Tag: mass surveillance

Categories
News Whistleblowing

Obama: “If you blow the whistle, you should be thanked”

“If you blow the whistle, you should be thanked. You should be protected for doing the right thing. You shouldn’t be ignored and you certainly shouldn’t be punished.”

These were the surprising words of President Obama on 7 August 2014, as he signed a $16 billion bill to improve veterans’ access to medical care. The bill followed a report from the Department for Veterans’ Affairs, which confirmed many of the complaints whistleblowers had been making – waiting lists were indeed being manipulated to hide how long veterans were having to wait for medical appointments.

The White House again praised whistleblowers this week, responding to a letter sent by the Society of Professional Journalists and 37 other journalism and open government groups urging the Obama Administration to be more transparent. The letter from White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest claims that the Administration has “made important progress” in “protecting whistleblowers” and “disclosing previously classified information.” Earnest cites the 2012 Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act as evidence that the Administration has “fought for and won better protections for whistleblowers.”

obama-meme

But the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act that the White House claims offers better protections for whistleblowers is limited. While the Act was recognised as a step forward by whistleblower organisations like the Government Accountability Project (GAP) and the National Whistleblowers Centre, GAP also recognised its limitations. Blowing the whistle within official channels does not guarantee public disclosure of the information and does little to facilitate what Yochai Benkler has called “accountability leaks… that challenge systemic practices.”

At any rate, it is not the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act for which this Presidency is likely to be remembered but the intelligence whistleblowers who have faced severe reprisals on its watch. The Obama Administration, famously, has initiated eight prosecutions under the Espionage Act –  more uses of the 1917 Act than all previous US presidents combined. Former NSA employees Thomas Drake and Edward Snowden, who blew the whistle on mass surveillance; former US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, who blew the whistle on US torture and war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan; and former CIA official John Kiriakou, who blew the whistle on US torture, are among the intelligence whistleblowers who have been charged with the Espionage Act during Obama’s Administration.

Ray McGovern, a former CIA senior analyst, founder of whistleblower group Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence and co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), responded to Obama’s comments saying, “President Obama is giving hypocrisy a bad name.”

SONY DSC

McGovern, who is also a member of Courage’s advisory board, said:

Obama’s record speaks for itself; he has prosecuted more than twice as many whistleblowers – for espionage, no less – than all former presidents combined. As for those whose crimes have been whistle-blown upon, like those who did the torture, Obama continues to call them ‘patriots’. Former CIA operative John Kiriakou, who opposed torture, sits in a Pennsylvania prison because he revealed the name of one of the torturers.

Too bad Kafka is dead.

Categories
Edward Snowden News

Former NSA director says Edward Snowden “blew the whistle” on US spying

Categories
Edward Snowden News

Video: Snowden’s German lawyer interviewed on Democracy Now!

Wolfgang Kaleck, Edward Snowden’s German lawyer and the founder and general secretary for the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, spoke to Democracy Now! on Monday.

Kaleck discussed Snowden’s prospects of returning to the United States:

It’s not only about the charges. Yeah, there are charges under the Espionage Act, a very doubtful law which deserves to be reformed very quick. But it’s the treatment, the special treatment, what whistleblowers like Chelsea Manning got in the recent year in the U.S., and that’s special administrative measures in—during the prison time. It’s incommunicado time. It’s inhumane treatment, what he might face, but especially it’s a very long and not appropriate prison sentence he might get. And so, I fully understand, we all fully understand—the German public, the European public fully understands—that he doesn’t return under these conditions.

He talked about the German government canceling its contract with Verizon:

…the significance of this is that there were some members of the Parliament who raised their concern that when Verizon is organizing the internal communication within the German Parliament on one hand, and on the other hand they are known for their cooperation with U.S. secret services, there is a danger that internal communication within the German Parliament will be kind of wiretapped by U.S. secret services. You know, no matter if this concern is right or not, but, I mean, this is a strong signal to all U.S. corporations, telephone corporations and Internet corporations, to do something about this problem, because they are going to lose more contracts than this if they are not willing to establish firewalls between, you know, their clients and the secret services.

Kaleck commented on what he thought was Snowden’s most important revelation:

I think it’s not one document. It’s the series of documents released all over the last 12 months. There is no way out. There is no excuse possible. All what we were suspecting over the last decade, many people were criticizing, but without real evidence, and now this evidence is out. And so, nobody can deny that this practice of mass surveillance, not only of so-called terrorists, not only of so-called dangerous people, but massive surveillance against many of us is taking place. And I think that’s the biggest—the biggest revelation, the most important.

Watch the full broadcast and read a full transcript here.

Categories
Edward Snowden News Whistleblowing

Privacy and whistleblower groups mark one year of NSA revelations

To mark the one-year anniversary of NSA revelations, several privacy and whistleblower groups have taken a look back at what we’ve learned since Edward Snowden blew the whistle on mass surveillance.

ACLU

The American Civil Liberties Union created a video, entitled, ‘The NSA knew our secrets. One year later, we know theirs.’

The ACLU also published a letter from Edward Snowden, remarking on what’s happened thus far and encouraging further action:

In the long, dark shadow cast by the security state, a free society cannot thrive.

That’s why one year ago I brought evidence of these irresponsible activities to the public — to spark the very discussion the U.S. government didn’t want the American people to have. With every revelation, more and more light coursed through a National Security Agency that had grown too comfortable operating in the dark and without public consent. Soon incredible things began occurring that would have been unimaginable years ago. A federal judge in open court called an NSA mass surveillance program likely unconstitutional and “almost Orwellian.” Congress and President Obama have called for an end to the dragnet collection of the intimate details of our lives. Today legislation to begin rolling back the surveillance state is moving in Congress after more than a decade of impasse.

Finally, the ACLU has a timeline of the revelations thus far.

EFF

The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Katitza Rodriguez recounted what we’ve learned about various NSA surveillance programs, and concludes:

…now that a year has passed it’s clear that we need to update both our global technical infrastructure and local laws, consistent with long-standing international human rights standards, in order to regain any reasonable degree of privacy. Specifically, we must end mass surveillance. Politicians in every country need to stand up to the NSA’s incursions on their territory; the United States needs to reform its laws to recognize the privacy rights of innocent foreigners, and the international community needs to set clear standards which makes any state conducting mass surveillance a pariah.

GAP

The Government Accountability Project’s Dylan Blaylock, in a piece titled, ‘On One-Year Anniversary of Snowden Disclosures, IC Contractors Lack Whistleblower Protections,’ writes:

One of the great lessons of the Snowden disclosures has been that members of Congress have not been adequately overseeing these programs. Contractors on intelligence operations must have real protection for legitimate whistleblower disclosures made to Congress, congressional staff with appropriate security clearance, or government watchdogs. Further, it is not adequate only to protect disclosures made to the intelligence committees. Such a monopoly in information needed to conduct congressional oversight does not exist in any other context in the federal government.

There cannot be any doubt about the consequences from congressional action, or inaction, on whistleblower rights. Without authentic legal protections for making disclosures to Congress and government watchdogs, enforcement of the Constitution and privacy rights will remain an honor system for agencies that have been secretly abusing their power. To identify government abuse, Congress must extend best practice whistleblower protections to IC contractor workers.