Former Top Government Secrets Keeper Blasts Administration For Abusing Espionage Act To Punish Whistleblowers
from the sad dept
We've discussed the rather disappointing and immensely troubling efforts by the Obama administration, which promised more transparency and encouraged whistleblowing upon taking office, to attack whistleblowers any way it can. As noted, the administration has been using the Espionage Act -- which is supposed to be used against spies -- against whistleblowers, and has done so more often than all previous Presidents combined. Of course, the first big case against a whistleblower, Thomas Drake, completely collapsed.Now it's come out that a former government official, J. William Leonard, who was in charge of the Information Security Oversight Office was so disturbed by the Thomas Drake case that he filed a formal complaint with both the Justice Department and the NSA and offered to testify on Drake's behalf that "there were no secrets at issue" and that he had never seen "a more deliberate and willful example of government officials improperly classifying a document."
Leonard held his role during the Bush administration (which was fairly notorious for secret keeping in its own right -- though not to this level). So some may argue that it's purely a political move. But these sorts of roles generally aren't particularly partisan, and even when there are political party differences, this sort of effort is pretty rare.
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Filed Under: espionage, free speech, nsa, obama, thomas drake, warrantless wiretapping, whistleblowing, william leonard
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I may be voting for a Republican next time around just because.
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I'm still waiting for another party to be able to win an election.
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I'm still waiting for another party to be able to win an election.
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Couple that with absolutely pathetic messaging and the Tea Party is born in a fact free zone and now you can't have a rational argument with anybody in the GOP.
But no Obama has not been near the 'leader' most hoped for. Compromise is fine, but not as your starting position which is what he's done at almost every turn.
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Obama is not a leader, that much is clear by now and he just don't order anything apparently, he let others decide what to do and he just acquiesces to the proposals he has no vision and those issues and where he does have a vision he is not good enough to implement those he lacks the "unity bug" that makes people come around and hear things.
With that said the real problem may be a uncontrolled government that have career bureaucrats calling the shots without having ever had to deal with the public.
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The syntax is so tortured, I can't make heads or tails of it.
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Get Obama and his Cronies out in 2012!
http://www.ronpaul2012.com/
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Corruption
What congress most fears is someone managing to create a chart showing how much each congressman received (both up front and under the table) from corporations and showing how the congressman voted on issues concerning corporations. Of course all it would show is that every member of congress is corrupt to some degree.
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