Prosecution of whistleblowers and the national security state

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I'm surprised this hasn't been discussed (at least to my knowledge) on such a politically savvy board. We have in the U.S what looks to be the signs of a growing police and surveillance state, protected by the vague term of "national security", with an ever shrinking amount of accountability. From indefinite detention to warrantless wiretapping to the prosecution of whitstleblowers, more and more we see the increasing powers of government over our lives and a decreasing amount of protections against it. When Thomas Drake, former senior official at the NSA, blew the whistle on his organization, not only was he fired but it started a criminal prosecution against him with culminated with a house raid and the threat of 35 years in prison when they tried him under the Espionage Act. What sensitive information, absolutely necessary to our safety, did he leak to the public? The fact that the NSA was using an inefficient method of surveillance which did away with Fourth amendment protections when there was a more constitutionally sound, cheaper alternative clearly available. Jesslyn Radack, a Justice Dept. attorney and legal adviser to them on matters of ethics, defended John Walker Lindh and exposed how he was denied a lawyer and was interrogated without one present. For that, she was put on the no-fly list, threatened out of her job, and became the target of a criminal investigation. While the prosecution of whistleblowers who cause NO possible harm to the country goes back to Ellsberg and the Pentagon papers, the problem has been magnified since then. Obama has cracked down on whistleblowers more than any prior president, while getting elected on a platform of accountability.

However, this is only one front on a multi-faceted issue. With the ongoing destruction of due process, the nearly omniscient intelligence on citizens, and the governments conviction to prosecute anyone who exposes their corruption, whistleblowers and political dissenters have much to fear in the near future. It seems our answer to the small minority who want to destroy our freedoms is to destroy them before anyone else can. People scoff when I bring this up as if not one iota of tyranny could ever make it's way into the U.S, but what is the destruction of due process and the deliberate abuse of the phrase "national security" to target people who have in no way harmed in if not a step in that direction?

edit: I came upon this literally seconds after I posted this. Apparently a 16 yr. old boy was taken by the FBI under the Patriot Act-

 

The video has been removed.

 

Its really ironic, in a sense, that the US is heading this way, even though these are precisely some of the reasons why there was such an ideological divide between it and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Back in the Cold War, America was the Land of the Free because it was, well, Free.

Whats more scary is that a large portion of the population are being brainwashed to think that this is necessary, that it is part of conservative government, and that it is good for them. When the very people that are negatively affected by a system, defend it and vote for the people who create it, you have a serious problem.

I actually dont think either the Democrats or the Republicans are innocent here. Both are just as bad as each other, but perhaps the Republicans are betraying their principles worse, since I always thought of them as the small government Conservative party. They are not conservative and they are definitely not small government.

Being non-American, it doesnt affect me directly, but then, a lot of us non-Americans look up to America, and I'm saddened to see a once great country head down a dark path like this.

 

What I find crazy is that a lot of people on the right consider Obama to be some kind of crazy left-wing guru, a threat to the US, more radical than anything else etc etc.

I think the US administration today is significantly to the right of the US of Nixon's day.

 

To be honest I dont see much of a difference between Bush and Obama. More of the same.

Obama, where is my change???

 

Obama has the Nobel Peace Prize.

... he also didn't start a war.

... he also didn't add to the housing crisis (hasn't helped much either, but that's different).

... he's a lot easier to understand when he talks.

... Bush is shorter.

McCain was the candidate of change. Too many people just saw the republican party through Bush colored glasses and assumed a black democrat would bring greater change to Washington -- they were wrong.


Shaman: I think people on average have moved to the left from the seventies. This gives the appearance of a republican party further to the right but I don't think it's really any further to the right than before (it's even to the left of the fifties). The real problem is the wingnuts (thanks for that Chandos) are more vocal and the press is stupid enough to give them air time. Since we see so much of the wingnuts it really gives the impression of a right leaning party ... but MB failed, Palin didn't even run (she knew she would get her ass handed to her), and Santorium is dropping in the polls.

