A notable leak to the press could result in prosecution.
National security whistleblowers and their supporters say whoever leaked a batch of classified documents about the U.S. government’s drone warfare efforts to The Intercept should brace for the fury of federal prosecutors.
The Intercept says articles it published Thursday are based on classified slides from 2011 through 2013 provided by an unnamed source who opposes the U.S. policy of using drones to assassinate suspected terrorists. Exiled whistleblower Edward Snowden worked as a government contractor until 2013, but the source of the drone documents is described as new by Intercept journalists.
The person or persons responsible for the leak — identified with a singular “he” in one of the news publication’s articles — could face decades behind bars if charged with violating the Espionage Act of 1917, which bars defendants from telling jurors why they disclosed classified information.
The Espionage Act is a popular tool for Obama administration prosecutors, who have used the law in more prosecutions of journalist sources than all previous administrations combined.
“If they’ve shared documents like Edward Snowden, then they will come at them with the Espionage Act for sure if they’re classified,” says retired National Security Agency analyst William Binney.
Binney and other NSA veterans raised concern through official channels about privacy and waste at the NSA. Their homes later were raided by the FBI and a fellow critic then still with the NSA, Thomas Drake, was prosecuted for allegedly violating the Espionage Act in a case that fell apart before trial.
Drake ultimately pleaded guilty in 2011 to exceeding authorized use of an agency computer, a misdemeanor. Drake and Binney have supported Snowden’s decision to flee the country before journalists published his documents exposing mass surveillance, citing their own experiences.
Snowden himself cited their years-long struggle as a reason he relocated first to Hong Kong and then Russia — where he was stranded en route to Latin America when the State Department canceled his passport — rather than stay in the U.S.
(Click for full article on US News and World Report)
Video shows an event of German peace and civil rights organisations, that took place in Lutherkirche Südstadt Cologne (http://www.lutherkirche-koeln.de) on September 18th, 2015.
Ray McGovern and Elizabeth Murray are members of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (V.I.P.S., http://warisacrime.org/vips), a group of former high-ranking U.S. intelligence officers, who began co-operation in connection with the U.S.A.’s and other states’ attack on Iraq in 2003 and, since then, have been addressing their critical analyses and recommendations to the governments of the U.S. and Germany.
Until his retirement in 1990, Ray McGovern (http://www.raymcgovern.com) served as CIA Senior Analyst, being responsible for the reporting on the Soviet Union to the White House. Elizabeth Murray worked as Deputy National Intelligence Director at National Intelligence Council until her early retirement in 2010. She was responsible for reporting on the Near and Middle East to the U.S. government.
Rebuttal: The CIA Responds to the Senate Intelligence Committee’s Study of Its Detention and Interrogation Program by Porter Goss et al, Naval Institute Press, 352 pp., £14.99, September, ISBN 978 1 591 14587 5
Broken!: A true story of terror, torture, and treason, in fictional form to avoid legal retaliation against those who were there by Michael Kearns and Ronald Solomon Amazon, 504 pp. £12.48, July, ISBN 978 0 996 53500 7
Two books – one a book of lies marketed as the truth, the other real-world experience disguised as fiction – offer us an opportunity to understand how easily individuals, organizations, and entire countries can become “unhinged” – deranged and divorced from all that they claim to hold sacred, such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness…and the due process of law that underlies these goals.
(full article at: http://www.phibetaiota.net/2015/10/robert-steele/
Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence is a movement of former CIA colleagues of former intelligence analyst Sam Adams, together with others who hold up his example as a model for those in intelligence who would aspire to the courage to speak truth to power. SAAII confers an award each year to a member of the intelligence community or related professions who exemplifies Sam Adam’s courage, persistence, and devotion to truth – no matter the consequences. Read more about the history here.
The annual Sam Adams Award has been given in previous years to truth tellers Coleen Rowley of the FBI; Katharine Gun of British Intelligence; Sibel Edmonds of the FBI; Craig Murray, former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan; Sam Provance, former US Army Sgt; Maj. Frank Grevil of Danish Army Intelligence; Larry Wilkerson, Col., US Army (ret.), former chief of staff to Colin Powell at State; Julian Assange, of WikiLeaks: Thomas Drake, of NSA; Jesselyn Radack, formerly of Dept. of Justice and now National Security Director of Government Accountability Project; Thomas Fingar, former Deputy Director of National Intelligence and Director, National Intelligence Council, and Edward Snowden, former contractor for the National Security Agency; Chelsea Manning, US Army Private who exposed (via WikiLeaks) key information on Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as State Department activities; and to retired National Security Agency official William Binney, who challenged decisions to ignore the Fourth Amendment in the government’s massive — and wasteful — collection of electronic data.
Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence is a movement of former CIA colleagues of former intelligence analyst Sam Adams, together with others who hold up his example as a model for those in intelligence who would aspire to the courage to speak truth to power. SAAII confers an award each year to a member of the intelligence community or related professions who exemplifies Sam Adam’s courage, persistence, and devotion to truth – no matter the consequences. Read more about the history here.