{"id":11628,"date":"2013-12-23T12:51:37","date_gmt":"2013-12-23T12:51:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wemeantwell.com\/blog\/?p=11628"},"modified":"2013-12-23T12:54:58","modified_gmt":"2013-12-23T12:54:58","slug":"whistleblowers-write-open-letter-to-federal-employees-after-snowden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wemeantwell.com\/blog\/2013\/12\/23\/whistleblowers-write-open-letter-to-federal-employees-after-snowden\/","title":{"rendered":"Whistleblowers Write Open Letter to Federal Employees after Snowden"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I know you’re out there, and this is for you.<\/p>\n

Somewhere there is a Federal government employee who has witnessed an act of government waste, fraud, malfeasance or mismanagement and is unsure what to do next. Several former whistleblowers have written a letter to you. I fully endorse what they say (see my additional thoughts here<\/a>), and encourage you to take the hard, right choice over staying silent. <\/p>\n

We’re all depending on you.
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(This open letter originally appeared in the UK’s Guardian<\/a> newspaper; links added)<\/em>
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The Letter<\/strong><\/p>\n

At least since the aftermath of September 2001, western governments and intelligence agencies have been hard at work expanding the scope of their own power, while eroding privacy, civil liberties and public control of policy. What used to be viewed as paranoid, Orwellian, tin-foil hat fantasies turned out post-Snowden, to be not even the whole story.<\/p>\n

What’s really remarkable is that we’ve been warned for years that these things were going on: wholesale surveillance of entire populations, militarization of the internet, the end of privacy. All is done in the name of “national security”, which has more or less become a chant to fence off debate and make sure governments aren’t held to account \u2013 that they can’t be held to account \u2013 because everything is being done in the dark. Secret laws, secret interpretations of secret laws by secret courts and no effective parliamentary oversight whatsoever.<\/p>\n

By and large the media have paid scant attention to this, even as more and more courageous, principled whistleblowers stepped forward. The unprecedented persecution of truth-tellers, initiated by the Bush administration and severely accelerated by the Obama administration, has been mostly ignored, while record numbers of well-meaning people are charged with serious felonies simply for letting their fellow citizens know what’s going on.<\/p>\n

It’s one of the bitter ironies of our time that while John Kiriakou<\/a> (ex-CIA) is in prison for blowing the whistle on US torture, the torturers and their enablers walk free.<\/p>\n

Likewise WikiLeaks-source Chelsea (n\u00e9e Bradley) Manning<\/a> was charged with \u2013 amongst other serious crimes \u2013 aiding the enemy (read: the public). Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison while the people who planned the illegal and disastrous war on Iraq in 2003 are still treated as dignitaries.<\/p>\n

Numerous ex-NSA officials have come forward in the past decade, disclosing massive fraud, vast illegalities and abuse of power in said agency, including Thomas Drake<\/a>, William Binney and Kirk Wiebe. The response was 100% persecution and 0% accountability by both the NSA and the rest of government. Blowing the whistle on powerful factions is not a fun thing to do, but despite the poor track record of western media, whistleblowing remains the last avenue for truth, balanced debate and upholding democracy \u2013 that fragile construct which Winston Churchill is quoted as calling “the worst form of government, except all the others”.<\/p>\n

Since the summer of 2013, the public has witnessed a shift in debate over these matters. The reason is that one courageous person: Edward Snowden. He not only blew the whistle on the litany of government abuses but made sure to supply an avalanche of supporting documents to a few trustworthy journalists. The echoes of his actions are still heard around the world \u2013 and there are still many revelations to come.<\/p>\n

For every Daniel Ellsberg<\/a>, Drake, Binney, Katharine Gun, Manning or Snowden, there are thousands of civil servants who go by their daily job of spying on everybody and feeding cooked or even made-up information to the public and parliament, destroying everything we as a society pretend to care about.<\/p>\n

Some of them may feel favourable towards what they’re doing, but many of them are able to hear their inner Jiminy Cricket over the voices of their leaders and crooked politicians \u2013 and of the people whose intimate communication they’re tapping.<\/p>\n

Hidden away in offices of various government departments, intelligence agencies, police forces and armed forces are dozens and dozens of people who are very much upset by what our societies are turning into: at the very least, turnkey tyrannies.<\/p>\n

One of them is you.<\/p>\n

You’re thinking:<\/p>\n

\u25cf Undermining democracy and eroding civil liberties isn’t put explicitly in your job contract.
\n\u25cf You grew up in a democratic society and want to keep it that way
\n\u25cf You were taught to respect ordinary people’s right to live a life in privacy
\n\u25cf You don’t really want a system of institutionalized strategic surveillance that would make the dreaded Stasi green with envy \u2013 do you?\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Still, why bother? What can one person do? Well, Edward Snowden just showed you what one person can do. He stands out as a whistleblower both because of the severity of the crimes and misconduct that he is divulging to the public \u2013 and the sheer amount of evidence he has presented us with so far \u2013 more is coming. But Snowden shouldn’t have to stand alone, and his revelations shouldn’t be the only ones.<\/p>\n

You can be part of the solution; provide trustworthy journalists \u2013 either from old media (like this newspaper) or from new media (such as WikiLeaks) with documents that prove what illegal, immoral, wasteful activities are going on where you work.<\/p>\n

There IS strength in numbers. You won’t be the first \u2013 nor the last \u2013 to follow your conscience and let us know what’s being done in our names. Truth is coming \u2013 it can’t be stopped. Crooked politicians will be held accountable. It’s in your hands to be on the right side of history and accelerate the process.<\/p>\n

Courage is contagious.<\/p>\n

Signed by:<\/p>\n

Peter Kofod, ex-Human Shield in Iraq (Denmark)
\nThomas Drake, whistleblower, former senior executive of the NSA (US)
\nDaniel Ellsberg, whistleblower, former US military analyst (US)
\nKatharine Gun, whistleblower, former GCHQ (UK)
\nJesselyn Radack, whistleblower, former Department of Justice (US)
\nRay McGovern, former senior CIA analyst (US)
\nColeen Rowley, whistleblower, former FBI agent (US)
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