To say that Obama's adminsitration is to the right of Nixon is really off IMO. I don't think he's to the right of Kennedy or Johnson, perhaps right of Clinton though.

 

T2,
the Republican party today is miles away from Nixon.

How registered Republicans view the candidates their party serves them is another matter. But one way or the other all these crackpots, from the cute Michelle O'Donnell to the no more cute Michelle Bachmann or the demented Rick Perry have found their way into Republican candidacies, or into elective office. Just activism? Just activists exploiting and so pointing out the obvious flaws in the curious primary process? Even then, some folks got them elected. Just herd mentality (it's a Republican and that's good enough for me)?

And as for contrasting the contemporary GOP with Nixon's party: It was Nixon who established the EPA, supposedly, in today's Republican narrative, a nemesis of free enterprise bent on nothing less but stifling entrepreneurial spirit by imposing red tape (just like the Mine Safety and Health Administration just wanted to destroy Massey Energy Co by insisting on those costly safety measures). The current Republican mantra, as ordered by their extracting and heavy industry customers, is to abolish or gut it to dysfunctionality. It is thus unsurprising that Republican candidates bash the EPA as a matter of course, want to have industries regulating themselves (that is, have them not regulate themselves), proposing to shelve environmental regulations, and not issuing new ones, until the economy improves (open ended, just like the perpetual wars on terror, or drugs, or procrastination). And what's it with these crazy socialist lefties and their irrational fondness of clean air and drinking clean water anyway ...

The problem is not so much that the Republicans have gotten demented, even though it often may appear that way. It's that corporate influence has increased substantially. In Nixon's day stewardship and governance were issues that GOP embraced, the EPA is manifest evidence of that. Now they embrace what they get campaign donations for, and that is opposing environmental regulations.

This is "pay for play", or policies a lá carte. The problem in that regard is money in politics. If those crazy socialist lefties with their irrational fondness of clean air and drinking clean water would pay as much as extracting industries do, the GOP would love them just as much. As George W. Bush put it so memorably when he spoke to his campaign donors:

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Also, the understanding (or perhaps just the chutzpah with which it is asserted) of executive power has changed: When Nixon broke the law he did so very probably knowingly, and he had the good sense to step down when it came out. In contrast Bush and Obama claim that their lawbreaking (like the illegal wiretapping, that, oh wait, had to be retroactively legalised?) not only is not a crime, but that it has never actually been one, not even under Nixon.

 

Do you really think that is new? Pay for play has always been in existence. My god it was commonly known any large donor could simply ask, and be given, an ambassadorship to a nice locale. It was a regular perk for donors. Many large donors got to have an "inside person" in a regulatory capacity. It's always been that way but there is a bit more accountability now -- actually I should say the press reports it more now.

Nixon established an EPA with significantly less power -- it has grown over the years and claimed additional power it should not have (just check the SC docket for one of many). Nixon also signed Title IX into law, but he had predominantly male appointees at all levels.

Nixon had to step down because he had more enemies than Edgar -- there was a reason he was called "Tricky Dick." Roosevelt had his recordings and files which could have been used as a precedent for Nixon's files (and the whole Watergate incident) -- but Nixon knew he would not be able to mount a defense without his own party's support (they were some of his worst enemies).

 

No, it isn't new, it's just that simple.

 

As we get closer to Bradley Manning's trial an article about this very subject appeared on Truthdig that I feel is very important: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item...ndorse_obamas_war_on_whistleblowers_20120312/

“Unauthorized disclosures are the lifeblood of the republic,” Daniel Ellsberg said. “You cannot have a meaningful democracy where the public only has authorized disclosures from the government. If they [officials] get control, if they can prosecute anybody who violates that, you are kidding yourself if you think you have any kind of democratic control over foreign policy, national security and homeland security. We don’t have a democracy now in foreign affairs and national security. We have a monarchy tempered by leaks. Cut off the leaks and we don’t even have that.”