Army war hero whistle-blower who talked to Congress says Army trying to court marshal him...

Someone needs to be court marshaled, but it isn't  Lt. Col. Jason Amerine.

Via Washington Examiner:

An Army war hero turned whistleblower told Congress Thursday that the military retaliated against him for talking to Congress about his plan to trade one Taliban warlord for at least six American and Canadian hostages, including Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. Ultimately, the State Department insisted on a deal to free the Taliban five for just Bergdahl, and rejected his plans to secure the release of more hostages. Lt. Col. Jason Amerine testified Thursday before the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee. Amerine is a Green Beret who the Army had treated as a war hero for his role in the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, and who later helped the military promote recruitment through media appearances. He told the panel he was well into a plan to try to win the release of at least six Americans and Canadians. Aside from Bergdahl, Amerine was hoping to free Caitlin Coleman, who vanished in Afghanistan while pregnant in the fall of 2012, and her Canadian husband Josh Boyle. Coleman had a baby while in captivity.

Change: Obama administration eliminates 100,000 potential whistle-blowers...

The Edward Snowden effect...

Via Tech Dirt:

The government swears it protects whistleblowers but the efforts it makes undermines its assertions. Telling people the government is targeting them for reasons it doesn't seem to be able to put into words is called a "criminal act." But here's the most surprising fact from Evanina's profile.

One crisp action taken following agency auditing after Snowden’s exposure: 100,000 fewer people have security clearances than did a year ago, Evanina said. “That’s a lot.”

This looks like the proper response to someone like Snowden. Handing out too many security clearances undermines security. But it's more than that: it's a consolidation of power. By stripping 100,000 people of their clearances, the government eliminates 100,000 potential whistleblowers. With fewer eyes watching surveillance programs, odds of abuse multiply. Someone has to watch the watchers and sometimes that someone is nothing more than a government contractor.

Is this Team Obama's Watergate moment?

There has been a burglary with political implications...

The offices of a Dallas law firm representing a high-profile State Department whistleblower were broken into last weekend. Burglars stole three computers and broke into the firm’s file cabinets. But silver bars, video equipment and other valuables were left untouched, according to local Fox affiliate KDFW, which aired security camera footage of the suspected burglars entering and leaving the offices around the time of the incident.

The firm Schulman & Mathias represents Aurelia Fedenisn, a former investigator at the State Department’s Office of the Inspector General. In recent weeks, she raised a slew of explosive allegations against the department and its contractors ranging from illicit drug use, soliciting sexual favors from minors and prostitutes and sexual harassment.

“It’s a crazy, strange and suspicious situation,” attorney Cary Schulman told The Cable. “It’s clear to me that it was somebody looking for information and not money. My most high-profile case right now is the Aurelia Fedenisn case, and I can’t think of any other case where someone would go to these great lengths to get our information.”

According to the KDFW report, the firm was the only suite burglarized in the high-rise office building and an unlocked office adjacent was left untouched.

PRISM whistle-blower outs himself...plans to defect to Hong Kong...

Hmm...

The Guardian reported:

The individual responsible for one of the most significant leaks in US political history is Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former technical assistant for the CIA and current employee of the defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Snowden has been working at the National Security Agency for the last four years as an employee of various outside contractors, including Booz Allen and Dell.

The Guardian, after several days of interviews, is revealing his identity at his request. From the moment he decided to disclose numerous top-secret documents to the public, he was determined not to opt for the protection of anonymity. “I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong,” he said.

Snowden will go down in history as one of America’s most consequential whistleblowers, alongside Daniel Ellsberg and Bradley Manning. He is responsible for handing over material from one of the world’s most secretive organisations – the NSA.
In a note accompanying the first set of documents he provided, he wrote: “I understand that I will be made to suffer for my actions,” but “I will be satisfied if the federation of secret law, unequal pardon and irresistible executive powers that rule the world that I love are revealed even for an instant.”

Despite his determination to be publicly unveiled, he repeatedly insisted that he wants to avoid the media spotlight. “I don’t want public attention because I don’t want the story to be about me. I want it to be about what the US government is doing.”

Read more here.

Obama administration threatening Benghazi whistle-blowers...

There is something very wrong here and the fish rots from the head...

Via Fox News:

At least four career officials at the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency have retained lawyers or are in the process of doing so, as they prepare to provide sensitive information about the Benghazi attacks to Congress, Fox News has learned.
Victoria Toensing, a former Justice Department official and Republican counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee, is now representing one of the State Department employees. She told Fox News her client and some of the others, who consider themselves whistle-blowers, have been threatened by unnamed Obama administration officials.

“I’m not talking generally, I’m talking specifically about Benghazi – that people have been threatened,” Toensing said in an interview Monday. “And not just the State Department. People have been threatened at the CIA.”
Toensing declined to name her client. She also refused to say whether the individual was on the ground in Benghazi on the night of Sept. 11, 2012, when terrorist attacks on two U.S. installations in the Libyan city killed four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens.[...]

“It’s frightening, and they’re doing some very despicable threats to people,” she said. “Not ‘we’re going to kill you,’ or not ‘we’re going to prosecute you tomorrow,’ but they’re taking career people and making them well aware that their careers will be over [if they cooperate with congressional investigators].”

Keep on reading…

ATF Acting Director Todd Jones delivers video warning to whistle-blowers...

This video message from ATF Acting Director Todd Jones contains an implied threat to whistle-blowers.

 ATF Acting Director Todd Jones on July 9, 2012:

"... if you don't find the appropriate way to raise your concerns to your leadership, there will be consequences. ..."

ATF, whistle-blowers, threat, new video,

Report: Two of Eric Holder's subordinates seeking whistleblower status in 'Gunwalking' scandal

Ruh-roh!

Via Examiner:

Sources described as "previously highly credible" and "close to the Gunwalker investigation" are claiming "one and perhaps two sources within the Department of Justice headquarters...have approached the Issa Committee seeking whistleblower status," Mike Vanderboegh of Sipsey Street Irregulars blog is reporting this afternoon in an exclusive story.

"One source, who reported that there were at least two of Eric Holder's subordinates who 'came in from the cold,' characterized them as 'high-level" DOJ employees 'with knowledge of Eric Holder's actions before and after" the 4 February 2011 DOJ letter denying that the DOJ and its subordinate agencies knew about "gunwalking," Vanderboegh writes, noting one source said the whistleblowers bring with them "the keys to the kingdom." Read more here...

President Obama promised to enhance whistle-blower laws, but is actually using the Espionage Act to prosecute them

It's the Chicago way...

Via The NYT:

Jake Tapper, the White House correspondent for ABC News, pointed out that the administration had lauded brave reporting in distant lands more than once and then asked, “How does that square with the fact that this administration has been so aggressively trying to stop aggressive journalism in the United States by using the Espionage Act to take whistle-blowers to court?” 

He then suggested that the administration seemed to believe that “the truth should come out abroad; it shouldn’t come out here.” 

Fair point. The Obama administration, which promised during its transition to power that it would enhance “whistle-blower laws to protect federal workers,” has been more prone than any administration in history in trying to silence and prosecute federal workers. 

The Espionage Act, enacted back in 1917 to punish those who gave aid to our enemies, was used three times in all the prior administrations to bring cases against government officials accused of providing classified information to the media. It has been used six times since the current president took office.