Another Justice Department Leaker Persecuted: Don't Let It Happen Again-by Jesselyn Radack

[kpete]

Another Justice Department Leaker Persecuted: Don't Let It Happen Again
by Jesselyn Radack
Mon Aug 06, 2007

My hands are shaking as I write this. My heart is pounding. I am having an anxiety attack because Thomas Tamm, a former Justice Department lawyer suspected of leaking Bish's warrantless wiretapping program is starting to get the Bu$hCo royal treatment. I don't know Tamm. But I do know that we are both former Justice Department attorneys accused of leaking illegal activity by the government and ended up being treated as the criminals. We must stop such retaliation in its tracks.

....................

My situation occurred in 2001. I blew the whistle in the case of "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh after the ethics advice I rendered not to interrogate him without a lawyer was ignored, and then disappeared in contravention of a federal court discovery order. A "leak investigation" ensued, the highlights of which included the Justice Department leaning on my private law firm to fire me, placing me under criminal investigation (for what I was never told), referring me to the state bars in which I'm licensed as an attorney (based on a secret report to which I did not have access), seizing my computer without a warrant, and putting me on the "no-fly" list.

This is not what Tamm should have to look forward to, whether he is the leaker or not. Gonzales, predictibly, said the leak "really hurt our country." But I submit that Bush's warrantless wiretapping (what Tamm is accused of leaking) and prosecutorial misconduct (what I leaked) is what really hurt our country.

Congress has never asked me to testify about the deplorable conduct by our government against a private citizen and long-standing public servant. And I don't know Thomas Tamm. But, I beg the American people not to let this personal annihilation at taxpayer expense happen again. They can no longer pretend they don't know about this Administration's veneful retaliation against anyone it perceives as an enemy, especially those who attempt to expose its illegal conduct. At least a dozen prominent Members of Congress have my book and know my story. As today's Chicago Tribune states in its "The Rise of the Netroots" editorial about Daily Kos:

in 2007, freedom of the press belongs to anyone who owns a laptop.

more at:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/8/6/81143/73736

[fed-up]

1. k/r this is just the beginning.......nt

[Zodiak]

3. Yes, it is

and the Democratic caucus has signalled that it will do nothing to provide cover for these people.

The whistleblowers risked everything to bring this to light....and we let them down by tolerating the "third way" amongst our ranks even though they have scuttled every chance we have had to stop a dictator from taking power in this country.

Personally, I am ready to kick them all out of the caucus....replcethem, oust them, send them to the Republicans. We simply cannot tolerate these people any longer. They make political victory absolutely impossible, they take up seats that we NEED to win, they demand an inordinate amount of power within the party, and perhaps the worst of all, they deflate and demoralize our base.

We effectively have no majority at all...we cannot even control what legislation gets to the floor because of the DLC/Third Way/Blue Dog bullshit. That is no one's fault but Democrats. When you discover a mole on your team, you kick them off of the team. It is really the best way to contain the damage.

[tom_paine]

4. Yes it is only the beginning.

We are now firmly in Middle Tranistion Pahse from Liberty to Tyranny.

The VIPR teams have begun to appear (do a DUsearch or Google) and many other things are now finally justbeginning to be felt by "the little people". Because the governent has now been reduced to a cowardly rubble of fear, Bushler is King in all ways but name.

This sort of thing is going to increase, spread and grow, as the Democratic Congress' failure to investigate and reveal to the public the FULL EXTENT of what the Attorney Scandal is all asbout, which is nothing left than the Full Sovietification/Bushification/Nazification our our Executive Branch is not only well underway, it may be nearly close to complete.

Now We the People (at the poorest, most vulnerable levels, along with open defiers of the Royal Bushies and those like these whistleblowers, who can actually do them damage) are starting to feel it in our daily lives...just a few at first then widening rapidly over the decades, if not sooner.

I cannot believe it is really happening.

"What rough beast, it's hour come 'round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"
--Yeats

[seemslikeadream]

2. How can you fight if you can not recognize a warning?

Early every year the seeds are growing
Unseen, unheard they lie beneath the ground
Would you know before their leaves are showing
That with weeds all your garden will abound?

If you close your eyes, stop your ears
Shut your mouth then how can you know ?
For seeds you cannot hear may not be there
Seeds you cannot see may never grow

In January you've still got the choice
You can cut the weeds before they start to bud
If you leave them to grow high they'll silence your voice
And in December you may pay with your blood

So close your eyes, stop your ears,
Shut your mouth and take it slow
Let others take the lead and you bring up the rear
And later you can say you didn't know

Every day another vulture takes flight
There's another danger born every morning
In the darkness of your blindness the beast will learn to bite
How can you fight if you can't recognise a warning?

Today you may earn a living wage
Tomorrow you may be on the dole
Though there's millions going hungry you needn't disengage
For it's them, not you, that's fallen in the hole

It's alright for you if you run with the pack
It's alright if you agree with all they do



If fascism is slowly climbing back



It's not here yet so what's it got to do with you?

The weeds are all around us and they're growing
It'll soon be too late for the knife
If you leave them on the wind that around the world is blowing
You may pay for your silence with your life

So close your eyes, stop your ears,
Shut your mouth and never dare
And if it happens here they'll never come for you
Because they'll know you really didn't care

Peggy Seeger

[donkeyotay]

5. We can't turn our heads and pretend that we don't see

Cheney told us straight up after Sept. 11th that he was going over to the "dark side," that the ends justified the means. How many times have we been told that the terra, terra, terra justifies all of this? Every bit. From invading a sovereign nation under false pretexts to destroying any and all opposition to this tyranny?

All the eff-ups, the torture and the spying and then the cover ups, every scrap of it justified by this new allegiance to bush and his cronies and their ethic of whateverittakes. Along the way these boys have committed quite a few crimes, and now they are going to do whateverittakes to stop justice.

The military declared our "homeland" a war theater. They spy on us. The military spies on us. Incredible. They were also the ultimate source for the anthrax sent to cow our congress. (Either they lost it and they're incompetent or the used it and they're corrupt.) It's mindboggling how these guys have defined threats to the Homeland. (Fer instance the Outlaws - a group of gay, out of the closet law students - their name was threatening. Quakers and war protesters, etc.) There are also numerous cases of our media coverage turning out to by psy-ops propaganda. (Jessie Lynch, Saddam's statue toppling, Pat Tillman, for example.) War. Being waged. Against us. The silence is downright creepy. We need to stand up for these people who are willing to stand up for our country.

[Fearless]

6. So lets do something about it already.

[OzarkDem]

8. Ok, start calling our Congresspersons

Oh that's right, they're on vacation.

Wonder what else Rove & Cheney have planned for the August recess?

[Fearless]

9. We've done that before, what else have we got?

[Mind_your_head]

7. K & R

:kick:

[OzarkDem]

10. Nothing we can do

Our Dem leaders in Congress have already undermined the laws protecting the civil liberties of people like Tamm. Their actions have given Gonzales a free "get out of jail" card for his illegal spying programs. No doubt they don't want to go near Tamm with a 10 foot pole.


The frightening spy programs that Deep Modem / Tamm revealed are now legal, thanks to my party's Dem leaders in Congress.. There's no reason to investigate the shocking information Deep Modem revealed, its all legal now, so there's no way to hold anyone in the Bush administration accountable.

Is it important to get this information out to the public? Yes. Is it going to make a difference or change things? No.

[donkeyotay]

11. All we can do is hang together so that we don't hang separately

At least we can make sure that these people who stand up for us won't stand alone. We can get their stories out, even if it takes laptops and grapevines.

[bobthedrummer]

12. .