Full Transcript for my Segment on Whistleblowing, Snowden, Manning, Assange and Greenwald

[Savannahmann]

1. Unfortunately I answered your question.

When the Senators are given a script of what they are allowed to ask, then oversight at the Congressional Level is at best a joke.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023402403

The response as you might remember, was the Least Untruthful Lie that James Clapper could tell.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023014982

So when someone does question a program, they get from the operators of the program, the least untruthful lie that the person sitting at the microphone can tell. That is when a Senator knows it is a screwed up program.

The only reason we are having the debate now is because people who saw the insanity and knew the truth behind the lies were willing to drag the program kicking and screaming into the light of day. Call them traitors, and suggest they work through the system, but the problem is that system isn't set up to find the truth when Senators violate the rules by asking a question. The system is set up to obscure the truth.

Now where are we? We are watching as each assurance falls by the wayside. The NSA programs have never been used to observe people domestically. Then the truth about that was revealed, and we heard about the FISA court and how that allowed them under the 4th Amendment, but they never didn't save the content, merely the metadata. Then the Op-Ed by Senator Feinstein said that they would access the content of the suspicious phone call in question ONLY AFTER a Warrant was procured by the FISA court, which would be possible only IF they saved the content too. http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023377468

Then today we learn that the DEA got information from the NSA on intercepted communications, information that was passed along to Law Enforcement to set up phony traffic stops etc. The police were told to lie about what started the investigation. Violations of the rules our civilization is founded upon come numerous times a day, and we were ignorant of the entire thing, because it was secret to us the regular people. Because this has been operating since 1994, we are supposed to be totally cool with the fact that the police and judicial system participates in lies regularly to persecute people. Further, we are told that each Attorney General reviewed the program, and approved it as absolutely legal. Absolutely legal to lie about where your information came from, and absolutely legal to deny the defendant to potentially exculpatory information?

All of this we are learning about, all of it, is because someone decided that they could no longer stomach the lies. Senator Wyden when he smelled lies, could do nothing as a Senator to get to the truth, because even if he managed to learn some truth, was prohibited by the same secrecy rules that people say these programs must be protected by.

Reporting to the IG isn't going to change these things, and prevent the further erosion of Civil Rights. Reporting to the Ombudsman would have accomplished even less. The only people with the power to end this crap was Us, the citizens and voters. Now that we are learning the surface truth, with only our imagination to limit how deep and dark these programs get, is there a chance, a slim one, of change.

The one thing that isn't ever coming back though, is the naïve belief that the Government cares about our Civil Rights. The false image of a Government dedicated to defending the rights of the people is one that will never return.

So your assumption that the whistleblowers of today, by informing those who have spent their entire career violating the rules, that they are in fact violating the rules, will ever have any impact is not just short sighted, but borders on insane. We have within the last two months, learned more about our Government than they ever wanted us to know. I wonder what the next two months will bring us. The one thing I am certain of is that every assurance that there are lines the Government will not cross, sounds weaker than the last. Because so far the programs we have learned about, cross lines that they had previously said they would never cross.

Then there is the Historical examples. The only time that a system does start to reform itself, is when those truths become public knowledge. The NYPD of the 1970's didn't suddenly decide to stop taking bribes and prosecute those who were taking the bribes because Frank Serpico reported to his boss that the cops were all crooks. They stopped because Frank Serpico testified before a City Government Panel and in full view of the press. The secret was in the light, and there was no more keeping it hidden. The NYPD was forced to investigate, and prosecute those taking bribes, not because some IG or internal affairs learned about it. But because the PUBLIC demanded it.

Finally, there is no basis in law for keeping illegal actions secret. You might want to consider that when you suggest that whistleblowers keep their mouths shut and try working through the system. Even attorney client privilege does not protect an attorney from being prosecuted for conspiracy. There is no basis in any civilized law that requires people to remain silent when they observe illegal activity. Again, look at history. We prosecuted people for keeping quiet many times, we call the charge conspiracy. If it is illegal for someone to keep a private crime silent, why is it admirable to keep a government crime silent?