Greewald:War on whistleblowers intensifies

[Winehole23]

War on whistle-blowers intensifies

By Glenn Greenwald


The Obama administration's war on whistleblowers -- whose disclosures are one of the very few remaining avenues for learning what our government actually does -- continues to intensify. Last month, the DOJ announced it had obtained an indictment against NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake, who exposed serious waste, abuse and possible illegality. Then, the DOJ re-issued a Bush era subpoena to Jim Risen of The New York Times, demanding the iden y of his source who revealed an extremely inept and damaging CIA effort to infiltrate the Iranian nuclear program. And now, as Politico's Josh Gerstein reports, an FBI linguist who leaked what he believed to be evidence of lawbreaking is to receive a prison term that is "likely to become the longest ever served by a government employee accused of passing national security secrets to a member of the media." As Gerstein explains:

[I]t reflects a surprising development: President Barack Obama’s Justice Department has taken a hard line against leakers, and Obama himself has expressed anger about disclosures of national security deliberations in the press. . . .
"They’re going after this at every opportunity and with unmatched vigor," said Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists, a critic of government classification policy. . . .
Some experts said the administration and the Justice Department may be trying to appease the intelligence community after angering many by releasing the so-called torture memos and by reopening inquiries into alleged torture by CIA personnel. Others said intelligence personnel are terrified by outlets like Wikileaks, on which classified information can be posted without any meaningful chance for officials to argue for the withholding of details that could damage U.S. intelligence efforts.

Notably (and unsurprisingly), the article quotes the neocon Gabriel Schoenfeld -- who spent years demanding that the Bush DOJ criminally prosecute whistleblowers and even journalists responsible for stories such as the NYT's NSA eavesdropping revelation, and who then wrote a whole book arguing for greater government secrecy -- heaping praise on the Obama DOJ:

"I think it's remarkable," said Gabriel Schoenfeld, a fellow at the conservative Hudson Ins ute who urged prosecution of The New York Times for publishing details of the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program in 2005. "This is the administration that came in pledging maximum transparency. Plugging leaks is ... traditionally not associated with openness". . . .


"If Thomas Drake is convicted and sentenced to jail, this will be the first president to send two leakers to prison in his term in office. That’s never happened before,' said Schoenfeld, author of the book "Necessary Secrets." "You wouldn't have expected the Holder Justice Department to be particularly hawkish in these matters."

Schoenfeld was frequently critical of what he considered to be the Bush DOJ's lackadaisical at ude toward punishing whistleblowers, but he is obviously pleased with the Obama administration's aggression in that regard.



It isn't hard to see why Obama despises leaks. Just look at the front page of The New York Times today, which details a secret order from Gen. David Petraeus last fall ordering vastly increased Special Forces operations in a variety of Middle Eastern countries, including "allies" such as Saudi Arabia and Yemen, and "enemies" such as Iran and Syria. As Iran experts Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett contend, this cons utes, at the very least, "the intensification of America's covert war against Iran." That is how we also learned of what is, in essence, a covert war in Yemen as well (not to mention the covert war in Pakistan). Most of what our Government does of any real significance happens in the dark. Whistleblowers are one of the very few avenues we have left for learning about any of that. And politicians eager to preserve their own power and ability to operate in secret -- such as Barack Obama -- see whistleblowers as their Top Enemy.



Hence, we have a series of aggressive prosecutions from the Obama administration of Bush era exposures of abuse and illegality -- acts that flagrantly violate Obama's Look Forward, Not Backward decree used to protect high-level Bush administration criminals. As John Cole has suggested, perhaps if these whistleblowers had tortured some people and illegally eavesdropped on others, they would receive the immunity that Obama has so magnanimously and selectively granted. Instead, they merely exposed secret government corruption and illegality to the world, and thus must be punished.

Read more: http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/gl...ers/index.html

[RandomGuy]

I was never one to express unbridled optimism about an Obama administration, despite some people's beliefs that anybody who supported Obama in the election was some naive doe-eyed optimist.

BUT

I never really expected that the administration would continue quite so many ty Bush policies, especially after pledges of openness.

Still, for all that irritates me about the Obama administration, all I have to do to clear away any doubt or regret in voting for him is to say three little words:

Vice President Palin

[George Gervin's Afro]

Vice President Palin

[Sec24Row7]

I was never one to express unbridled optimism about an Obama administration, despite some people's beliefs that anybody who supported Obama in the election was some naive doe-eyed optimist.

BUT

I never really expected that the administration would continue quite so many ty Bush policies, especially after pledges of openness.

Still, for all that irritates me about the Obama administration, all I have to do to clear away any doubt or regret in voting for him is to say three little words:

Vice President Palin

What it all boils down to... is that people can posture and pose all they want in an election... then when they get into office... Republican or Democrat... there is remarkable symmetry in the thinking of both parties when it comes to national security and America's best interest... and if you suspected that someone was going to do something different than someone else on really important national interest points... you fell for propaganda

[Winehole23]

Obama tipped his hand wrt transparency when he voted for the Telecom immunity bill.

