WantToKnow.info presents this information as an opportunity for you to educate yourself and others, and to inspire us to join in working together for the good of all. We shine light into the unconscious shadows of ourselves and our world with the intention of inviting us both individually and collectively to make more conscious choices which allow us to step ever more fully into our magnificence and to build a brighter future

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Exposing Suppressed News

An Interview with Fred Burks, founder of WantToKnow.info

My guest today is Fred Burks, former presidential interpreter and whistleblower who founded WantToKnow.info in 2003.

"WantToKnow.info presents this information as an opportunity for you to educate yourself and others, and to inspire us to join in working together for the good of all. We shine light into the unconscious shadows of ourselves and our world with the intention of inviting us both individually and collectively to make more conscious choices which allow us to step ever more fully into our magnificence and to build a brighter future for us all."

--www.WantToKnow.info

Joan Brunwasser: Welcome to OpEdNews, Fred. Let's aim for a bit of backstory so that those who are unfamiliar with you and your website will have a good sense of who you are and how you got there. What caused you to become an activist in the first place?

Fred Burks: Thanks for inviting me, Joan. The path that led me to this important work has been quite fascinating. One startling event in July of 2001 changed everything for me. At the time, I had enjoyed working 15 years as a language interpreter for the U.S. Department of State, where I had become their top Indonesian interpreter. I felt honored to interpret for the likes of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush in the White House.

During those 15 years, I had not seen any clear evidence of major cover-ups in my work. I had a housemate who spouted conspiracy theories to me, yet I quietly laughed at his level of paranoia.

Everything changed that July when a trusted friend sent me a video tape of a press conferenceheld two months prior at the prestigious National Press Club in Washington, D.C. In this astonishing video, 22 high ranking military and government witnesses each testified about their personal experiences in a major cover-up of which I was completely unaware.

By the end of the video, my jaw was on the floor in disbelief. If it had been only a few officials, I might have dismissed it as aberrant paranoid thinking, but with 22 high-level officials of the kindfor which I often interpreted, I had no doubt that what they were reporting was undeniably real.

This eye-opening video testimony caused me to question everything about what was really happening behind the scenes in our world. I set out on a quest to find reliable information on all that was being hidden from us.

I was soon able to find lots of verifiable information on a number of websites supporting not only the claims of the witnesses in that video, but also raising many other very serious questions on other huge cover-ups. Scouring the Internet and voraciously reading books filled with solid information compiled by those whose eyes had been similarly opened, I found an amazing amount of reliable information which dramatically changed the way I looked at the world.

Yet even though the astounding evidence of all I found was readily available and easily verified using respected sources, the information was scattered across a variety of websites focused on individual topics. I couldn't find a single website which did a good job of putting together all of the wide range of undeniable evidence from reliable sources that I had found.

As a result, I founded WantToKnow.infoin 2003, with the primary mission of using reliable, verifiable information to expose all of these major cover-ups of which few are aware. I collaborated with a rich variety of experts who helped to put all of this mind-bending information into a greater context in order to help people understand how all of this was possible.

JB: How's it going?

FB: I'm incredibly grateful that since then, the website has received over 20 million visits from nearly every country around the globe, including a number of insiders who have shared valuable information with me. I regularly receive grateful messages from readers for helping them to understand what is really going on behind the scenes.

Though until 2001 I had seen very little in my work with the State Department to suggest a major conspiracy, a year later I interpreted at a secret meeting in the private residence of President Megawati of Indonesia where I saw clear manipulation which was later flatly denied by the U.S. government. When I resigned from the State Department two years later in 2004 because of excess secrecy, I became a whistleblower on this incident. As a result, I even ended up on the front page of the Wall Street Journal.

JB: For decades, the government and the corporate media have been quite successful in basically keeping people ignorant and fairly content. It seems like that's starting to change now and it's a good thing. Why is that?

