The War on Journalism, Journalists and Whistleblowers
562 Writers Appeal for End to Surveillance - By John Robles On the occasion of International Human Rights Day
562 authors from around the world, including 5 Nobel Prize laureates, have
signed an open letter calling for the defense of civil liberties against
surveillance by corporations and governments. The 5 Nobel Prize Winners who
signed the appeal are: Orhan Pamuk, J.M. Coetzee, Elfriede Jelinek, Günter
Grass and Tomas Tranströmer. The appeal is another in a long series of calls by
journalists, writers, whistleblowers, truth seekers, activists, hacktivists,
human rights defenders, those calling for a return to the rule of law and
hundreds of millions of other citizens of the world calling for the rule of
law and for governments to respect the rights of the individual. Such a noble effort only further makes it clear we
are no longer living in a world where true democracy and the rights of the
individual matter in the least. We are living in a world controlled by
elites, corporations, big money, the military industrial complex and
intelligence agencies. For these entities the rights of the individual are
abstractions and nonsensical concepts that have no bearing on mass control
and the bottom line. The lie of the “War on Terror” and the claim by
intelligence agencies in bed with corporations that the massive surveillance
is for guaranteeing our safety can no longer justify the extent of the
massive spying nor the stripping of our rights as individuals to be free
from surveillance. What is perhaps stunning and further underlines
just how far we have come down the road towards global fascism is the fact
that the letter is addressed not only to governments and states but to
corporations. Such a letter also underlines the growing desperation that
citizens of the world have toward governments, corporations and intelligence
agencies who operate with impunity, without oversight and completely ignore
the wises and the needs of their citizenry. The
text of the letter
is as follows: In recent months, the
extent of mass surveillance has become common knowledge. With a few clicks
of the mouse the state can access your mobile device, your e-mail, your
social networking and Internet searches. It can follow your
political leanings and activities and, in partnership with Internet
corporations, it collects and stores your data, and thus can predict your
consumption and behaviour. The basic pillar of
democracy is the inviolable integrity of the individual. Human integrity
extends beyond the physical body. In their thoughts and in their personal
environments and communications, all humans have the right to remain
unobserved and unmolested. This fundamental human
right has been rendered null and void through abuse of technological
developments by states and corporations for mass surveillance purposes. A person under
surveillance is no longer free; a society under surveillance is no longer a
democracy. To maintain any
validity, our democratic rights must apply in virtual as in real space. * Surveillance violates
the private sphere and compromises freedom of thought and opinion. * Mass surveillance
treats every citizen as a potential suspect. It overturns one of our
historical triumphs, the presumption of innocence. * Surveillance makes
the individual transparent, while the state and the corporation operate in
secret. As we have seen, this power is being systemically abused. * Surveillance is
theft. This data is not public property: it belongs to us. When it is used
to predict our behaviour, we are robbed of something else: the principle of
free will crucial to democratic liberty. WE DEMAND THE RIGHT for
all people to determine, as democratic citizens, to what extent their
personal data may be legally collected, stored and processed, and by whom;
to obtain information on where their data is stored and how it is being
used; to obtain the deletion of their data if it has been illegally
collected and stored. WE CALL ON ALL STATES
AND CORPORATIONS to respect these rights. WE CALL ON ALL CITIZENS
to stand up and defend these rights. WE CALL ON THE UNITED
NATIONS to acknowledge the central importance of protecting civil rights in
the digital age, and to create an International Bill of Digital Rights. WE CALL ON GOVERNMENTS
to sign and adhere to such a convention. End One of the key phrases of the letter is the
following: “The basic pillar of democracy is the inviolable integrity of the
individual.” This phrase is one that must be repeated over and over and one
which must be taken to heart by those in power, by government bodies and by
intelligence agencies who purport to be part of “democratic” governments,
for it is the violation of this simple and inalienable human right that lies
at the core of everything that has gone wrong with the world. We saw the principle violator of human rights and
this basic human right, the United States, trample on civil liberties,
freedoms and even the right to be free from extra-judicial execution after
9-11 and they have continued to this day having successfully built a
worldwide electronic spy network unparalleled to anything that has existed
in all of human history. They have enlisted governments all over the world
to join their efforts under the guise of a “War on Terror”, and many of the
world’s states have willingly followed down that road. As journalists and whistleblowers and truth seekers we have attempted to expose and stop this onslaught but largely to no avail. Someone speaks out, they are shut up. An organization publishes, they are shut down. Someone connects the dots or exposes evidence of illegality, they are marginalized and gotten rid of. There is currently a war being waged on all of us, it is not a war on terror, it is a war on you and me and you and I have no rights.
