President Obama's war on whistleblowers

Last week, RT covered Obama’s continuing and unprecedented war on whistleblowers in America. The clip below includes the new provisions of the ironically named ‘Whistleblower Improvement Act of 2011 (H.R. 2483)’, which makes exposing wrongdoing more difficult, an interview with State Department whistleblower Peter van Buren about excessive American secrecy, and a review of Bradley Manning’s trial and treatment.

The new Whistleblower Improvement Act provisions:

1. Requires a whistleblower to first report information to employer before going to a regulatory agency.
2. Requires to SEC to notify the entity before commencing any enforcement action is taken
3. Legalizes retaliation by company against whistle blowing employee.
4. Removes incentives for whistleblowers previously guaranteed by Dodd-Frank Act.

Julian Assange’s lawyer gives talk in Sydney, “Don’t shoot the messenger: WikiLeaks, Assange and Democracy.” In her remarks, Jennifer Robinson discussed how PFC Manning is being overcharged and mistreated to pressure him into implicating her client:

Australians need only look to how [Bradley Manning] is being treated within US prisons to understand what will happen to Julian if he ends up in the US.

Bradley Manning has been subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment in breach of international standards, causing international outrage. At the hearing in the US just before Christmas, it was Bradley Manning’s committal hearing, his defense lawyer Mr. [David E.] Coombs stood up in opening and sought to recuse the investigating officer. Why? Because he is an employee of the Department of Justice.

He sought [to] recuse him on the grounds that the Department of Justice had an ongoing criminal investigation into Julian Assange. Therefore his employer had an interest in Bradley Manning making a plea bargain in order to criminally implicate Assange.

In closing, he said that the way in which Bradley Manning has been treated, the way in which he has been overcharged — let’s not forget that Bradley Manning is facing 150 years plus life in prison, there is a potential death penalty for the aiding the enemy charge that was introduced just six months before the pretrial hearing — that overcharging is designed, in Mr. Coombs’ opinion in his submissions before the court, to put pressure on Bradley Manning to implicate Assange.

Coombs’ request for the investigating officer’s recusal was denied. In his closing remarks, Coombs implored the IO to drop the ‘aiding the enemy’ charge and reduce the remaining charges to come up with a deal that would put Manning in prison for 30 years. The IO, however, recommended all charges be forwarded to court martial. (Read more…)

U.S. Senate candidate supports whistleblowers. David Levitt, running against incumbent Dianne Feinstein for a California seat in the U.S. Senate, attended Friday’s Whistleblowers Conference at UC Berkeley. According to SFgate.com, “Levitt believes strongly in protecting whistleblowers such as WikiLeaks and other journalists who expose corruption — especially when, as even Defense Secretary Gates has confessed, the harm they are accused of causing is ‘overblown’.”

The incumbent he’s challenging, Dianne Feinstein, is notorious for supporting bills that erode civil liberties. For example, Feinstein was an original co-sponsor of a bill to extend the USA PATRIOT Act. (Read more…)