GOP Senators Set to Hunt Whistleblowers

[StateSecrets]

GOP SENATORS SUPPORT IMPLEMENTATION OF OFFICIAL SECRET’S ACT!!!


Senators Rick Santorum, R-PA, and Conrad Burns, R-MT, support implementation of Official Secret’s Act, S.3774, introduced yesterday by Senator Christopher Bond, R-MO, to criminalize the unauthorized disclosure of classified information. Bond's bill seeks to enable the Executive Branch in prosecuting individuals engaged in disclosure of government secrets. According to the release issued by Senator Bond’s office, the legislation seeks to unify current law and ease the government's burden in prosecuting and punishing leakers by eliminating the need to prove that damage to the national security has or will result from a disclosure.


The new Bond bill is identical to the controversial anti-leak legislation sponsored by Senator Shelby in the 2001 Intelligence Authorization Act that was vetoed by President Clinton in November 2000. The bill was called the “Official Secrets Act,” after the U.K.’s repressive criminal secrecy statutes.


The United States has never had a statute generally criminalizing leaks or the publication of sensitive information! Despite consideration at a number of moments in our history, concern for the First Amendment and the principle that the press acts as an important check on government abuse has thwarted all previous efforts to pass such legislation.


For more visit: www.nswbc.org

Rather than a genuine effort to enhance national security, this legislation is designed to deter legitimate whistleblowing. The result is that the statute would create an "Official Secrets Act" similar to that found in Great Britain. But, obviously, Great Britain does not have a First Amendment and we do.

[AX10]

1. Burns and Santorum are going to be unemployed in a few months.

[iconoclastic cat]

3. Will Little Ricky be starring in "Down on the Farm II" soon?

On can only hope.

[whistle]

2. How a fascist state deals with dissenters

<snip>
Book Title Backing Hitler. Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany

Author Robert Gellately
Strassler Professor in Holocaust History, Clark University, USA

Oxford University Press; Oxford 2001
ISBN 0-19-820560

In 1990 Robert Gellately completed a major study which investigated the role of the secret police in Nazi Germany. His book, The Gestapo and German Society: Enforcing Racial Policy 1933-1945 (Oxford University Press; Oxford, 1995) demonstrated conclusively that the much feared and allegedly omnipresent Gestapo in fact relied on widespread public support to function effectively. Denunciations of fellow citizens and relatives by members of the public initiated many Gestapo investigations, even though the whistleblowers understood that those denounced could suffer torture, be consigned to an uncertain fate in a concentration camp, or be executed without due legal process. In this way the National Socialist state succeeded remarkably in policing even the most intimate aspects of personal behaviour. It stifled social or sexual relations between Jews and Christians or Germans and foreign forced labourers, rooted out male homosexuality, and punished unguarded criticism of the regime, even when uttered in the apparent privacy of the home. The motives behind these public denunciations varied widely, sometimes reflecting positive support for Nazism, but more frequently revealing an apolitical sense of public duty or a range of more personal motives such as material gain, sexual jealousy, or revenge. <more>

http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/paper/fischerC.html

[Nikki Stone 1]

5. We need to hear about this again and again

These people are fascists.

[LUHiWY]

4. more info....

"SEN. BOND'S ANTI-LEAK BILL DRAWS FIRE AT HOME

"Sen. Kit Bond has gone way too far in an effort to curtail the
public's right to information on government operations,"
according to one of the leading newspapers in his home state of
Missouri.

The Kansas City Star objected to a bill introduced this week by
Senator Bond that would outlaw "leaks" or unauthorized
disclosures of classified information. A similar provision was
vetoed by President Clinton in 2000.

Opponents of such measures argue that the ability of the press to
uncover and report on misconduct in classified programs often
depends on leaks of classified information, and that reporting
on such leaks serves a larger national interest.

So, for example, the fact that "numerous incidents of sadistic,
blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted" on detainees
at Abu Ghraib prison was classified "Secret" when it was first
reported by the press. The unauthorized disclosure of these
findings, from a classified report by Army General Antonio
Taguba, triggered a series of investigations and continuing
public controversy.

"Bond should withdraw his proposal immediately," the Kansas City
Star editorialized today. "It obviously is not well thought
out."

See "Law Would Go Against Ideals of Free Society," Kansas City
Star, August 4 (free but intrusive registration required):

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/15192641.htm

"Over the past few years, we have seen unauthorized disclosures
of classified information at an alarming rate," said Senator
Bond on the Senate floor on August 2.

"Each one of the leaks gravely increases the threat to our
national security and makes it easier for our enemies to achieve
their murderous and destructive plans. Each leak is a window of
opportunity for terrorists to discover our sources and methods.
Each violation of trust guarantees chaos and violence in the
world."

See the introduction of his bill to prohibit unauthorized
disclosures as well as the text of the bill (S. 3774) here:

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2006_cr/s3774.html

The bill has been referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee.


Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the
Federation of American Scientists."


No dummy. Each leak allows citizens to see the tactics being used to trash a democracy and cover up misdeeds? The most dangerous enemy is within?

[Eric J in MN]

6. A government of the people would be asking,

"What can we do to protect whistleblowers against any form of retaliation?"

Instead, the Republicans want to imprison whistleblowers.