Petraeus, Snowden, and the Department of Two-Tiered Justice

[KoKo]

Petraeus, Snowden, and the Department of Two-Tiered Justice

by Jessalyn Raddack-- Jesselyn Radack is the director of national security and human rights at the Government Accountability Project, which represents whistleblowers.


The lax plea deal for a former general shows just how unfair the U.S. justice system is to whistleblowers.

he sweetheart plea deal that former CIA director Gen. David Petraeus received yesterday was supposed to mollify the criticism of people who say that in President Barack Obama’s draconian war on whistleblowers, senior-level government officials are never prosecuted for leaking classified information. Now the former army general’s punishment has been revealed and the truth has become clear: The United States has a two-tier justice system when it comes to classified information.

Petraeus pleaded guilty and will likely receive a $40,000 fine and two years of probation. This has added insult to injury for people like NSA whistleblowers Edward Snowden and Thomas Drake; CIA whistleblowers John Kiriakou and Jeffrey Sterling; State Department whistleblower Stephen Kim; and Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning. (I represent Snowden, Drake, and Kiriakou, in addition to other non-public whistleblowers who are currently under investigation or prosecution by the Justice Department for alleged unauthorized disclosures of allegedly classified information.) While these leakers and whistleblowers revealed far less sensitive information, they face much stiffer punishment.

I’m not the only person who realizes that something is wrong here. As Peter Maass wrote in the Intercept after news of Petraeus’s plea broke, “senior officials are slapped on the wrist for serious violations while lesser officials are harshly prosecuted for relatively minor infractions.” These ruinous discrepancies are not insignificant. Drake faced spending the rest of his life in jail for retaining — not even disclosing — unclassified information about wasteful NSA spending. The charges against him were dropped in May 2011 (like Petraeus, Drake pleaded guilty to a minor misdemeanor). But that doesn’t mean the legal campaign against him didn’t have a chance to ruin his life: Drake temporarily separated from his wife and spent his entire life savings and retirement defending himself. Today he works as a wage-grade employee at an Apple Store.

Espionage charges were also dropped against John Kiriakou, but only after he pleaded guilty under the equally draconian and rarely-used Intelligence Identities Protection Act for confirming to journalists the name of an undercover CIA agent involved in the Rendition, Detention and Interrogation Program. Kiriakou spent two years in jail. He lost his job and pension, owes the private attorneys he hired upwards of a million dollars, and is desperately trying to find a job while he serves out the remainder of his time under house arrest. His family had to move out of their house and go on welfare. His five children were deprived of their father.

Stephen Kim shared information from a classified State Department report on North Korea with a reporter. He and his wife are now divorced, and he is in jail for 13 months on an espionage conviction. Chelsea Manning is in jail for 35 years for sharing a trove of documents with the whistleblower website WikiLeaks. Sterling, who will be sentenced in April for revealing a botched CIA program in which the United States accidentally gave nuclear information to Iran, faces 40 to 100 years in prison. Edward Snowden is living in exile for pulling the curtain back on the NSA’s widespread and unaccountable surveillance programs.

Compare any of those cases to David Petraeus.

Throughout his ordeal, Petraeus retained his security clearance. Even after accusations that he shared highly classified information on the war in Afghanistan with his mistress, he has spent his time teaching at Harvard, making lucrative speeches across the globe, pulling in a massive salary as a partner in one of the world’s biggest private-equity firms, KKR, and reportedly even advising the White House.


More at..........

https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/03/04/petraeus-snowden-and-the-department-of-two-tiered-justice/

[grasswire]

1. kick to read later, thanks nt

[marym625]

2. Kicking as far as I can and rec'd

Hopefully, we won't hear how others deserve worse for whatever reason. Or that it's not two tiered.

Each and every one of the whistleblowers mentioned deserves a medal

[Yonx]

3. I don't hate either of them, but they violated laws

And should be punished accordingly. When poor people violate the law they are usually punished harshly.

[delrem]

4. A $40K fine and 2 yrs probation is frightfully harsh! nt

[Maedhros]

7. Laws. Meh.

When the people writing the laws are corrupt, breaking them is no crime.