The "War on Journalism" is a War on Truth - By John Robles 7 December, 2013 18:06 There is a
very dangerous and historically heretofore unheard of precedent about to
take place which could fundamentally change the world in more dark and
sinister ways than even Machiavelli could have ever dreamed of and one which
should have all of us, as citizens of this “modern” world very, very afraid.
The event is a very dangerous and crucial turning point in the war on
journalism that began with the cover up of the events of 9-11 and took place
on December 3rd 2013 in front of the British Parliament’s Home Affairs
Select Committee when the editor of the UK’s Guardian Alan Rusbridger was
questioned with regard to the publication of files and information given to
the Guardian by Edward Snowden and the world was informed that the Guardian
would be investigated for terrorism. Think
about that for a minute, here you have a media outlet informing the public
and the world at large whilst responsibly performing its proper function as
a member of the Fourth Estate and which has, in carrying out that function
exposed some of the most massive violations of law and internationally
accepted norms being committed by western security agencies against the
world and their own civilian populations, and these very security agencies
and structures are now going to seek revenge by first questioning the
patriotism of the organization (implying that such leaks as those by Edward
Snowden are treason or espionage) and then finally accusing them of
terrorism. If this
farce and twisting of the law and the very fabric of elementary human logic
is actually allowed to stand, the damage that it will cause to all of us
will be unquantifiable. If the
Guardian is actually charged with any crime closely associated with
terrorism or treason then effects will be felt all around the world. Anyone
involved in any kind of expression of free speech that the security services
doesn’t like or who is attempting to expose the truth will be effectively
muzzled by fear, which is exactly what the intimidation tactics being used
against the Guardian are designed to do. If a
newspaper like the Guardian is prosecuted under the pretext of fighting
terrorism for releasing information on illegal activities being carried out
by the security services, and with the labeling of journalists and sources
as terrorists, something that is sure to follow, media outlets and
journalists worldwide will be in effect owned. Why worldwide? Quite simply
because of the nature of the war on terror and its global reach and the
millions of “anti-terrorism mechanisms that have been put in place all over
the planet. The US and
all of its proxies (allies) who goose step in line following every move the
US makes, and as we have now seen in the witch hunt surrounding the Guardian
by the UK Parliament, may have been disappointed by their attempts to
persecute, prosecute and sentence individuals under the espionage act of
1917. Hence the terrorism label. The
“light” sentence received by Manning from a US Government viewpoint, the
standoff with Assange, the fact that such efforts have not stopped leaks and
that some media outlets still maintain at least a pretense of independence
may also be the reason that this latest odious tactic has been unveiled in
the UK with regard to the Guardian and the almost unbelievable possibility
that they may be charged under Draconian terrorist legislation. It is
ridiculous, if not ludicrous, for the US/UK and FVEY countries to attempt to
prosecute individuals and organizations such as WikiLeaks and Julian Assange
under the US Espionage Act of 1917 which applies to the United States and
nothing more and which has been used, quite frankly illegally, to justify
the extra-judicial and even more importantly perhaps, extra-territorial
persecution of journalists and media outlets such as WikiLeaks, but it is
sheer insanity to accuse a media organization of terrorism when carrying out
is normal function. It is
currently not illegal anywhere in the world, as far as I know and please
correct me if I am wrong, to expose illegality being carried out by (in this
case the US/UK) governments and neither is it illegal to violate the US
Espionage Act of 1917 unless you are in the US. But, and this is where it
gets dangerous, to classify organizations such as the Guardian, journalists,
sources and anyone else they want as “terrorists” leaves them with almost
complete impunity to do what they wish to these individuals and bodies. We have
seen, and much of the world’s media has documented, the illegality that has
been carried by the United States with impunity since the events of
9-11-2001. With each
revelation, from torture, to war crimes, to Guantanamo, to collusion and
negligence with regard to the events of 9-11 themselves, to extra-judicial
executions, illegal invasions of sovereign nations, ties and collusion with
