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Happy Whistleblower's Day! Today we celebrate by crucifying Bradley Manning
Last edited Tue Jul 30, 2013, 01:09 PM - Edit history (1)
Democracy Now Livestream here: http://www.livestream.com/democracynow
Published: July 29, 2013 at 2:56 PM
WASHINGTON, July 29 (UPI) -- Sen. Chuck Grassley introduced a bill Monday calling for a National Whistle-Blower Appreciation Day to honor those who expose government waste or misconduct.
Grassley, R-Iowa, cited July 30 as the date of the nation's first whistle-blower protection law, enacted by the Continental Congress in 1778, during the Revolutionary War.
"Our nation's Founding Fathers strongly support whistle-blowing, even in time of war, and even when whistle-blowing allegations threatened to embarrass high-ranking officials," said Stephen Kohn, executive director of the National Whistle-Blowers Center in a statement Monday.
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"Anything we can do to uphold whistle-blowers and their protection is the right thing to keep government responsible. If you know laws are being violated and money's being misspent, you have a patriotic duty to report it," Grassley said.
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2013/07/29/Grassley-suggests-Whistleblowers-Appreciation-Day/UPI-95341375124192/
WASHINGTON, July 29 (UPI) -- Sen. Chuck Grassley introduced a bill Monday calling for a National Whistle-Blower Appreciation Day to honor those who expose government waste or misconduct.
Grassley, R-Iowa, cited July 30 as the date of the nation's first whistle-blower protection law, enacted by the Continental Congress in 1778, during the Revolutionary War.
"Our nation's Founding Fathers strongly support whistle-blowing, even in time of war, and even when whistle-blowing allegations threatened to embarrass high-ranking officials," said Stephen Kohn, executive director of the National Whistle-Blowers Center in a statement Monday.
...
"Anything we can do to uphold whistle-blowers and their protection is the right thing to keep government responsible. If you know laws are being violated and money's being misspent, you have a patriotic duty to report it," Grassley said.
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2013/07/29/Grassley-suggests-Whistleblowers-Appreciation-Day/UPI-95341375124192/
[hr]
Note: Offer currently not available to US citizens. Offer available to Whistleblowers overseas even if Congress has to create special laws to grant asylum.
... examples of odd behavior by the American government are beginning to weigh down the scales of justice. Most recently, the United States seems to be overly concerned with all that free speech Russia is allowing Snowden, which would be like Switzerland criticizing another country for eating way too much chocolate. Or you may have noticed the not-so-subtle difference in treatment for established DC insiders leaking information versus your ordinary, everyday NSA sub-contractor...
These actions might be dastardly all on their own, but when you measure them against how the United States has behaved when the shoes were on the other foot, you're left with a dose of hypocrisy that would kill most lab rats. Take, for instance, the case of Michael Christopher Meili, security guard in Switzerland (chocolate!) for UBS, their mega-bank. He revealed some of UBS' shady dealings when it came to the banking documents of Jewish clients during the holocaust.
As a result, not only did Meili lose his job, but he was also under investigation by Swiss authorities for violating Swiss law. Moreover, according to Meili's testimony in a U.S. Senate hearing (available here), after Swiss police took possession of the documents, they told Meili that the Swiss government was treating the documents as "classified," despite the fact that they were UBS documents, and that they "would never be seen by people 'outside Switzerland.'"
Finally, while Meili believed he was exposing an act of destruction that was, or should have been, illegal, the Swiss police told him that they had concluded that UBS had done nothing wrong.
Sound familiar? Person of conscience working for a private organization that has ties to the government exposes wrong-doing, government sweeps in and initiates investigation while also unilaterally declaring classification of said wrong-doing, and then money-shots the affair by declaring all activities legal. Now, perhaps you're wondering why Meili was testifying about this at the US Senate. Well, because he went there to receive asylum, of course.
Unfortunately for Meili, the United States government determined that under no applicable law could Meili qualify for asylum. Fortunately for Meili, the Unites States government then decided to just make up a law specifically for Meili and pass it, ostensibly under the "Because Fuck You" statute in international law. And if you think I'm exaggerating, witness Private Law 105-1:
For the relief of Michel Christopher Meili, Giuseppina Meili, Mirjam Naomi Meili, and Davide Meili.
Yeah, they didn't even attempt to hide what they were doing. Just signed a law that might as well have been called "Private Law 105-1-haha-we-got-this-guy-LOL." Clinton signed the law straight away. Senators lined up to say how heroic Meili was. This in stark contrast to Obama's claim that Snowden must be returned to the US because we have to uphold "the rule of law." More striking still is Senator Charles Grassley, who claimed that because Snowden obviously broke the law, he must come home to be prosecuted at all costs. Want to guess what Grassley's take on Meili was?
The situation we have here with Mr. Meili, albeit everything that he has brought to our attention has worldwide implications, but a person like him acted out of bravery, or maybe the bravery comes after he has acted because he has had to withstand the mental torture of what has gone on since then. But it reminds me of a lot of things that happen in our own Government, and I realize his is a private sector situation, but I like to think that we keep our Federal Government honest when we have people in our Government who, when something is wrong, will be willing to come forward and say what is wrong.
