Whistleblower
“They” say, “What you don’t know won’t hurt you.” Want to bet? Check out all the ways the government has been hiding the truth from you.
Mass surveillance has “badly shaken writers’ faith that democratic governments will respect their rights to privacy and freedom of expression,” according to a January 2015 PEN America report based on the responses of 772 writers from fifty countries. Reporting for Common Dreams, Lauren McCauley covered not only the PEN America report, but also a July 2014 report by the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch indicating that US journalists and lawyers increasingly avoid work on potentially controversial topics due to fear of government spying.
The US Patriot act enabled the NSA to collect metadata on all telephone calls in the country, ostensibly to catch terrorists. It was a violation of Rights and Freedoms, and has been the subject of much outcry among citizens and Congressional representatives.
The Hunger Games real meaning is an allegory. Main actor, Donald Sutherland is risking his career to expose it. It is vital that young people seeing the movies know what they are really about.
Drone War Exposed: Jeremy Scahill on U.S. Kill Program’s Secrets & the Whistleblower Who Leaked Them
“The Drone Papers” exposes the inner workings of the U.S. military’s assassination program in Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia, revealing a number of flaws and far more civilian casualties than the intended targets.
Edward Snowden’s efforts have been credited by renowned whistleblowers like Daniel Ellsberg and Thomas Drake for helping change American surveillance law.
Chelsea Manning, the US army soldier serving a 35-year military prison sentence for leaking official secrets, has been threatened with indefinite solitary confinement for having an expired tube of toothpaste in her cell and being found in possession of the Caitlyn Jenner Vanity Fair issue, according to her lawyers and supporters.
The Trident safety whistleblower, William McNeilly, says he has been dishonourably discharged from the Royal Navy to protect its public image. In a nine-page report posted online, the former nuclear submariner attacks “military deceivers” and naval “spin doctors” for downplaying his allegations about multiple safety and security lapses. “It is shocking that some people in a military force can be more concerned about public image than public safety,” he says. McNeilly has not been heard from since he handed himself in to the police at Edinburgh airport on 18 May, the day after his story broke. While absent without leave, he had posted a dossier online alleging 30 flaws on the submarines that carry Britain’s nuclear warheads and warning that Trident was “a disaster waiting to happen”.
Karen Hudes worked in the World Bank legal department for more than 20 years and held the position of Senior Counsel. She was fired for blowing the whistle on corruption inside the World Bank. Ms. Hudes knows exactly what the global elite are after — total control. They are jockeying financial institutions and transnational corporations into position to dominate the planet.
TWO years ago today, three journalists and I worked nervously in a Hong Kong hotel room, waiting to see how the world would react to the revelation that the National Security Agency had been making records of nearly every phone call in the United States. In the days that followed, those journalists and others published documents revealing that democratic governments had been monitoring the private activities of ordinary citizens who had done nothing wrong.
An enormous corporate-friendly treaty that many people haven’t heard of was thrust into the public limelight Wednesday when famed publisher of government and corporate secrets, WikiLeaks, released 17 documents from closed-door negotiations between countries that together comprise two-thirds of the word’s economy.
The media outlet Wikileaks on Tuesday announced a campaign to raise a $100,000 cash reward for the complete text of the agreement in order to end the mystery surrounding the actual contents of the deal that involves the U.S. and eleven Pacific Rim nations.
“The transparency clock has run out on the TPP,” said WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. “No more secrecy. No more excuses. Let’s open the TPP once and for all.”
Nearly two years after NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden first revealed the U.S. government was secretly operating mass surveillance programs against the American public, including bulk collection of telephone data, privacy advocates and civil libertarians are celebrating—at least temporarily—after the U.S. Senate on Sunday failed to extend authorities for key portions of those programs before a midnight deadline.
As negotiations continue, WikiLeaks has published leaked chapters of the secret Trans-Pacific Partnership — a global trade deal between the United States and 11 other countries. The TPP would cover 40 percent of the global economy, but details have been concealed from the public. A recently disclosed “Investment Chapter” highlights the intent of U.S.-led negotiators to create a tribunal where corporations can sue governments if their laws interfere with a company’s claimed future profits. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange warns the plan could chill the adoption of health and environmental regulations.
Julian Assange: Despite Congressional Standoff, NSA Has Secret Authority to Continue Spying Unabated
The Obama administration’s authority to collect Americans’ phone records in bulk will likely expire next week after senators from both parties rejected attempts to extend it… From his place of refuge inside the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange weighs in on the NSA standoff.