Al-Qaeda and the list goes on and on, we may have at first expected
prosecutions and those responsible to be held accountable but in fact the
opposite has occurred and rather than these revelations becoming fewer and
perhaps at least a pretense to a return of rule of law having taken place,
we have seen the US and its allies lash out in irrational and unpredictable
ways at anyone who has attempted to expose the illegality. This new
war, the “War on Journalism”, is embodied by the likes of brave truth
seekers like Julian Assange, information activists like Jeremy Hammond and
others who have been persecuted and have suffered for the higher ideals of
rule of law and transparency. It is being carried out by a corrupt criminal
cabal of politicians and heads of intelligence and military bodies and
corporations who hypocritically preach to other countries about
transparency, democracy and rule of law, while going after anyone who
exposes heinous crimes and malfeasance. The war on
journalism and truth has existed since 9-11-2001. It began with a crackdown
on US mass media, first with anti-patriotic rhetoric and the activities of
insidious groups like Fox Security, then there was the marginalization of
anyone who dared to question the official version of the story, the
intimidation and even outright assassination of witnesses and those who
refused to “take the money” and even innocent bloggers and site owners who
were merely trying to document the events and get to the bottom of who
murdered almost 3,000 of their fellow human beings. It is
becoming clearer that it was forces in and behind the US
Military/Industrial/Intelligence Complex who were the architects of 9-11 and
who continue to be the only profiteers from the events. Yet they continue to
engage in aggressive invasions and illegal wars, back terrorists, further
the stripping of rights, violating the sovereignty of nations and
subjugating and manipulating the gullible, the uninformed and the innocent.
Their desperation is becoming more evident and even more dangerous as they
irrationally lash out at anyone who dares expose them. Like a
mafia boss who orders the killing of all witnesses to a murder the US/UK/AUS
intelligence agencies and governments are going after those who expose their
crimes, and these crimes are historic in breadth, depth and quantity. In
that context then it make sense to consider charging a newspaper with
terrorism, or a site owner with treason, or a leaker with espionage. The
criminals control the organs of justice, the bodies of power, the military
and the intelligence services and their greatest enemy is the truth and
anyone who might reveal it so any label that works to shut down decent is
acceptable. Just like
Gareth Williams, the MI6 Agent who was stuffed and locked in a duffel bag in
an MI6 “safe house” just as he was about to reveal NSA/MI6/ GCHQ secrets to
journalists, and Edward Snowden whose truth is so “dangerous” multiple
incidents with presidential aircraft were incurred by the desperate US
Government acting irrationally as it tried to get its claws back in him,
Alan Rusbridger is just another voice to be silenced and an individual of
whom an example must be made and a another case where it is clear “they”
will say and do anything to protect their own criminal self-interests while
hypocritically parading themselves as patriots and everyone else as
traitors. The world
must not be afraid of the truth, journalists must not be afraid to seek the
truth, bloggers and site owners must not be afraid to publish the truth,
hactivists and information activists must not be afraid to find and locate
the truth, truth seekers and proponents of transparency must not be afraid
to question and as the nefarious activities of those behind the “War on
Terror and now the War on Journalism” must not be allowed to continue
without scrutiny or light being shined on them, and they must be stopped for
all of mankind. The fact
that journalists, leakers, sources, whistleblowers and anyone else who dares
to seek the truth are now facing the prospect of being falsely classified as
terrorists is a truly odious development and if it allowed to stand the
ramifications for all of us cannot be overstated. Any
prosecution of anyone connected with the Guardian, Edward Snowden,
WikiLeaks, Julian Assange or any journalist anywhere in the world under the
guise of terrorism will only temporarily muzzle and delay the truth from
coming out, but the violent reaction and backlash that such a tactic may
bring about is something that those attempting such a folly are clearly not
thinking about. They can
kill, marginalize, imprison, persecute, threaten, surveil, beat, drone and
attempt to brainwash and terrorize the world into submission but the human
spirit, the goodness and the love that is in most of us will prevail, and no
matter what they do, they will fail.