FB: I've discovered that while many in the corporate media and government are good people with worthy intentions, key positions in both media and government are held by individuals who serve the agenda of a powerful global elite. These individuals have a commanding influence over which topics become the subject of public debate and which do not.

There is a person at the New York Times, for instance, who decides whether a key story will be published on the front page, relegated to the back pages, or not be covered at all. By his decisions, this individual has a huge impact on what topics will be discussed by the public.

Sadly, there is strong evidence that this critical position in almost all major media is held to this day by individuals in the pay of the CIA. And the CIA and other intelligence services clearly serve the interests of the power elite of our world. The CIA's Operation Mockingbird provides solid evidence of this.

In this way, the media has largely been able to dictate which topics become public knowledge and which are kept well hidden. Even Carl Bernstein, the renowned journalist responsible for uncovering the Watergate affair, has written powerfully about this unsavory complicity in an essay titled "The CIA and the Media."

JB: That's fascinating, Fred. Tell us more, please.

FB: As an example of this and of how it is changing, in 1996, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gary Webb came out with a thoroughly researched series of stories called "Dark Alliance." This explosive series exposed how the CIA was involved in the funneling of millions of dollars in illegal drug profits to a guerilla army run by the CIA. This would obviously have been huge news if reported in the mainstream media, but only Webb's San Jose Mercury News ran the story. No other media would touch it.

How Webb's story did eventually see the light of day shows how things have changed. As he lived in Silicon Valley where the Internet was just beginning to flourish, Webb published his series on the website of the Mercury News. His was the first Internet news story to "go viral." The story grew legs even as the major media remained awkwardly silent.

Yet eventually, top people at the Mercury News were threatened by the CIA, causing them to retract the story. Only as a result of this retraction did the major media finally report on the story, yet their reporting flashed headlines claiming Webb's story was all bunk, even though they could not provide any solid evidence that his stories were fabricated.

30 years ago, it would have been very difficult to find any solid information on an important story like this. Now, thanks to the Internet, anyone can do a search on Gary Webb and learn about his incredible Dark Alliance series: how it was first completely ignored, how it spread virally over the Internet, and how it was then slammed by the media, despite thorough research vetted by his editors.

From this example of Gary Webb, we can see both how the power elite and their media cronies have kept the public ignorant through control over what is reported and how the elite are losing control of the flow of information. The exciting news is that the advent of the Internet, with its credible alternative news websites, has allowed many vital stories to break through the media blockade, paving the way for a true democratization of information.

Thanks to the power of the Internet, anyone can now find reliable information on many vitally important, verifiable stories that once would have been nearly impossible to find. This profound change allows us to inform ourselves and others in ways that were never before possible. Yet with all of the fake news flooding the Internet, it is also important to be discerning, and to verify information before jumping to conclusions.

The website I manage, WantToKnow.info, is specifically dedicated to using the most reliable information available to report on topics the major media either has completely suppressed or won't adequately cover. OpEdNews offers another great example of alternative news reporting on many topics the major media fails to cover. The Internet, through websites like OpEdNews, is breaking through the barriers once put up by the power elite. Now the Internet provides free and easy access to once-hidden, vital information which we can use to build a brighter future. And that is exciting news!

JB: First of all, thanks for your kind words about OpEdNews and the role we play in shining a light on topics that the corporate media won't touch. Let's go back for a moment to your role as whistleblower. Generally, we see that those who choose to blow the whistle pay a steep price, losing their jobs, being marginalized, their families often split from the strain. Many times, they are tied up for years in costly lawsuits and their lives are ruined. What repercussions did you face when you chose that route? Also, look at the example you gave of Gary Webb. What ultimately happened to him for his outing of the CIA? That's instructive, too.

FB: Good question. Gary Webb was very much marginalized and ostracized for his Dark Alliance series. His career in journalism was ruined. He eventually became quite depressed, and in 2004, he committed suicide.

I am fortunate to have had a much gentler fate, though there certainly was a factor of risk.

