October 7, 2021

—OMNI

WHISTLEBLOWERS AND LEAKERS NEWSLETTER, Series 2, #6

October 7, 2021.

https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2021/10/omni-whistleblowers-and-leakers.html

Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology

https://omnicenter.org/donate/

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 (also in Z Magazine Dec. 2019).

Catharine Gun and Official Secrets Film
Paul Larudee on Whistle Blower revelations of Lies regarding Syrian
     Chemical Weapons

Blake Percival Recognized by Giraffe Project

CIA Dir. Mike Pompeo Blames Edward Snowden

Pres. Obama Commutes Manning’s Sentence

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.

He Spoke Out Against Torture. They Put Him In Prison. Now, Hear Him in His Own Words on the Primary Sources Podcast

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

Presidents change. The surveillance state remains.

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 31^st, 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.”

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 …

Videos

Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 on Twitter: “Brave whistleblowers exposing lies & illegal actions in our government must be protected. Join me and urge Congress: Pass my bipartisan legislation (HRes1162, HRes1175, HR8452) calling for charges against @snowden & Assange to be dropped & to reform the Espionage Act. #PassItOn… https://t.co/J49iyAlrxX”

Twitter

Oct 6, 2020

TRUMP

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

BIDEN

 Norman Solomon.  The ‘Official Secrets’ Movie vs. Joe Biden’s Lies About the Iraq War.  Published on September 17, 2019 By Common Dreams (also in Z Magazine Dec. 2019).

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.

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

READ MORE →

[syriasolidarity] Nobel Prize Winning Chemical Weapons Watchdog Found “Fixing” its Findings on Syria

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.   

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.

READ MORE →

MAY

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)

• http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/06/24/cia-director-mike-pompeo-blames-surge-intelligence-leaks-worship/

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 secretsto 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

January 12, 2017

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

Chelsea E Manning

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

Contact author

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

Mordechai Vanunu spent 18 years in prison for revealing Israel’s nuclear secrets 

·          Raf Sanchez, jerusalem  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.    Newsletter of Government Accountability Project.  “Reports show continued violations—legal and ethical—at ‘high-speed’ pork plants.”

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, 2021OMNI Peace Newsletter |  OMNI Facebook |  OMNI WebsiteDick Bennett
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