Bending the Third Rail
Because We Should, We Can, We Do
Monday, February 13, 2006
Loose Lips
Truthout has a good article on whistleblowers, leaked information, and lives saved:
I had the privilege of being present at the creation of the international Truth-Telling Coalition on September 9, 2004 and of working with Daniel Ellsberg in drafting the coalition's Appeal to Current Government Officials to put loyalty to the Constitution above career and to expose dishonesty leading to misadventures like the wars in Vietnam and Iraq. Whether or not encouragement from the Coalition played any role in subsequent disclosures, we are grateful for those responsible for the recent hemorrhaging of important information - from the "Downing Street Minutes," showing that by summer 2002 the Bush administration had decided to "fix" intelligence to "justify" war on Iraq, to disclosures regarding CIA kidnappings, secret prisons, and state-sponsored torture.

As former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds, who leads the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition, keeps reminding us, "Information is the oxygen of democracy." And with this administration's fetish for secrecy and our somnolent Fourth Estate, we would likely all suffocate without patriotic truth-tellers (aka whistleblowers).
This just expands the topic Greyhair has already touched on. It has come down to this: a handful of individuals fighting an empire (complete with the madness of King George) to insure our freedom. We haven't come so far in 200 years, have we?
Written at 4:42 PM by Lynne.
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