We speak of these people in our Government as whistleblowers. Maybe, originally, that was to denigrate them, but as far as I am concerned the word "whistleblower" is a description of somebody who wants to seek the truth, who wants to make sure that all of the facts and circumstances are known so that a wrong can be corrected.
Now, compare that to the very same Senator Grassley and his comments on Snowden:
...
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130716/06211423817/edward-snowden-michael-meili-united-states-multiple-personality-disorder-whistleblowers.shtml
33 replies
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Is this justice?
Obama Erases Campaign Promises from Election Website. The Ministry of Truth is hard at work
Bradley Manning trial: what we know from the leaked WikiLeaks documents
Revelations from the files downloaded include footage of US helicopter crews laughing at civilian deaths in Baghdad
Peter Walker
The Guardian, Tuesday 30 July 2013 12.01 EDT
Bradley Manning, a 25-year-old US private, downloaded more than 700,000 classified documents from US military servers and passed them to WikiLeaks. The Guardian was one of several news organisations to publish a series of stories based on the contents of the files. Below are 10 of the most revelatory:
• The first revelation came in 2010, from a video showing a US helicopter crew laughing as they launched an air strike killing a dozen people in Baghdad in July 2007, including a photographer and driver working for the Reuters news agency. The footage was recorded on one of two Apache helicopters which were hunting for suspected insurgents. They encounter a group of men on the ground, who do not immediately appear armed, and there is no sign of gunshots. But one helicopter crew opens fire, with shouts of "Hahaha. I hit 'em," and "Oh yeah, look at those dead bastards". As the wounded are helped, one of the helicopters opens fire again, with armour-piercing shells.
• The next tranche of revelations came in July 2010, from documents dating from 2004 to 2009 about the Afghan war. One set raised concerns in the US by suggesting alleged support for the Taliban from Pakistan, particularly that the country's spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), had been collaborating with the Taliban.
• The Afghanistan files also included details of an incident from 2007 in which US marines escaping an attack outside the city of Jalalabad fired their guns indiscriminately, killing 19 unarmed civilians and wounding 50 more. While the aftermath of the attack was plain to military authorities, the files suggested, the incident was referred to in an official report only as this: "The patrol returned to JAF [Jalalabad air field]."
• In October 2010 came a series of revelations about events in Iraq. Chief among these was that US authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse, torture, rape and even murder by Iraqi police and soldiers. The reports of abuse, often supported by medical evidence, describe prisoners shackled, blindfolded and hung by wrists or ankles, and subjected to whipping, punching, kicking or electric shocks.
• Another Iraq-related revelation was that the US collated details of more than 100,000 people killed in Iraq following the invasion of the country, including more than 15,000 deaths that were previously unrecorded. The tally goes against previous protestations by the UK and US that there were any official statistics on the death toll connected to the war.
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http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/30/bradley-manning-wikileaks-revelations
Embedded links in the original
Last edited Tue Jul 30, 2013, 05:19 PM - Edit history (1)
Alexa O'Brien @carwinb 4m
Aiding the Enemy-- NOT GUILTY
Spec 1, Charge II Wanton Pub. GUILTY #Manning
Spec II, Charge II GUILTY to his LIO plea for 793(e) Collateral Murder #Manning
Spec 3, Charge II CIA Red Cell Memo 793(e) GUILTY #Manning (10 years MAX)
Spec 4, Charge II Iraq War Logs Database 641 GUILTY (10 years MAX) #Manning
Spec 5, Charge II Iraq War Logs Espionage 793(e) GUILTY (10 years) #Manning
Spec 6, Charge II Afghan War Diray Database 641 GUILTY (10 years) #Manning
Spec 7, Charge II Afghan War Diary Espionage 793(e) GUILTY #Manning (10 Years MAX)
Spec 8, Charge II GTMO Files Database 641 GUILTY #Manning (10 Years MAX)
Spec 9, Charge II GTMO File 793(e) Espionage GUILTY #Manning (10 Years MAX)
Spec 10, Charge II Farah Records 793(e) GUILTY #Manning (10 Years Max)
Spec 11, Charge II Garani Video 793(e) NOT GUILTY #Manning
Spec 12, Charge II Cablegate database 641 GUILTY #Manning (10 Years MAX)
Spec 13, Charge II Cablegate CFAA Exceed Auth Access GUILTY #Manning (10 Years)
Spec 14, Charge II Reykjavik 13 GUILTY to his LIO ('knowingly accessing') #Manning (2 years MAX)
Spec 15, Charge II USACIC Memo on WikiLeaks 793(e) GUILTY #Manning (10 tears MAX)
Spec 16, Charge II Microsoft Exchange GAL 641 GUILTY #Manning (10 Years MAX)
Charge III (Article 92) Spec 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 GUILTY (2 years MAX each, TOTAL MAX 10 years) #Manning
Spec 1, Charge II Wanton Publication (Which #Manning was found guilty of is 2 years MAX-- see above)
Spec 2, Charge II Guilty to his LIO plea for 793(e) Collateral Murder #Manning <-- See above this is 2 years MAX)
MANNING WRAP UP: Guilty of 5 charges of espionage, 5 counts of theft, 4 counts of embezzlement of government property http://on.rt.com/e7o41i
RT @BlackKatz_UK: Crowd booing each guilty verdict outside US Embassy #Manning now chanting "No justice no peace"
Yay!
