Americans Have a Right to Know

[kgnu_fan]

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25758.htm

By Ray McGovern, Daniel Ellsberg and Coleen Rowley

June 18, 2010 "Institute for Public Accuracy" Today, Washington is trying to shut down what it clearly regards as the most effective and dangerous purveyor of embarrassing information -- Wikileaks, a self-styled global resource for whistleblowers. It is a safe bet that NSA, CIA, FBI and other agencies have been instructed to do all possible to make an example of Wikileaks leader, Australian-born Julian Assange, and his colleagues. Much is at stake -- for both Pentagon and freedom of the press.

"Those who own and operate the corporate media face a distasteful dilemma, both in terms of business decision and of conscience. They must choose between the easier but soulless task of transcribing government press releases, on the one hand; or, on the other, following Wikileaks into the 21st century by adapting high-tech methods to protect sources while acquiring authentic stories unadulterated by government pressure, real or perceived.

"Deference to the government seems largely responsible for the failure to explore the implications of particularly riveting reportage that gets millions of hits on the Web but has been, up to now, largely ignored by mainstream media. The best recent example of this is the gun-barrel video showing a merciless turkey-shoot of Baghdad civilians by helicopter gunship-borne U.S. soldiers on July 12, 2007. Like the humiliating and graphic but actual photos of Abu Ghraib, the publication of which Pullitzer-prize winning Seymour Hersh repeatedly defended as necessary to the story of Iraqi prisoner abuse, such raw footage is essential to people’s understanding of what is happening. Like Daniel Ellsberg's copying of 7,000 pages of the 'Pentagon Papers,' such whistleblowers are a great means of exposing the lies upon which the current wars are based.

"Assange went public this week with an email announcement that Wikileaks is preparing to release a classified Pentagon video of a U.S. airstrike in Afghanistan in May 2009, which left as many as 140 civilians dead -- most of them children and teenagers. He added that Wikileaks has 'a lot of other material that exposes human rights abuses by the United States government.'

"Wikileaks has also published a secret U.S. Army report of March 2008 evaluating the threat from Wikileaks itself and possible U.S. countermeasures against it. This will undoubtedly prompt American officials to redouble efforts to find Assange and to prevent Wikileaks from posting additional information they have classified to avoid embarrassment.

"Americans have a right to know what is being done in our name, and how important it is to protect members of the now-fledgling Fifth Estate so that it can continue to provide information shunned or distorted.

"Assange ended his email with an unabashed appeal for donations for his website. 'Please donate ... and encourage all your friends to follow the example you set; after all, courage is contagious.' His words sounded a bit like those of Edmund Burke: 'When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.'

"For the good to associate effectively, they need to know what is going on. It’s our hope the old Fourth Estate press will recall the good and high-calling that Burke, Jefferson and other leaders of democracy have extolled through the centuries and catch some of that 'contagious courage'."

Coleen Rowley, an FBI whistleblower who was one of Time Magazine's people of the year in 2002; Ray McGovern, CIA analyst for 27 years; and Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers (top-secret government documents that showed a pattern of governmental deceit about the Vietnam War):

[IDemo]

1. I've been hearing "preparing to release a classified Pentagon video" for some time now

How much preparation is required to post a video?

[fascisthunter]

2. we don't live in a free country

and those parading the american flag while claiming we are free, are idiots

[kgnu_fan]

6. Iceland may help?

A New Global Landmark for Free Speech
The Icelandic Modern Media Initiative will provide unparalleled
protection for online journalists and whistleblowers.
By David Bollier
http://onthecommons.org/content.php?id=2763

Could we be reaching a turning point in history where the monopoly on
societal communication enjoyed by governments and corporations is
finally broken? Will the commoners be able to share information freely
without risking jail, civil penalties or authoritarian retribution?

The pioneering website on these questions is surely Wiklileaks, which in
only three years has become the leading venue for whistleblowers from
around the world. Founder Julian Assange ― who has been likened to
Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971 ― has posted
hundreds of otherwise-secret documents that are highly embarrassing to
governments, corporations and powerful individuals. Most recently,
Wikileaks released a classified U.S. military video video of American
gunships killing 12 Iraqi civilians, complete with brutish audio by the
pilots.

As the Web becomes the medium-of-choice for communicating with the
public, the laws governing Web communication become that much more
significant. Wikileaks has been able to assure the confidentiality and
security of its postings ― not to mention its protection against libel
suits ― by ingeniously routing its Web communications through servers in
countries with hospitable laws. It also sends its documents to selected
journalists, who enjoy special legal protections in certain countries.

As detailed in a recent New Yorker magazine profile, Assange himself has
had to live the life of a fugitive in order to evade enraged Pentagon
agents who “want to talk to him.” Recently, Assange declined to appear
in person at the Personal Democracy Forum in New York City because he
had been advised not to travel to countries that do not respect the rule
of law.

Good call! The U.S. Supreme Court has just sanctioned the authority of
the U.S. Government to “disappear” people; it rejected a legal appeal by
Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen who, as he was changing planes in New
York en route home, was spirited away to a Syrian jail, tortured and
held without charges for a year. That is okay with the Supreme Court.

All of this is by way of backstory. The big news about freedom of
expression and communication for the commoners arrives today from…. Iceland!

By a unanimous vote, the Iceland legislature has just passed the
Icelandic Modern Media Initiative, a proposal that will make Iceland a
“safe haven” for investigative journalists, bloggers, publishers,
whistleblowers, authors and others who wish to communicate information
freely with the world. The proposal draws upon the best parts of a
number of laws in a variety of nations ― Scotland, France, Belgium,
Sweden, the United States and others ― for libel, press and
whistleblower protection, free expression and open communication. The
proposal also establishes a “Nobel Prize” for freedom of expression that
has the potential to become a globally respected landmark.
<snip>

See the link for more
http://onthecommons.org/content.php?id=2763

[fascisthunter]

7. thank you for this

[Greyhound]

3. Americans have no rights, like any livestock, they exist simply to serve as a source of

sustenance and labor for their owners. And just like all livestock, once their production drops they are replaced and slaughtered. Now shut up and get back to work.

All sheep share a common destiny.

[tom_paine]

5. Sadly, that was well put and very true - an apt description of our Corporate Empire Americcca

I wish it wasn't.

But it's bad, getting worse, and Obama can't even slow it down - provided he was genuinely interested in doing so, which may or may not be.

[Greyhound]

9. It is sad, but it will certainly be interesting to se it all happen.

How are you, haven't read you in awhile.
:hi:
:kick:

[tom_paine]

12. Yep, technology gives us unique front-row seats on humanity's Titanic

:hi:

I am well, an hope you are the same.

[kenny blankenship]

4. That is SO twentieth century

If there's one thing that's clear from the proceedings of govt in the twenty-first century it's that the govt has the right to know all, and on the other hand the citizens have a reciprocal and commensurately absolute right to be kept in the dark and lied to by their govt. It's perfectly symmetrical and evenly balanced. You could even call it "Confucian" - by way of Orwell.

[kgnu_fan]

8. just sad to see this sink so fast

[leftstreet]

10. K&R

Thanks for posting this

[PuraVidaDreamin]

11. K & R

[TheKentuckian]

13. Who lives in a corporate police state? We do! We do!

[spanone]

14. i suspect the media will take the corporate route

[kgnu_fan]

15. America may have become its opposite

not brave enough anymore to confront and question authority

became fat and lazy, waiting to be harvested while asleep

how can we awake ourselves from this slumber?