Obama Continues the Secret US War on Whistleblowers - By John Robles 1 May, 09:52 US President
Obama has continued not only Bush wars and policies, but has continued and
expanded the Bush war on whistleblowers, the last hope for many that the
truth may prevail. In a sane world if one were to witness a crime or some
other clearly egregious or amoral conduct, one would think that one could
report it and the guilty would be dealt with, however we do not live in a
sane world. For whistleblowers this is the initial dilemma, but due to their
consciences or their belief in a higher morality they decide to blow the
whistle, almost always knowing that they will suffer for it. Whistleblowers
are heroes who risk everything to get the truth out, something which should
be rewarded, in a sane world that is. “Assange,” it
is the first word that most people think about when they hear the word
“whistleblower” but this association is in fact a slightly disingenuous one.
Although the making of the surname of the co-founder of the WikiLeaks
organization a household name worldwide by the global media has done a lot
to focus on the case of WikiLeaks and has helped to keep Julian Assange
alive, it has done little to help the plight of whistleblowers worldwide. WikiLeaks and
Julian Assange are technically not really whistleblowers themselves, they
are something much worse and I will tell you why in a minute. What the
WikiLeaks organization did was far more insidious than what any
whistleblower could do; they provided an anonymous platform for
whistleblowers who had nowhere else to turn. They gave whistleblowers a
place to at least try to get the truth out, something that is usually the
domain of the Fourth Estate, which has proven since the Bush years to be
incapable or unwilling to go against the government line and to expose
malfeasance and crimes by officials, no matter how egregious. Why is
WikiLeaks insidious and evil? They of course are not! I say that from the
point of view of the U.S. Government and the Obama Administration. If you
doubt for one instant that the criminals in Washington are afraid of the
truth all you have to do is look at the reaction to WikiLeaks and the
persecution of Mr. Assange and everyone else connected to WikiLeaks. The way they
have used almost every method known to man to try to shut down WikiLeaks is
a true real and damning testament not to the “evil” of WikiLeaks but to the
evil of the criminals in Washington hiding in the dark, behind cloaks of
secrecy and the all encompassing mien of “national security.” The “case”
against Julian Assange (I used the term case which is for lack of a better
word as there is no “case” against him, there are trumped up “allegations”
of a sexual nature involving a ruptured condom but no official complaint or
criminal charges) and WikiLeaks has done perhaps what it was designed to do
and has detracted from the mission of WikiLeaks by taking the focus away
from the actual leaks and putting it on the leakers. This has been voiced by
WikiLeaks principals, by the Anonymous collective, whistleblower advocates
and proponents of transparency regarding the fabricated Swedish claims and
the U.S. persecution of Julian. WikiLeaks and
Julian Assange are very fortunate as they have been able to weather the
storm, a fact that must be repeated and respected, as they have survived an
all out sustained and prolonged assault by the full force of the U.S.
Government and all its mechanisms, and have managed to survive. Albeit for
Julian, being forced to seek refuge in an embassy and be deprived of his
freedom may be wanting, he has managed to stay alive and out of the claws of
the U.S. police state. Their survival
is due in a large part to the media coverage the charismatic Assange has
managed to maintain but for whistleblowers like Bradley Manning and others,
fate has not been so kind. Whistleblowers are usually marginalized, their
reputations are destroyed, many are imprisoned, lose their jobs or have
outright “accidents” leading to their deaths. This is not an exaggeration
but a documented fact. The motivations
of whistleblowers may be different but the attempt to correct wrongs, for
whatever reason is a noble act and should be rewarded and applauded, in a
sane world this would be the case. What we see now, and I am writing about
the U.S. but this applies to other countries as well, in particular U.S.
