By ANNE SEWELL

The ground-breaking documentary film, Silenced, was screened at the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam, running from November 21 to November 24. The film highlights the experiences of some of the top whistleblowers in the United States of America.

Focusing on several highly prominent clients of the Government Accountability Project, an organization protecting whistleblowers since 1977, the film outlined just how dangerous and life-changing the decisions made by these whistleblowers actually were. They were forced to choose between their own consciences and the possibility of losing not only their careers, but also their freedom.

The documentary tells the story of National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower, Thomas Andrews Drake, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) whistleblower, John Kiriakou and fellow whistleblower and GAP National Security and Human Rights Director, Jesselyn Radack.

Recognized as a whistleblower, even by the U.S. government itself, Thomas Drake revealed the ongoing waste and abuse at the NSA, which was costing the U.S.A. billions of dollars. He revealed this uncomfortable truth to several oversight bodies, including Congress and the Inspector General, but his concerns were ignored.

Frustrated by this, Drake eventually shared the controversial and unclassified information of the ongoing fraud to a reporter at the Baltimore Sun. This reporter then published a series of award-winning articles, exposing the NSA for the billion dollar waste and corruption. Following this, Drake was indicted under the Espionage Act, an act set up to charge spies, not whistleblowers, and was facing 35 years in jail. Fortunately the case collapsed due to lack of evidence and he retains his freedom.

The film tells how John Kiriakou, while employed with the CIA, was faced with being trained in what were dubbed “enhanced interrogation techniques,” more commonly known these days as “waterboarding.” Instead of just doing his job and following his orders, Kiriakou took exception to the idea of torturing fellow human beings and decided instead to blow the whistle on what were the George W. Bush-era torture programs.

Besides making the news known, Kiriakou was the first CIA official to expose the government’s policy on using torture. Kiriakou was also prosecuted under the century-old Espionage Act and on January 25, 2013 was sentenced to 30 months in prison in the low-security Federal correctional facility in Loretto, Pennsylvania. His sentence began on February 28, 2013 and he remains there to this day.

The third whistleblower in this groundbreaking documentary is none other than Jesselyn Raddack, a whistleblower herself but also the GAP National Security and Human Rights Director. Raddack worked as a national security and human rights attorney and is well-known for her defense of journalists, hacktivists and, of course, whistleblowers.

Raddack blew the whistle during her term as the former ethics adviser to the U.S. Department of Justice. She disclosed how the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had committed what she termed an ethics violation during their interrogation of John Walker Lindh (dubbed the “American Taliban”) who was captured during the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. According to Raddack, Lindh was interrogated without an attorney present on his behalf and the Department of Justice attempted to suppress that information. This was the first major terrorism prosecution following 9/11 and Raddack chronicled her experience in her memoir, Traitor: The Whistleblower and the “American Taliban.”

The documentary Silenced is a moving and highly critical revelation on whistleblowing. It outlines clearly the personal costs and losses experienced by whistleblowers during an era when revealing the truth on governmental fraud, abuse, waste and illegal actions can mean a federal criminal investigation, followed by prosecution under an age-old Espionage Act, set up to tackle spies (not those revealing the truth.)

In the film the three whistleblowers talk candidly with filmmaker James Spione of the actions they took, and their experiences as a result of these actions. The documentary includes excerpts from the media, reenacted scenes and shots of official documents. It tells how they lost their jobs, were isolated from their peers, suffered financial loss, and how they were tried in court and sometimes jailed.

Created by Oscar nominated James Spione, this documentary runs like a thriller, but tells the true story of three courageous whistleblowers. A description of the film quotes the now well-known words of John Kiriakou, “I’m not sure anymore who the good guys are” and the documentary opens with the words of 1984 author, George Orwell:

“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”

A schedule of viewings of this explosive documentary, running up to end November, can be seen here. A brief video intro into the documentary can be seen on Spione’s Kickstarter page for the film.