other than the
government saying this, and even the charges do not reflect this number)
that Manning gave some 250,000 classified State Department cables to
Wikileaks.org. All we really KNOW is that the website published a
horrific video of an American helicopter massacring unarmed Iraqi
civilians, including children, and the shooters cheering on each other as
if it were a video game.<br><br>
And the former senior National Security Agency (NSA) official Thomas
Drake? The party line is that he "leaked" classified material
to a newspaper. If you read the indictment, he has really been indicted
under the Espionage Act, a 93-year-old law meant to catch spies, for
allegedly "retaining" classified information. What the
government is really mad about is that an article appeared in the
Baltimore Sun</i> describing how and why the NSA opted for an
billion-dollar, failed invasive surveillance program called
"Trailblazer" over one that could more adequately collect
intelligence information without violating people's privacy.<br><br>
Short of killing someone (think Karen Silkwood, and more recently, of the
"worldwide manhunt" for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange
launched by the Pentagon), this is the worst, and increasingly popular,
form of retaliation that can be taken against a whistleblower: criminal
prosecution for revealing the truth--which in both the Manning and Drake
cases did no harm to national security</b>, but instead committed the far
worse "crime" of embarrassing the government. In fact, both
these men were trying to expose conduct they thought, and that was,
illegal.<br><br>
I urge you to "like" the
<a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Save-Tom-Drake/128268337206799?v=wall">
Save Tom Drake</a> page on Facebook and to check out the
<a href="http://www.bradleymanning.org/">Help Bradley Manning</a>
website.<br><br>
The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in
human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.</i> <br>
--James Madison<br><br>
reprinted from
<a href="http://jesselyn-radack.dailykos.com/">Dailykos.com with author
</a><a href="http://jesselyn-radack.dailykos.com/">permission<br><br>
</a>Author's Website:
<a href="http://www.patriotictruthteller.net/" eudora="autourl">
http://www.patriotictruthteller.net<br><br>
</a>Author's Bio: My name is
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesselyn_Radack">Jesselyn
Radack</a> and I am the former Justice Department ethics attorney and
whistleblower in the case of "American Taliban" John Walker
Lindh. In today's issue of The National Law Journal (Feb. 19, 2007), I
have an Op-Ed entitled "Targeting Lawyers" on what it really
looks like when the government tries to control attorneys acting on
behalf of terrorism suspects and, if it cannot control them, punish them.
I speak from personal experience in being blacklisted by this
Administration. <br><br>
<br><br>
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