[Winehole23]

Risen to be jailed?

The Obama administration's war on whistleblowers -- whose disclosures are one of the very few remaining avenues for learning what our government actually does -- continues to intensify. Last month, the DOJ announced it had obtained an indictment against NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake, who exposed serious waste, abuse and possible illegality. Then, the DOJ re-issued a Bush era subpoena to Jim Risen of The New York Times, demanding the iden y of his source who revealed an extremely inept and damaging CIA effort to infiltrate the Iranian nuclear program.

In State of War, Risen revealed a secret CIA operation, code-named Merlin, that was intended to undermine the Iranian nuclear program. The plan—originally approved by president Bill Clinton, but later embraced by George W. Bush—was to pass flawed plans for a trigger system for a nuclear weapon to Iran in the hopes of derailing the country's nuclear program. "It was one of the greatest engineering secrets in the world," Risen wrote in State of War, "providing the solution to one of a handful of problems that separated nuclear powers such as the United States and Russia from the rogue countries like Iran that were desperate to join the nuclear club but had so far fallen short."


The flaws in the trigger system were supposed to be so well hidden that the blueprints would lead Iranian scientists down the wrong path for years. But Merlin's frontman, a Russian nuclear scientist and defector then on the CIA's payroll, spotted the flaws almost immediately. On the day of the handoff in Vienna in winter 2000, the Russian, not wanting to burn a bridge with the Iranians, included an apologetic note with his delivery, explaining that the design had some problems. Shortly after receiving the plans, one member of the Iranian mission changed his travel plans and flew back to Tehran, presumably with the blueprints—and the note—in hand. Merlin did not wreck the Iranian nuclear program—in fact, Risen wrote, the operation could have accelerated it.


In a sworn affidavit filed in 2011, and in a recently rejected appeal to the US Supreme Court, Risen has argued that his reporting served the public good. Published at a time when military action in Iran seemed possible, State of Fear revealed how much of the effort to gather information on Iran's nuclear capability was not just shoddy but dangerous—even, in the case of Operation Merlin, helping Iran get closer to building a nuclear weapon.


The Bush administration did not see it that way. In 2008, Bush's Justice Department subpoenaed Risen, demanding that he reveal his source—or face jail time for contempt of court. After taking office in 2009, the Obama administration renewed the Bush-era subpoena and continued to try to identify and prosecute Risen's source.

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2014...erlin-jail-cia

[101A]

Clinton begat Bush begat Obama

Why would O's administration prosecute someone who is making BUSH's administration look incompetent? "Blame Bush" is policy #1 of the current regime.

[101A]

What it all boils down to... is that people can posture and pose all they want in an election... then when they get into office... Republican or Democrat... there is remarkable symmetry in the thinking of both parties when it comes to national security and America's best interest... and if you suspected that someone was going to do something different than someone else on really important national interest points... you fell for propaganda

Nevermind.

Sec24Row7 already answered my question

[TDMVPDPOY]

why are whistleblowers get harsher penalties compared to fkn clowns who run strife in the financial sector that affects millions of people...

[boutons_deux]

why are whistleblowers get harsher penalties compared to fkn clowns who run strife in the financial sector that affects millions of people...

govt whistleblowers challenge the power of the govt, a mortal sin in govt ethics.

but the criminal financial sector is majority owner of govt, lobbying(corrupting) govt with nearly $1B in past several years, so the few crimes govt bothers to catch get "settled for" with tax-deductible fines, no admission of guilt, and no jail.

another question is why isn't the NSA catching illegal financial transactions of Americans hiding $Bs overseas? (my guess is the NSA top people are financial criminals themselves, they own/game the system for themselves)

[Winehole23]

Sterling convicted:

A former CIA officer who was involved in a highly secretive operation to give faulty nuclear plans to Iran was convicted Monday of providing classified information about his work to a New York Times reporter — a significant win for federal prosecutors and a presidential administration that has worked zealously to root out leakers.


As guilty verdicts were read on all nine criminal counts, Jeffrey Sterling stared emotionless at the jurors who decided his fate. His wife, seated in the courtroom behind him, sobbed.


The 47-year-old Missouri man is scheduled to be sentenced April 24 and remains free until then.


In a statement, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said the verdict was a “just and appropriate outcome.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/...440_story.html

[Winehole23]

it was a dumb operation. allegedly, the target -- Iran -- was able to fill in the blanks based on the incomplete info provided.

Stirling exposed the incompetence of the US government and has in all likelihood earned a long prison sentence for his service to his country.

[Winehole23]

Does this make it any easier to nail Risen's ass to the wall? It's hard to see how it could hurt.

[Winehole23]

Sterling guilty, gets 42 months:

Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA agent convicted of sharing classified information with a New York Times reporter, was sentenced today to three and a half years in prison

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2...a-leak-to-nyt/