James Risen, a Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter with the NY Times (despite their many efforts to suppress his work), has written an enlightening, although in no way surprising, account of the mismanagement, greed and idiocy involved in the War Machine of your Gov and the Police/Surveillance State at home promoted to advance it. From many $billions in misspent and lost money through “private” contractors, cargo planes worth of cash, arming and training of untraceable rebel group activity to the obstruction, persecution and prosecution of those that attempt to correct these crimes, misadventures and moral reprehensions, Risen’s work is eye opening. It landed him in years of gov lawsuits as his sources were sought,… in your Land of the Free, and with your Free Speech, and your Freedom of the Press, and your Representative Government, and all of those non-existent mythologies.
WASHINGTON, DC – AUGUST 14: New York Times reporter James Risen (C), RootsAction.org co-founder Norman Solomon (L) and national security attorney Jesselyn Radack, who has NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden as a client, participate in a news conference where he and other journalists and journalism advocates talked about the Justice Department’s pursuit of Risen’s confidential sources at the National Press Club August 14, 2014 in Washington, DC. Risen could face jail or punshing fines for not revealing his source of classified information for his 2006 book that detailed the CIA’s efforts against Iran’s nuclear program. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Disputing the argument that Snowden and other whistleblowers should have used “official channels” to report Gov crimes and wrongdoing, James Risen in Pay Any Price, shares several accounts of Gov officials that used official channels. For their service, they were fired, persecuted, prosecuted, forced to retire, ignored, isolated, sued.
Pg 264-5: Risen illustrates with Senator Ron Wyden, Oregon (D), a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. The senator was astounded at the illegalities of the Patriot Act and the NSA. He used official channels with Congress and the White House through both the Bush and Obama administrations. He could not reveal to the American public any details because of “national security.” He stated that there are two set of laws in the US, “one the public can read, and one the government has developed in secret.”
Only after Snowden leaked NSA surveillance schemes was Wyden able to confirm to the public that it was true. Risen, “That meant that a low-level whistelblower had achieved what a US senator could not, proving just how dysfunctional Washington had become. Wyden’s experience offered conclusive proof that Snowden could never have triggered a national debate by working within the system.”
Risen shares stories of multiple other whistleblowers inside the Gov who attempted to use official channels, to “work within the system.” They all became targets. Diane Roark, Bill Binney, Thomas Drake. For the interested, you can also check out Jesselyn Radack and Sibel Edmonds (of Sibel Edmonds’ Boiling Frogs Post). Edmonds’ Classified Woman, and Radack’s Traitor: The Whistleblower and the American Taliban, are very informative. Then you can move on to Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden. Then back to Daniel Ellsburg and the Pentagon Papers. Just pick one. Any one. Get started on your education.
From the Guardian, 16 March 2015: Obama’s war on whistleblowers leaves administration insiders unscathed.
“Since Barack Obama entered the White House in 2009, his government has waged a war against whistleblowers and official leakers. On his watch, there have been eight prosecutions under the 1917 Espionage Act – more than double those under all previous presidents combined.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/mar/16/whistleblowers-double-standard-obama-david-petraeus-chelsea-manning