lapdogs like the U.K., Australia, Canada, and others, is that these brave
and upstanding individuals are demonized and the very criminals they are
attempting to expose are protected and rewarded. The hypocrisy and reversal
of logic is mind boggling and leaves one gasping in disbelief. Currently the
Obama Administration is carrying out a shameful and, according to Bill
Moyers dot com, “…
unprecedented campaign against whistleblowers, particularly on those who
have divulged information that relates to national security.” Of course one
cannot say shameful or disgraceful or criminally negligent on U.S. media
when referring to the “imperial Executive,” but I think all of these words
apply, and others as well. Whistleblowers
are individuals who may see criminal activity, waste, violations of
regulations or unethical, immoral or other egregious behavior and attempt to
correct these wrongs but are then demonized by the very system they are
trying to bring in line with what is acceptable, moral and legal. A system
that goes after these individuals, by doing so proves itself to be either
criminally corrupt, morally bankrupt, guilty as sin or all of the three. In
the case of the U.S. this goes all the way to the Oval office as it has
since the Bush coup and the creation of the all powerful imperial executive. Moyers and
Company and two of their weriters, John Light and Laureen Sweeney, have done
what most in the U.S. toe-the-line-mass-media have feared to do and have
been negligent in doing, and have reported on six individual whistleblowers
and their plights and theie stories deserve attention and they must all be
applauded and rewarded. These are individuals who followed their conscience,
like Bradley Manning, and have had to pay a high price for their morality. The Obama
Administration, following in the footsteps of the first imperial U.S.
president George Bush, has gone after these persons using the Espionage Act,
an archaic law which had only been used three times in U.S. history until
Obama was placed in office. Obama has used it six times against six
individuals. Citing Moyers
and Company, these six are: Thomas Drake a former senior executive at the
U.S. National Security Agency who was charged under the Espionage Act. He
attempted to report government waste on an NSA program called Trailblazer,
which cost $1.2 billion and one called ThinThread which cost $3 million. He
decided to blow the whistle on waste when the Bush administration began the
illegal warrantless surveillance of American citizens, something he could
not do anything about but which he disagreed with. According to Moyers he
initially faced up to 35 years in prison but eventually pleaded guilty to a
misdemeanor. 2: Stephen
Jin-Woo Kim, a specialist in nuclear proliferation who worked as a
contractor for the U.S. State Department. He made a statement about a North
Korean nuclear test to the U.S. media, in a usual conversation between
expert and press, and was indicted by a Federal Grand Jury, but the case has
not yet been brought to trial. 3: John
Kiriakou, was a CIA agent who followed his conscience when it came to the
illegal interrogation methods and torture that was being carried out by the
U.S. and was sentenced to two and a half years in prison for giving
journalists the names of two former colleagues who tortured detainees. 4: Shamai K.
Leibowitz, who was an FBI Hebrew translator and was worried that Israel
would take the disastrous step of bombing nuclear facilities Iran. His leak
of a wire tap to a blogger cost him 20 months in prison. 5: Bradley
Manning who believe the American public had the right to know of the crimes
being committed by the U.S. in Afghanistan and Iraq. He leaked documents and
videos to Wikileaks. Myers wrote: “A military judge ruled earlier this month
that for Manning to be convicted under the Espionage Act, the prosecution
would have to prove that Manning had ‘reason to believe’ that the files
could be used to harm the U.S. or to aid a foreign power.” 6: Jeffrey
Sterling was a CIA officer who was privy to the details of a plan to derail
plans Iran may have had in building a nuclear bomb. He is cited as a source
who believed that a U.S. plan to sabotage Iran’s nuclear operations may have
in fact brought Iran closer to developing a nuclear weapon. Sterling has
maintained his innocence and the U.S. Justice Department says it has
effectively terminated the case. These are
unfortunately just some cases which are being prosecuted under the Espionage
Act. The U.S. has myriad ways to deal with whistleblowers, including
outright assassination. There are many different areas where whistleblowers
have attempted to get the truth out and the people behind the cases are as
varied as the information. Sadly the result for most is violent opposition
by the authorities and unjust persecution. Cases of
whistleblowers and truth proponents being persecuted are too many to go into
here and the sad part is that there are many people who we will never know
about, and who paid the ultimate price. Of the loud
cases the Valerie Plame affair comes to mind, where CIA Agent Controller
Plame was burned by the New York Times and Karl Rove, leading to the deaths
of possibly hundreds of her previous agents worldwide. Her husband was a
diplomat who was against one of the false pretexts for invading Iraq. Then there are thousands
of others including:
Daniel Ellsburg and Anthony Russo (Pentagon Papers), W. Mark Felt
(Deepthroat/Nixon), A. Ernest Fitzgerald (Cost overruns/Nixon), Gregory C.
