The Atlantic: The Most Famous Whistleblowers on Why They Leaked
At a conference last week, GAP client and NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden remotely joined Daniel Ellsberg on a panel discussing their experiences as high profile whistleblowers, detailing how ensuring government accountability is as vital today as it was in the 1970s. Watch the full conversation between the whistleblowers here.
Key Quote: (Ellsberg): My interest was not in setting the record straight. My interest was in helping to end an ongoing war. For that, I would much have preferred to put out current documents, which at that moment I didn’t have access to. Even in the White House it was a big secret, what Nixon was really up to, including nuclear threats. I hoped my documents would show a pattern that continued into the present, and I failed. Hardly anybody was willing to extrapolate and say that, well, Ellsberg has shown that four previous presidents lied in the same way, escalated in the same way, made the same kinds of secret threats. Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson. But it ended before Nixon. I thought maybe they’d figure out that the current president is doing the same. No. It took documents. And I didn’t have that. So for years I’ve been telling people, it’s gotta be with documents, even though that increases the risk. Well, people know that basically, but they’re not willing to take the risks, I’m sorry to say.
(Snowden): We not only learned the new truth about our world, that all of our communications are being collected, intercepted, analyzed and stored automatically. That means all of our ideas, thoughts, expressions associations, who we talk to, who we meet, who we love, who we hate, all of these things are now subordinated to the policy of a few guys behind closed doors and we can’t hold them to account…
So when we think about the revelations, we’ve learned what’s really going on, we have the ability to debate, we have the ability to correct this overreach, and we have the ability to protest unconstitutional activity that never should have begun.
The Atlantic: Why Intelligence Whistleblowers Can’t Use Internal Channels
This article counters intelligence officials’ claims that internal channels offer adequate protection to whistleblowers. Citing recent evidence that the CIA obtained confidential emails to Congress about alleged whistleblower retaliation in relation to the Senate’s classified report on the inhanced interrogation program, the author illustrates why intelligence whistleblower protections need an overhaul. Mentions GAP clients Tom Drake and John Kiriakou, and GAP National Security & Human Rights Director Jesselyn Radack.
Key Quote: Today, there is no credible argument that internal channels offer adequate protection to whistleblowers or remedy most serious misdeeds. U.S. officials claim otherwise. They know that no American system of official secrets can be legitimate if it serves to hide behavior that violates the Constitution, the law, or the inalienable rights articulated in the Declaration of Independence.
That they defend the status quo without being laughed out of public life is a testament to public ignorance. Most Americans haven’t read the stories of Jesselyn Radack, Thomas Drake, or John Kiriakou; they’re unaware of the Espionage Act’s sordid history and its unprecedented use by the Obama administration; they don’t realize the scale of lawbreaking under President Bush, or that President Obama’s failure to prosecute an official torture program actually violates the law; and they’re informed by a press that treats officials who get caught lying and misleading (e.g., James Clapper and Keith Alexander) as if they’re credible.
Associated Press: Whistleblower Wins at Supreme Court, But Loses Pay
Despite a victory at the U.S. Supreme Court which established that public employee whistleblowers are protected from retaliation when they make truthful statements while giving compelled testimony, the whistleblower at the center of the case is making almost $50,000 less at his job after blowing the whistle.
Michael Riley is a Communications Intern for the Government Accountability Project, the nation’s leading whistleblower protection and advocacy organization.