[Smarmie Doofus]

26. +1. Technically it is. But ONLY technically. n/t

[Maedhros]

28. It's an authoritarian viewpoint:

the law must be obeyed, not because it makes sense and improves our society, but BECAUSE IT IS THE LAW.

With Snowden, we have a clear case in which violation of the law has improved our society. I won't demonize Snowden under those circumstances.

[MrMickeysMom]

14. Oh, then what would be your punishment?

Curious, that's all.

[billhicks76]

23. Dispicable

Snowden was trying to protect and save us. He is a hero of the highest magnitude. The military contractors only want money and control and actually WANT more terrorist attacks to occur to increase their budgets and monopoly on power. Who is the real traitor? The answer seems obvious.

[lob1]

5. K&R.

[Thinkingabout]

6. The big difference in Petraeus and Snowden is Petraeus has faced justice and Snowden

choose to run.

[zeemike]

8. Would he have run if he faced a fine and 2 years probation?

Or would he wind up where Manning is right now, rotting away in prison?
And you think it is justice?...obviously justice is not blind...it can see money and power clearly.

[Thinkingabout]

10. I would be sitting where Manning isalso had I committed the crime he did.

I also chose not to commit espionage, ergo I did not have to run or serve time.

[deurbano]

16. Would you be sitting where Petraeus is if you had shared classified information and lied to the FBI?

That's the question. That's the two-tiered justice system. (A person who had his elevated position should be held to a higher-- not lower-- standard.)

[Thinkingabout]

22. Did the information Petraeus told get released to the public?

[MrMickeysMom]

17. Where should Daniel Elsberg be sitting?

Where should Patraeus be sitting, while you are at it?

[zeemike]

24. Manning exposed war crimes by our government and went to prison.

And the criminals who committed them went to Disneyland.
That is a twisted form of justice you have right there.

[Doctor_J]

15. no, the main difference is that snowden was exposing crimes and Petraeus was engaging

in pillow talk.

[Thinkingabout]

21. What crime did he expose, the one which was addressed in 2008?

[Demeter]

9. The system is corrupt, and this it the result

Will we the people seek to redress the wrongs and cleanse the government of corruption?

Not this generation, nor the Boomers, the X, Y, or Millennials....

I expect the process of change will have to start with a cataclysm. It seems to be the only stimulus that provokes action. People are all burnt out on lesser drives. Their buttons have been pushed too many times.

[valerief]

11. For Petraeus justice, you need to blow or blow up the right people. nt

[ReRe]

12. FYI: Jesselyn Radack was on...

... with Amy (DemocracyNow.org) this am. Thanks for this article, KoKo.

[KoKo]

25. That was a great watch on DN!

I posted a snip and link to her show in "GD" this morning. Hard to know if there's much interest there, but

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016117461#post12

[Doctor_J]

13. I read on du that Petraeus's crime was OK because his mistress probably didn't repeat

the classified information anywhere.

Not kidding. That was actually posted.

[MrMickeysMom]

18. This makes me sick...

I'll have to catch Democracy Now! interview, but I believe it.

[nakocal]

19. And he probably won't pay a dime of his own money

Petraeus' fine will probably be paid by his admirers. And he will still be able to retire as a general and keep his pension.

[MrMickeysMom]

20. Once you're in the agency, you never leave, eh?

Throw the hustings to the wolves, and put your sheep clothing on, you criminals…

[grasswire]

27. how do we know that information wasn't compromised..

...while in the hands of the mistress?

Why would a mistress take the black books if not for nefarious purposes? She was his biographer, supposedly. But why did she need codes and all that top secret stuff?

Is anyone examining her? Her financial situation?

[Blue_Tires]

29. Full disclosure -- Raddack is part of Greenwald's cabal

And the Petraeus comparisons are moot anyway since Snowden has no intention of ever standing trial until congress changes the law for him...

[blkmusclmachine]

30. ,

,

[Michigan-Arizona]

31. K&R n/t