I became a whistleblower only after I resigned from the State Department in late 2004, so I wasn't concerned about losing my job. By that time, I was ready to resign -- over a year earlier I had dedicated myself full-time to my important Internet work. The risk for me came a couple months later when I testified at the internationally watched trial of well- known Muslim cleric, Abu Bakar Baasyir, in Indonesia, held in January of 2005.

In my trial testimony, I publicly revealed U.S. government manipulations I personally witnessed while interpreting in the private home of President Megawati. This was at a secret meeting between her, U.S. ambassador to Indonesia Ralph Boyce, NSA Asian Affairs Director Karen Brooks, and a woman presented as personal envoy to President Bush, who privately admitted to me that she worked for the CIA. At this meeting, the Americans put heavy pressure on Megawati to secretly turn over Baasyir. To their surprise, Megawati refused, stating Baasyir was so well known that it could be a detriment to her career.

The Americans then stated that if Baasyir wasn't rendered to the US within the next two months, there would be problems. It was clearly a not-so-veiled threat. Megawati responded that the only way she could comply was if public opinion somehow turned against Baasyir. Six weeks later, the Bali bombing killed 202 people, including 88 Australians. Baasyir was almost immediately implicated and arrested as the man behind the bombing. Australia, which had been quite reluctant to join in the war on terror up to that point, suddenly was fully on board. This was all quite convenient for the U.S. Too convenient, in my opinion.

My father, who has been in jail three times for civil disobedience, was quite worried about my safety because of this testimony. And after my court appearance in Jakarta, a gentleman holding one of the highest positions in the Indonesian parliament approached me, offering sanctuary in Indonesia out of concern that I would be targeted upon my return home. He was particularly concerned as the U.S. government had immediately denied my testimony, with one top official even publicly calling me a liar.

JB: How terrifying! What happened next?

FB: I was quite pleasantly surprised after my court appearance: I became a celebrity for a week in Indonesia for speaking the truth, and there was very little fall out from my testimony back home. If anything, all of the press coverage I received helped to give my Internet work more legitimacy.

The two Wall Street Journal reporters who wrote a front page article about my whistleblowing were amazingly sympathetic. I sense they were impressed with my honesty. I knew their job was to make me look bad; I just asked that they tell the truth to the best of their ability.

I was thrilled that though the WSJ article did in some ways tear me down, the authors also wrote a number of things which really supported me. They quoted my boss, Stephanie, the chief of interpreting, as saying "He's gone off some deep end." Yet they also quoted her saying "[He's] very nice and very intelligent, and so good at his work that the State Department paid him to help train other interpreters." They stated that NSA Asian Affairs expert Karen Brooks, who was at the secret meeting I exposed, denied my court testimony, yet also quoted her saying "[he's] the most talented interpreter I've ever seen."

A couple years after my court testimony, a supporter of my work contacted the two WSJ reporters who wrote that article. He said they both told him they loved my work and followed what I was doing on the Internet. How cool is that? So I'm thrilled that unlike many whistleblowers, my exposing secrets that need to be exposed ended up supporting me in the important work of tearing down unnecessary walls of secrecy.

JB: That is very cool! Last spring I did a three-part series with Paul Thompson, the author of The Terror Timeline: Year by Year, Day by Day, Minute by Minute: A Comprehensive Chronicle of the Road to 9/11 -- and America's Response [Harper Collins, 2004] . More recently, he compiled The Clinton Email Scandal Timeline, and another timeline for the Clinton Foundation and we talked about that [see part one here]. At the time, I didn't know about WantToKnow or that he writes for you. What else should we know about him?

FB: Paul Thompson is a hero of the 9/11 movement. I was thrilled to find his most amazing and thorough 9/11 timeline early in 2003, before I even started WantToKnow.info. He was the first to compile media stories in a systematic way that showed beyond any shadow of a doubt that the government's official story of 9/11 was far from the truth.

