{"id":17262,"date":"2012-11-09T10:10:39","date_gmt":"2012-11-09T09:10:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=17262"},"modified":"2012-11-09T10:10:39","modified_gmt":"2012-11-09T09:10:39","slug":"obama-continues-war-on-whistleblowers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/war-terrorism\/obama-continues-war-on-whistleblowers\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama continues war on whistleblowers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Press TV<\/a> |<\/p>\n

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange polarizes people. Some love him, some hate him, others believe he is, whether knowingly or not, a useful tool for the spy hierarchy in the U.S. and elsewhere in the West. Assange\u2019s reaction to the reelection of Obama is worthy of note, however. Not only because he is one of the only high profile dissenting voices in the public eye, but also because he has experienced first hand how Obama has instituted one of the most extreme under the radar crack-downs on dissenters in history.<\/p>\n

In a telephone interview with AFP from his asylum at Ecuador\u2019s London embassy, Assange urged that Obama\u2019s reelection should not be any cause for celebration.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s better to have a sheep in wolf\u2019s clothing than a wolf in sheep\u2019s clothing,\u201d Assange said, adding that he expects the Obama administration to continue attacking and persecuting anti-secrecy activists.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of the activities against WikiLeaks by the United States have occurred under an Obama administration,\u201d Assange said, adding that the Republican party has not acted to try and restrain such excessive activity.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no reason to believe that will change – in fact, the Republicans will push the administration into ever greater excesses,\u201d Assange noted.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe re-election of Barack Obama coincides with the 899th day of Bradley Manning\u2019s confinement,\u201d Assange said, referring to the soldier, currently being held in solitary confinement in a military prison, accused of leaking thousands of classified military documents to WikiLeaks in 2010 relating to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, a federal judge in Virginia ruled that a 2-year-old federal grand jury probe into WikiLeaks is still \u201congoing.\u201d<\/p>\n

WikiLeaks released a statement echoing Assange\u2019s remarks, noting that Obama has forged a \u201cstate within a state\u201d that is \u201creplete with secret laws, secret budgets, secret bailouts, secret killings, secret mass spying, and secret detention without charge.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFour more years in the same direction cannot be tolerated,\u201d the statement concluded.<\/p>\n

It is a well documented fact that Attorney General Eric Holder, Obama\u2019s top Justice Department official, has prosecuted more whistleblowers under the Espionage Act during his tenure than all of his predecessors combined.<\/p>\n

In a very informative piece in September, London Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald noted:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 2008, candidate Obama hailed whistleblowing as \u201cacts of courage and patriotism,\u201d which \u201cshould be encouraged rather than stifled as they have been during the Bush administration.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Obama, however, has waged the most aggressive and vindictive assault on whistleblowers of any president in American history,\u201d Greenwald clarifies.<\/p>\n

In addition, as journalist Peter Van Buren has pointed out,<\/p>\n

Obama\u2019s zeal in silencing leaks that don\u2019t make him look like a superhero extends beyond the deployment of the Espionage Act into a complex legal tangle of retaliatory practices, life-destroying threats, on-the-job harassment, and firings. Lots of firings.<\/p>\n

At the heart of Obama\u2019s war on whistleblowers is protection of his continued undeclared and unauthorized secret drone war.<\/p>\n

Yesterday it was revealed that within 24 hours of his reelection, Obama sanctioned yet another drone missile strike on Yemen.<\/p>\n

The strike was said to have killed three militants and injured several others, including a child. Local journalists were surprised that the strike was carried out less than 40km from the capital, making it the closest ever to the country\u2019s centre of government. Activists condemned the strike as part of Obama\u2019s \u201csecret war\u201d on Yemen.<\/p>\n

Adam Banron, a freelance journalist based in Yemen, tweeted:<\/p>\n

@adammbaron: coming > 24 hours after Obama\u2019s reelection, its hard not to see the suspected U.S. strike in sanhan as a message\u2026if not a provocation. #yemen<\/p>\n

Yemeni activist Ibrahim Mothana tweeted:<\/p>\n

@imothanaYemen: Drone strikes in a \u201cSecret War\u201d by a \u201cNobel Peace Laureate\u201d! Life can\u2019t get more surreal #Yemen<\/p>\n

Yemeni Blogger Afrah Nasser tweeted:<\/p>\n

@Afrahnasser:\u201dYes We Can #Drone!\u201d #Obama #Yemen #Somalia #Pakistan<\/p>\n

Yemeni doctor Wedad Abood tweeted:<\/p>\n

@WedadAbood: @BarackObama 4 more years of #drone strikes killing innocent peoples not to forget women & children #NoDrones #Yemen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Press TV | Wikileaks founder Julian Assange polarizes people. Some love him, some hate him, others believe he is, whether knowingly or not, a useful tool for the spy hierarchy in the U.S. and elsewhere in the West. Assange\u2019s reaction to the reelection of Obama is worthy of note, however. Not only because he is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,1616,16],"tags":[49],"class_list":{"0":"post-17262","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-latest-news","7":"category-usa-news","8":"category-war-terrorism","9":"tag-usa-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17262\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}