A Setback for Obama’s War on Whistleblowers

[babsbunny]

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2011/08/hbc-90008193

By Scott Horton

Although President Obama campaigned on calls to respect and protect whistleblowers, no sooner did he take office than the Justice Department adopted a diametrically opposite posture. Under Eric Holder, the department fully embraced a tactic his predecessors had tinkered with under George Bush: using the Espionage Act of 1917 to prosecute civil servants accused of leaking materials that it felt compromised national security. The approach had two advantages from the prosecutors’ perspective. First, it dramatically increased the heat on the whistleblowers, effectively casting them as spies who had betrayed their nation and potentially subjecting them to newly strenuous sanctions. Second, it theoretically bolstered the department’s ability to compel journalists to reveal information about, and testify against, their sources.

Bush-era prosecutors had tried the same approach, but things didn’t go well for them. Although their first such case landed before a conservative Republican judge, T.S. Ellis III, who was usually receptive to prosecutors’ concerns about national security matters, it fell apart largely due to limitations imposed by the court. Their next efforts followed from the all-out Justice Department campaign to identify and punish the persons who exposed to New York Times reporter Jim Risen details about a massive Bush-ordained surveillance program that involved snooping on the phone and Internet communications of tens of millions of Americans without a court warrant — a felony under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. This campaign does not appear to have turned up Risen’s sources, but it did net Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA agent who disclosed a botched operation targeting Iran, and Thomas Drake, a former senior NSA official who blew the whistle on a $1-billion contract scam relating to another surveillance boondoggle.

[DeSwiss]

1. K&R

At a news conference Monday in Chile, President Barack Obama stated about his order to fire 110 Tomahawk missiles into Libya: "this was not an attempt at regime change, but a humanitarian effort to save civilian and rebel lives from Gaddafi’s threat to annihilate anyone who threatened his rule."http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoUmmiqtQ2w">~President Barack Obama, March 21, 2011

"You will have your choice of a number of plans that offer a few different packages, but every plan would offer an affordable, basic package… And I believe one of these options needs to be a public option that will give people a broader range of choices and inject competition into the health care market, so that we can force waste out of the system and keep the insurance companies honest." http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-annual-conference-american-medical-association">~President Barack Obama

Referring to the Bush Administration's use of phone companies to illegally spy on Americans: "We only know these crimes took place because insiders blew the whistle at great personal risk ... Government whistleblowers are part of a healthy democracy and must be protected from reprisal." ~ http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/01/06-8">Presidential Candidate & U.S. Senator Barack Obama, 2008

"The President does not have the power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation." http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-cost-of-libyan-intervention/2011/03/22/ABYfx8CB_story.html">~Barack Obama, December 2007

"I believe that gay couples deserve the same legal rights as every other couple in this country." - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/44/post/obama-gay-couples-deserve-same-legal-rights-as-every-other-couple/2011/06/23/AGLs26hH_blog.html">~Barack Obama, June 2011

"What I'm not going to be doing is using Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws on this issue (medical cannabis), simply because I want folks to be investigating violent crimes and potential terrorism." http://reason.com/archives/2011/05/11/false-forbearance">~Barack Obama, 2008

[The Northerner]

2. K&R n/t