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This is Obama's and the DOJ's declaration of its war on Whistleblowers. Unless the public demands they stop this prosecution on truth-telling, our country in a couple of months will have no whistleblowers to see that the truth gets out even when our government blatantly lies to the public."
In recent days, other well-known whistleblowers and analysts have attacked ongoing Obama administration crackdown. One example is the Justice Department's indictment of former CIA agent Jeffrey Sterling on charges of leaking classified information to a reporter, apparently James Risen of the New York Times. The Washington Post reported the indictment Jan. 6 as "continuing the Obama administration's unprecedented crackdown on the flow of government secrets to the media."
The previous day, the Post reported how the White House Office of Management and Budget Agencies sent a memo to all of the nation's top federal security officials in the Executive Branch.
The memo told officials how they should conduct security reviews of sensitive or classified information as the Obama administration attempts to safeguard against future leaks to the information-sharing Web site WikiLeaks and other news organizations. "Among about 100 questions," the Post said, "the memo asks how agencies are measuring the "trustworthiness' of employees with access to sensitive information and whether workers must report whenever they have contact with news reporters."
Three More Federal Whistleblowers
In reaction to such efforts, former FBI special agent Coleen Rowley published a column Jan. 10 on OpEd News and elsewhere warning that "a significant portion of the 854,000 intelligence operatives, analysts, agents, private contractors and consultants now operating in the 'Top Secret America' have already turned the 'war on terror' inward, targeting fellow Americans, no longer focusing just on Muslims and mosques but on infiltrating peace, environmental, civil liberties and social justice groups."
The day previous, former FBI contract translator Sibel Edmonds headlined her Boiling Frogs blog with, "Obama's Whistleblower-Hunt: Whistleblowers Long for Bush-Cheney Era Leniency?" Edmonds, an FBI contract employee focused on Mideast languages, was fired in early 2002 after informing FBI supervisors that she encounted evidence on wiretaps that a foreign power was apparently bribing members of Congress.
The Justice Department fought Edmonds through the courts for years citing state secrets to block release of the congressional names. Edmonds ultimately released the information in 2009 via subpoena in another case, as I reported from outside the deposition site. Madsen, a frequent OpEd News contributor and former National Security Agency analyst, was the only other reporter on the scene at the long-sought deposition, and only he named the names at the time.
The concept of reporting on bribes to officials even with sworn testimony makes mainstream organizations nervous for fear of endangering official sources unless law enforcers themselves want publicity for pre-trial allegations. In this instance, those who received the donations easily deflected what few reporter questions raised by saying they enjoy many supporters and have no way of knowing why they donate.
Despite her frustrations with the process, Edmonds unfavorably contrasted today's Obama DoJ with the Bush years.
"Despite all the threats and muscle-flexing not a single whistleblower, including myself, got arrested or even pursued criminally under the previous regime," Edmonds wrote this weekend on her blog. "With Obama the era of threats has changed into an era of punishment-imprisonment, and in some cases even torture."
The other whistleblower who has stepped forward is former diplomat and retired Army Col. Ann Wright. She wrote a column in OpEd News Jan. 5 entitled, " Obama: No Whistleblowing on My Watch." The author is a 29-year U.S. Army/Army Reserves veteran and a former U.S. diplomat. She resigned in March, 2003 in opposition to the war on Iraq after service in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, among other nations.
"As President, Obama says -- No whistleblowing on my watch!" Wright wrote. "As he has on so many issues as President, Obama is taking a 180-degree turn from his comments as a candidate -- comments on which the American people relied and for which they elected him."
What to do?
In Alabama, Simpson concludes her statement today with this plea:
Please stand up and make your voices be heard that whistleblowers who tell the truth should not be prosecuted. Ask why none of the military or other government officials have been prosecuted for lying to people in our country about these wars and foreign affairs.
