{"id":299562,"date":"2017-03-18T02:40:08","date_gmt":"2017-03-18T01:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/the-trumpobama-leak-war\/"},"modified":"2017-03-18T02:40:08","modified_gmt":"2017-03-18T01:40:08","slug":"the-trumpobama-leak-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/the-trumpobama-leak-war\/","title":{"rendered":"The Trump\/Obama \u2018Leak War\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>\u201cLeaks\u201d can be whistleblowers exposing government wrongdoing, but many actually are government agencies manipulating the public or punishing enemies, as is playing out in today\u2019s Trump\/Obama \u201cleak war,\u201d says Rick Sterling.<\/p>\n<p>By Rick Sterling<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHacking\u201d and \u201cleaking\u201d can be either good or bad depending on the motives behind the disclosures and your political perspective. Generally speaking, democracy benefits from transparency and from having a more fully informed citizenry.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_22891\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/stein-putin-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/lazy-load\/images\/1x1.trans.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/stein-putin-1-300x200.jpg\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-22891\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/stein-putin-1-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/stein-putin-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/stein-putin-1.jpg 422w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\"\/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-22891\" src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/stein-putin-1-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/stein-putin-1-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/stein-putin-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/stein-putin-1.jpg 422w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Retired Gen. Michael Flynn (left) sitting next to Russian President Vladimir Putin at a dinner marking the RT network\u2019s 10-year anniversary in Moscow, December 2015. Also, at the table (on the right) is Jill Stein, who became the Green Party\u2019s presidential nominee.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>But \u201cleaks\u201d can also be used to punish dissidents or to enflame public passions in favor of war or against some vulnerable minority group. Indeed, \u201cleaks\u201d can paradoxically be used to advance cover-ups by punishing people who tried to expose the truth.<\/p>\n<p>An example of that sort of \u201cleak\u201d occurred during George W. Bush\u2019s presidency when his subordinates \u201cleaked\u201d derogatory information about former U.S. Ambassador Joe Wilson, who had offended the White House by exposing a key falsehood used to justify the Iraq War, that Iraq had been seeking yellowcake uranium from Niger.<\/p>\n<p>To discredit and punish Wilson, Bush\u2019s aides <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Plame_affair\">disclosed<\/a> through \u201cleaks\u201d that Wilson\u2019s wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA officer as a way to suggest that Wilson\u2019s investigation was a junket, not a serious inquiry.<\/p>\n<p>In other words, to discredit an attempt to honestly inform the American people about a false pretext for war, the Bush administration released classified information that was intended to undercut Wilson\u2019s reputation and which destroyed his wife\u2019s CIA career. The so-called Plamegate Affair sent a warning to other government officials who might be inclined to challenge the case for war in Iraq that \u2013 if you dare do so \u2013 you will pay a price. That \u201cleak\u201d was really part of a cover-up.<\/p>\n<p>Still, as commonly understood, public-spirited \u201cleaks\u201d seek to expose the lies and the propaganda that are&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/2017\/03\/17\/the-trumpobama-leak-war\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cLeaks\u201d can be whistleblowers exposing government wrongdoing, but many actually are government agencies manipulating the public or punishing enemies, as is playing out in today\u2019s Trump\/Obama \u201cleak war,\u201d says Rick Sterling. By Rick Sterling \u201cHacking\u201d and \u201cleaking\u201d can be either good or bad depending on the motives behind the disclosures and your political perspective. Generally [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2524,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-299562","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299562","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\/2524"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299562\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}