Minor, Richard B. Hubbard, and Dale G. Bridenbaugh (nuclear power plant
flaws), Mordechai Vanunu (Israeli Nuclear Program, 17 years in prison 11 in
solitary confinement), Frederic Whitehurst (FBI whistleblower), Gary Webb
(CIA, Iran Contra, Drug funding) shot twice in the head, Jesselyn Radack
(John Walker Lindh), Katharine Gun (GCHQ Iraq invasion crimes), Joseph
Wilson (Plame Affair, Iraq invasion lies), Richard Convertino (lack of Bush
Administration support in prosecuting terrorists), Joe Darby (Abu Ghraib),
Sibel Edmonds (FBI post 9-11 issues), Bunnatine "Bunny" H. Greenhouse
(Halliburton war profiteering), Mark Klein (NSA illegal surveillance), Karen
Kwiatkowski (USAF Iraq lies), William Sanjour (EPA), Russ Tice (NSA, CIA,
DIA), and Linda Tripp (Clinton). Then there are
those who had knowledge of 9-11 who
have been killed: Barry
Jennings, Beverly Eckert, Kenneth Johanneman, Michael H. Doran, Christopher
Landis, Paul Smith, Deborah Palfrey, Major General David Wherley, Salvatore
Princiotta, David Graham, Prasanna Kalahasthi, Wendy Burlingame, Katherine
Smith, Daniel Pearl, Benazir Bhutto, William Cooper, Michael Zebuhr, Hunter
S Thompson, Dan Wallace, Michael Connell (Bush vote fraud, dead), and then
you can add the thousands killed over the Kennedy assassination and the list
goes on and on. When writing
this I remembered a strange event that happened to me in Mexico. I met an
American woman there who had been living there since after the Kennedy
assassination and she told me a story how a woman ran up to her house one
night and was pounding on the door saying killers were after her. The woman
and her husband let her in and proceeded to listen to the woman telling a
story about how she had witnessed where the shooting came from during the
Kennedy assassination. The couple thought she was insane but humored her and
drove her as far from the town as they could. The next morning it was
reported by the local press that an unknown woman had been found shot to
death in a ditch. The woman’s husband soon after died mysteriously and she
ran to Mexico. I thought it sounded like a stretch but today I doubt it was. That is the
problem with government secrecy and the way they marginalize whistleblowers,
people don’t believe you if you talk against those in power, they either
think you are crazy or making things up, then when you are suicide or
killed, it is a coincidence. My own whistleblowing case in the US which
involved hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal money being stolen by
local officials and the murder of a man in prison ended with the same office
I complained to a grand jury against destroying my life. Unfortunately for
me, like many of the people listed above, no one wanted to listen. Will the
criminals in power use every instrument they can to get truth seekers? Sure
they will, and do. Will they kill to keep their crimes secret? You bet. Just
ask Julian Assange, credited with being the most prolific whistleblower in
history with a reported 1.2 million individual leaks to his credit. May all of
these heroes be remembered and honored, for that is what whistleblowers are,
true heroes and of a higher morality than those around them who would
extinguish the light of truth to continue their nefarious activities in the
dark.
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