The one thing Paul didn't have on his website back then was a good summary of his huge volumes of work. So, I took his entire timeline and first summarized it down to 60 pages of material. Then, I used that to create a 25-page summary and eventually got it down to a 10-page and even a concise, yet very powerful, two-page summary.

I posted all of these summaries shortly after starting WantToKnow.info. The two-page summary soon became popular and was largely responsible for the website pulling in several hundred visits a day.

That summary also caught the attention of world-renowned theologian David Ray Griffin. Prof. Griffin then used our 60-page summary as the original base for his first of many books on 9/11, titled The New Pearl Harbor, which sold 150,000 copies. Prof. Griffin, Paul Thompson and many other great researchers were happy to be a part of the work of WantToKnow.info.

JB: And Thompson's timeline was ultimately picked up by Harper Collins, a mainstream publisher. But many people simply don't want to touch 9/11. Period. It's just too loaded a topic. What's an easy entry point for people who concede that we're probably not getting the whole truth and haven't for a while, but who don't want to jump off the deep end?

FB: Most people have a knee-jerk emotional reaction to 9/11 and other "conspiracy theories." So even if solid, easily verifiable evidence is presented from reliable sources, many aren't even willing to look or consider it seriously. They are emotionally attached to their beliefs.

It doesn't help that many "conspiracy theorists" are just as emotionally attached (or even more so) to their beliefs, and they can be quite aggressive in trying to convince others in a way that really turns people off.

For those who are willing to hold an open mind and consider the possibility that things are not always what they seem, the home page of www.WantToKnow.info is a great place to start exploring. It lists 10 remarkable facts revealing major cover-ups, of which few people are aware. The whole website is committed to using the most reliable sources available and to giving links to verify information that is presented.

For those open to exploring the many serious questions around 9/11, I recommend starting with the two-page 9/11 summary at http://www.wanttoknow.info/911/9-11-timeline. Here are just two entries from that summary for a taste of what's there:

January, 2001: After the November 2000 elections, US intelligence agencies are told to "back off" investigating the bin Ladens and Saudi royals. There have always been constraints on investigating Saudi Arabians. [BBC, 11/6/01, more]

September 20, 2001:Several 9/11 hijackers later mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Reportturn up alive. "Five of the alleged hijackers have emerged, alive, innocent and astonished to see their names and photographs appearing on satellite television...The hijackers were using stolen identities." [quote in Times of London, 9/20/01, see also BBC, 9/23/01, more]

JB: Thanks, Fred. Intriguing! That'll get people started. Let's shift gears for a moment. Tell us more about the PEERS (Public Education and Empowerment Resource Service)umbrella that is "[d]edicated to the greatest good of all who share our beautiful world." Some parts of the PEERS network are quite upbeat and inspiring, like Moment of Love and your free online course offerings. How do you maintain positivity when we know that we are being systematically deprived of such major news stories that shape our lives and our futures?

FB: I've been very clear since I first started this work that pointing out problems without offering solutions is not the way to go. It is vitally important not only to provide information that educates readers to the serious challenges we are facing, as well as to inspire and empower people to stand up and make a difference. It's critical to find a balance between presenting factual evidence of major corruption and manipulation, and showing people how we are already making a big difference in changing all of this for the better.

A key to finding this balance has been through setting up a whole group of websites. PEERS is the non-profit that we set up over 10 years ago to support the 12 websites we've now created, including WantToKnow.info. PEERS is all about inspiring people to join together to support the greatest good of all in our world.

If you check out the home page of the PEERS website, you'll discover that only two of our websites are focused largely on cover-ups and corruption: WantToKnow.info and the Hidden Knowledge Course. The others all offer a rich variety of inspirational materials and resources designed to remind people of our common humanity, and to help them become more powerful creators in our world.

JB: I applaud that combination of intent and vision. Can you give us an example?

