Tag: obama

Categories
News

Obama reportedly criminalises “support” for “cyber-enabled activities”

US President Barack Obama has issued an executive order authorising the Treasury Secretary to enact sanctions against those whom it deems to have “have materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for” cyber-related crimes.

Reuters reports that even US lawmakers consider the order “surprisingly broad”, and investigative journalists are concerned about its wide-ranging scope.

The order criminalizes anyone who is “responsible for or complicit in, or [who has] engaged in, the receipt or use for commercial or competitive advantage or private financial gain, or by a commercial entity, outside the United States of trade secrets misappropriated through cyber-enabled means.”

Former DOJ lawyer Mark Rasch told Reuters, “Even denial-of-service attacks that knock websites offline with meaningless traffic, which can be orchestrated over the Internet for a few hundred dollars, could officially qualify for sanctions.” The PayPal 14 were imprisoned and fined heavily for denial-of-service attacks on PayPal in response to its freezing of WikiLeaks’ bank account, and President Obama has called Edward Snowden a “hacker”, so reporters and supporters wonder if this new order will affect donations to organizations like WikiLeaks and the Courage Foundation.

Investigative journalist Marcy Wheeler said that this order “could be used to target journalism abroad. Does WikiLeaks’ publication of secret Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations qualify? Does Guardian’s publication of contractors’ involvement in NSA hacking?”

Wheeler’s post notes many elements of the order that appear “ripe for abuse.” Questioning just how broadly the ‘material support’ interpretation goes, she said, “Does that include encryption providers? Does it include other privacy protections?”

In response to the possibility that donations to Edward Snowden’s defence fund could be criminalised, Reddit users criticized the order and sparked a surge in bitcoin donations to Edward Snowden’s defence fund. Courage has received over 200 transactions already this month, including a single donation of 8.49 bitcoin (over 2000 dollars).

Reddit AMA

Members of the Courage team, including trustee Julian Assange, acting director Sarah Harrison, and advisory board members Renata Avila, who is an internet rights lawyer, and Andy Muller-Maguhn, on the board of the Wau Holland Foundation, which collects donations for Snowden and Hammond on Courage’s behalf, will be participating in a Reddit AMA on Monday, 7pm EST / 11pm GMT. They’ll discuss Courage, ready to answer anything, including questions on the increase in BTC since the Executive Order.

Categories
News Whistleblowing

It’s who you are that matters

We’ve written a lot about how the current US administration has treated unauthorised disclosures of classified information. Whether those disclosures be matters of huge public significance or relatively trivial, the reaction has been to seek to prosecute those responsible under the 1917 Espionage Act.

As is well known, the Obama administration has initiated twice as many Espionage Act prosecutions than all previous US administrations combined. Denied the ability to put forward a public interest defence, Chelsea Manning was sentenced to 35 years’ imprisonment and CIA whistleblower John Kirakou is still the only person to have been prosecuted in relation to America’s state sanctioned torture programme. And, as last week’s Pentagon Inspector General’s Office report on the treatment of NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake shows, there’s no accountability for the wrongs inflicted on defendants during in Espionage Act investigation.

The emergence of former CIA director and general David Petraeus’ plea deal this week places this suffering into sharp relief. Petraeus shared eight “black books” with his biographer and mistress, containing information that included covert officers’ identities, classified notes and details about US intelligence. By his own admission, the top secret information in those Black Books was more sensitive than anything Chelsea Manning ever disclosed.

Nevertheless, under the terms of his plea bargain, Petraeus will plead guilty to a misdemeanour and serve no more than two year’s probation and a $40,000 fine. He was never indicted under the Espionage act and will not face repurcussions for lying to FBI agents.

As John Kirakou and Marcy Wheeler point out in a recent interview, there’s a glaring inequity here, with sufficient prominence acting as a safeguard against prosecution, even in matters which the US government appears to regard as priorities. More than that, it demonstrates, quite clearly, that Espionage Act prosecutions are explicitly political. As Jesselyn Radack notes in a piece which brings out this dynamic very clearly:

Now that the government has put forth a new model of how to deal appropriately with unauthorized disclosures, I suspect that Snowden would entertain returning to the United States for the kind of plea bargain that Petraeus received.

Too bad that kind of leniency is reserved for generals sharing information with their mistress-biographers — not normal Americans trying to expose government wrongdoing.

Categories
Courage News News

Courage joins ‘Necessary and Appropriate Principles’ week

np-logo-2The Courage Foundation is proud to announce our support and involvement with the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Necessary and Proportionate Week of Action, leading up to the first year anniversary of the 13 Necessary and Proportionate Principles, which were first launched at the 24th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on 20 September 2013. The full text of the principles is here.

The EFF has a series of articles and campaigns for various subcategories of the week, on secrecy, transparency, public oversight, combating surveillance and whistleblower protections. Join discussion of the week of action on Twitter with the hashtag #privacyisaright

The Courage Foundation is the predominant partner on today’s topic: ‘Integrity of Communications and Systems, Protection on Whistleblowers, Safeguards Against Illegitimate Access and Right to An Effective Remedy,’ advancing the tenet that “strong protection should be afforded to whistleblowers who expose surveillance activities that threaten human rights.” The United States government has cracked down on those who expose wrongdoing more than ever under the Obama Administration, with Chelsea Manning and Jeremy Hammond in prison, Thomas Drake fired and prosecuted under the Espionage Act, and Edward Snowden in Russian asylum, all for revealing important truths in the public interest about what their government does in secret and against our will.

Courage steps in to protect these conscientious people who deserve our support. We fund legal defense teams for truthtellers, keep their cases in the public light, and advocate for the public’s right to know and whistleblower protections generally. Stay tuned for Courage Advisory Board member Sana Saleem’s article: “Why the World Needs More Whistleblowers.”

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.