Haaretz: Amnesty International Calls on Israel to Let Vanunu Go
Amnesty International has called on Israel to lift travel bans and communication restrictions on noted whistleblower Mordecai Vanunu. He served 18 years in jail for revealing details about Israel’s nuclear program to a British newspaper. Vanunu was released in 2004, but still cannot travel outside of the country, nor can he participate in Internet chats “and must seek permission to communicate with journalists or any foreign nationals.”
Key Quote: “The authorities’ continued punishment of Mordechai Vanunu appears to be purely vindictive,” said Avner Gidron, senior policy adviser at Amnesty International. “The continued restrictions on his liberty have placed a severe strain on his mental and physical health and should immediately be lifted.”
New Yorker: The Snowden Pulitzer
This blog post explains how the Pulitzer Prize committee has a long history of rewarding significant stories that uncover government corruption. Thus, this week’s honoring of The Guardian US and Washington Post for their respective series based on NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden’s disclosures is “the easiest call the prize committee has ever had to make,” and not as controversial as it seems – desite the risks that the journalists and outlets took.
The article also singles out journalist Laura Poitras for her significant and essential contribution to the publication of Snowden’s documents. Poitras and Snowden are being honored later this month as recipients of the 2014 Riderhour Prize for Truth-Telling.
Key Quote: It makes sense that the prizes went to the papers, and not just to a few of the dozens of reporters and editors who worked on this story. That’s not to quarrel with the George Polk Award, which went, last week, to Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, and Ewen MacAskill, for the Guardian, and Barton Gellman, at the Washington Post, who had the main bylines on the big stories, and who took the earliest gambles. (If one were forced to choose the single journalist who most made the story happen, it would be Poitras.)
Detroit Free Press: Fired Professor Sues Wayne State University, Claims it Bilked Millions from US
A recently unsealed False Claims Act lawsuit details a whistleblower’s allegations that Detroit-based Wayne State University “bilked more than $169 million in research grant money from the U.S. government.”
Dylan Blaylock is Communications Director for the Government Accountability Project, the nation’s leading whistleblower protection and advocacy organization.