Inside Obama’s "Orwellian World" Where Whistleblowing Has Become Espionage: The Case of Thomas Drake
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/5/18/inside_obamas_orwellian_world_where_whistleblowing National Security Agency whistleblower Thomas Drake faces 35 years in prison on espionage charges for allegedly leaking information to the press about the NSA's overspending and failure to properly maintain its large trove of domestic spy data.
"Espionage is the last thing my whistleblowing and first amendment activities and actions were all about," Drake said recently in a public speech. "This has become the specter of a truly Orwellian world where whistleblowing has become espionage." According to the New Yorker, the Obama administration has used the Espionage Act of 1917 to press criminal charges in five alleged instances of national security leaks—more such prosecutions than have occurred in all previous administrations combined. We play excerpts of Thomas Drake's first public comments and talk to former Justice Department whistleblower, Jesselyn Radack.
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marbleshttp://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/05/23/110523fa_fact_mayer?currentPage=all
From Article:
'When President Barack Obama took office, in 2009, he championed the cause of government transparency, and spoke admiringly of whistle-blowers, whom he described as “often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government.” But the Obama Administration has pursued leak prosecutions with a surprising relentlessness. Including the Drake case, it has been using the Espionage Act to press criminal charges in five alleged instances of national-security leaks—more such prosecutions than have occurred in all previous Administrations combined. The Drake case is one of two that Obama’s Justice Department has carried over from the Bush years.
Gabriel Schoenfeld, a conservative political scientist at the Hudson Institute, who, in his book “Necessary Secrets” (2010), argues for more stringent protection of classified information, says, “Ironically, Obama has presided over the most draconian crackdown on leaks in our history—even more so than Nixon.”
...
Mark Klein, the former A.T. & T. employee who exposed the telecom-company wiretaps, is also dismayed by the Drake case. “I think it’s outrageous,” he says. “The Bush people have been let off. The telecom companies got immunity. The only people Obama has prosecuted are the whistle-blowers.” '
enoch*promote
siftbotPromoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Thursday, May 19th, 2011 8:59pm PDT - promote requested by enoch.
blankfistMeet the new President. Same as the last President.
Psychologic>> ^blankfist:
Meet the new President. Same as the last President.
I hear a 3rd party would be different.
ButterflyKissessays...Why hasn't netrunner or the other partisan politic game players chimed in on this one? Oh yes, that's right, it shows that they're just as bad as the far righers if not identical in many ways.
*promote
siftbotInvocations (promote) cannot be called by ButterflyKisses because ButterflyKisses is not privileged - sorry.
ButterflyKissessays.........and sift points are good for what, exactly?
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