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Ellsberg ciriticizes Obama for prosecution of whistleblowers

Posted on June 10, 2010 by Richard Renner

Speigel Online is today releasing an interview with Daniel Ellsberg in which Ellsberg criticizes the Obama administration for increasing the use of criminal prosecutions against whistleblowers.  Ellsberg released the Pentagon Papers to reveal how numerous previous administrations had resorted to lying to the American people to conceal the real purposes of the Vietnam War. The Nixon Administration's prosecution of Ellsberg ended in dismissal after the infamous White House plumbers broke into the offices of Ellsberg's psychiatrist to steal records about Ellsberg's treatment.

In the Speigel Online interview Ellsberg says this about the prosecution of Thomas Drake:

For Obama to indict and prosecute Drake now, for acts undertaken and investigated during the Bush administration, is to do precisely what Obama said he did not mean to do -- "look backward." Of all the blatantly criminal acts committed under Bush, warrantless wiretapping by the NSA, aggression, torture, Obama now prosecutes only the revelation of massive waste by the NSA, a socially useful act which the Bush administration itself investigated but did not choose to indict or prosecute!

Bush brought no indictments against whistleblowers, though he suspended Drake's clearance. Obama, in this and other matters relating to secrecy and whistleblowing, is doing worse than Bush.

Science journalist Ed Brayton cheers on Ellsberg in this blog.

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David Colapinto, Daniel Ellsberg and Marsha Coleman-Adebayo on radio panel

Posted on February 22, 2010 by Richard Renner

On February 19, 2010, David Colapinto participated in an on-air panel during the “Your Call”radio show. Mr. Colapinto is General Counsel of the National Whistleblowers Center. Other panel members included Daniel Ellsberg who released the historic Pentagon Papers which helped to shorten the Vietnam War and Marsha Coleman-Adebayo a former analyst for the EPA who was fired was while blowing the whistle on contamination in South Africa. Daniel Ellsberg is releasing a movie about his story “The Most Dangerous Man in America” which is premiering in the California area in early March.

Mr. Ellsberg hopes that the film will expose parallels between the political anti whistleblower environment of the Vietnam era and today. He explained that whistleblowers have had historically little media attention but are gradually receiving more as their endeavors have furthered the public interest. Mr. Colapinto explained the difficulty whistleblowers have in exposing fraud, and recalled the story of an FBI employee, Sibel Edmonds, who received a gag order preventing her from suing the FBI for retaliation. This makes it nearly impossible for federal whistleblowers to expose fraud. Ms. Coleman-Adebayo explained the level of hostility she encountered after exposing contamination by U.S. companies in South Africa. She explained that she continually received death and rape threats as her court date approached. The whistleblower protection laws are insufficient and do nothing to protect whistleblowers from this type of abuse. Mr. Colapinto explained that government employees who blow the whistle have a 2% success rate and National Security employees have a zero percent chance. The national security apparatus that exists prevents employees from speaking out. This practice has prevented federal employees from speaking out when they could raise issues to make the public safer. Mr. Colapinto said that much better protections exist in the private sector for whistleblowers than in the public sector. Congress has had bi-partisan support for the bill H.R. 1507 which would give effective protection to federal employee whistleblowers. However, the bill has died in the Senate. Supporters of stronger laws to protect whistleblowers can call their Senators and ask them to support HR 1507 to ensure the protection of the public interest. Thanks to Mr. Colapinto and the panel for their informative discussion, alerting the public to the lack of protection that exists for whistleblowers defending the public interest. To listen to the interview in its entirety and learn more please click here. TAKE ACTION by calling on your Senators to stop a whistleblower bill containing poison pills, and adopt HR 1507 instead.

Intern Quinn McCall contributed to this blog entry.

 
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