FB: Our four Personal Growth Courses are designed to help people be the change they want to see. Two of the courses do a beautiful job of weaving the light and the shadow in a way that leaves people hopeful and inspired. We've gotten rave reviews from almost everyone who has completed one of these courses. And like everything else PEERS offers, it's all free of charge. About 50% of the people who complete one of our courses make an average donation of over $200. I believe that this says something about the quality of the courses.

What many don't realize is that besides inadequately reporting on some of the biggest scandals and greatest corruption in our world, the major media also does a lousy job of reporting on the most inspiring things going on. They tend to believe that in order to sell, news has to be sensational with lots of blood, guts, and tears. This has caused the media to greatly skew our perception towards the dysfunctional part of our world while neglecting the many amazing things happening all over.

If people knew the huge numbers of individuals and organizations coming together to focus on building a better world for all of us, they would be astounded. The six-minute video Blessed Unrest does a fantastic job of showing this. That is why, despite all the craziness and unpredictability of our world, I am very optimistic that together, we are making a big difference. I believe it's only a matter of time until we see some major, positive changes in our world.

JB: Amen to that! I can't wait to check out some of the other sites. Anything you'd like to add before we wrap this up?

FB: I'd like to leave you with a paragraph from the home page of WantToKnow.info.

WantToKnow.info presents this information as an opportunity for you to educate yourself and others, and to inspire us to join in working together for the good of all. We shine light into the unconscious shadows of ourselves and our world with the intention of inviting us both individually and collectively to make more conscious choices which allow us to step ever more fully into our magnificence and to build a brighter future for us all.

Thank you, Joan, for helping to shine light into some of those dark shadows and for joining me in helping to build a better world. This is the kind of exchange that I know makes a difference in our world.

JB: Thank you! It was a pleasure speaking with you, Fred. Keep up the good work!

****

Thanks to Josh Mitteldorf for suggesting this interview.

Thanks to Meryl Ann Butler for her patient editing and support.

The six-minute Blessed Unrest video

Fred adds: we have and Elections Information Center at http://www.wanttoknow.info/electionsinformation. And for a great collection of major media news articles revealing blatant election fraud, see http://www.wanttoknow.info/electionsnewsarticles

Authors Website: http://www.opednews.com/author/author79.html

Authors Bio:

Joan Brunwasser is a co-founder of Citizens for Election Reform (CER) which since 2005 existed for the sole purpose of raising the public awareness of the critical need for election reform. Our goal: to restore fair, accurate, transparent, secure elections where votes are cast in private and counted in public. Because the problems with electronic (computerized) voting systems include a lack of transparency and the ability to accurately check and authenticate the vote cast, these systems can alter election results and therefore are simply antithetical to democratic principles and functioning.



Since the pivotal 2004 Presidential election, Joan has come to see the connection between a broken election system, a dysfunctional, corporate media and a total lack of campaign finance reform. This has led her to enlarge the parameters of her writing to include interviews with whistle-blowers and articulate others who give a view quite different from that presented by the mainstream media. She also turns the spotlight on activists and ordinary folks who are striving to make a difference, to clean up and improve their corner of the world. By focusing on these intrepid individuals, she gives hope and inspiration to those who might otherwise be turned off and alienated. She also interviews people in the arts in all their variations - authors, journalists, filmmakers, actors, playwrights, and artists. Why? The bottom line: without art and inspiration, we lose one of the best parts of ourselves. And we're all in this together. If Joan can keep even one of her fellow citizens going another day, she considers her job well done.


When Joan hit one million page views, OEN Managing Editor, Meryl Ann Butler interviewed her, turning interviewer briefly into interviewee. Read the interview here.

While the news is often quite depressing, Joan nevertheless strives to maintain her mantra: "Grab life now in an exuberant embrace!"


Joan has been Election Integrity Editor for OpEdNews since December, 2005. Her articles also appear at Huffington Post, RepublicMedia.TV and Scoop.co.nz.