whistleblowers Archives

Robert Greenwald’s Brave New Film

A funny thing happened after post-9/11 whistleblowers started being gagged, persecuted, prosecuted, raided, threatened and retaliated against. They began to organize. They gathered the wagons around and took to the press. It’s a phenomenon not uncommon in America, particularly when individuals believe they are being unfairly targeted by the government for doing the right thing. … Continue reading

If the Government Does It, It’s Legal

Indefinite detention of the innocent and guilty alike, without any hope of charges, trial, or release: this is now the American way. Most Americans, however, may not care to take that in, not even when the indefinitely detained go on a hunger strike. That act has certainly gotten Washington’s and the media’s collective attention. After all, could there … Continue reading

Bradley Manning’s Support System

This is the first in a series of profiles and interviews Antiwar.com is conducting this summer with activists who have made it their life’s work to challenge the mighty bulwarks of the U.S. national security state. The Bradley Manning Support Network’s legal fund to aid Manning in the fight of his life is running in … Continue reading

The Ultimate No-Fly List

Last week, touching down in India on his way to Afghanistan, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta described reality as you seldom hear it in the confines of Washington and, while he was at it, put his stamp of approval on a new global doctrine for the United States. Panetta is, of course, the man who, … Continue reading

Thou Shalt Not Leak

In early 2012 at a White House press briefing ABC’s Jake Tapper asked why the U.S. applauded courageous reporting overseas but did the reverse at home. “How does that square with the fact that this administration has been so aggressively trying to stop aggressive journalism in the U.S. by using the Espionage Act to take … Continue reading

Joining the Whistleblowers’ Club

The world can be a luckless place, but every now and then serendipity just knocks you off a cliff. In what passed for my real life before TomDispatch intervened, I was (and remain, on a part-time basis) a book editor in mainstream publishing. The “slush pile” in a publishing house is normally the equivalent of … Continue reading

Silent State: The Campaign Against Whistleblowers in Washington

One thing is obvious. No one ever joins the government in order to be a whistleblower or leaker. Whistleblowers are created, not born. To offer an example, as Peter Van Buren is happy to admit, before he spent a year on two forward operating bases in Iraq running a State Department provincial reconstruction team, he … Continue reading

Honoring Whistleblowers

Our country’s need for courageous whistleblowers is now. That is mostly why Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence (SAAII) publicly honors people who have spoken truth, and suffered the consequences, as Sam Adams, my former analyst colleague at CIA, did on Vietnam. So that is why, this year, we are honoring Thomas Drake, who was … Continue reading

The Pentagon Must Protect Whistleblowers

The grisly details continue to drip out. Five American soldiers have been accused of setting up “kills” and murdering innocent Afghans earlier this year, according to charges filed by the U.S. Army against them. But could some of the murders have been stopped earlier? And could potential whistleblowers within the military’s chain of command have … Continue reading

Congress Should Protect National Security Whistleblowers

What makes America safe? This fundamental question lies at the heart of current congressional debate over whether national security employees who expose wrongdoing should have the right to fight against retaliation. Some in Congress believe that protecting national security whistleblowers will eventually translate into dangerously disseminating classified information. This is fear-mongering. The efforts of past … Continue reading