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EUGENE — The man who leaked the Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam War called for government insiders to provide similar classified documents about the war in Iraq. Daniel Ellsberg, 73, said federal insiders owe a "higher allegiance'' to the Constitution, the public and U.S. soldiers in Iraq than to their government bosses. He acknowledges that whistle-blowers risk personal setbacks, such as losing their jobs, but urged them to act nonetheless. "I'm asking them to ask themselves whether their highest duty to this country really consists in keeping secrets of an administration that has acted like this ... in protecting lies,...

"Daniel Ellsberg (born April 7, 1931) is a former American military analyst employed by the RAND Corporation who precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret Pentagon study of government decision-making about the Vietnam War, to The New York Times and other newspapers."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg _____________________________________________________________ "As a response to the leaks, the Nixon administration began a campaign against further leaks and against Ellsberg personally. Aides Egil Krogh and David Young under John Ehrlichman's supervision created the 'White House Plumbers,' which would later lead to the Watergate burglaries."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg#Fallout _____________________________________________________________ So what is Daniel Ellsberg...

‘The Post,” the new movie starring Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks, is three things: a film about the Pentagon Papers, classified documents about the Vietnam War that were leaked to the media in 1971, a film about the press and Donald Trump, and, finally, an indictment about Harvey Weinstein and sexism in Hollywood. According to Streep, who is interviewed on December 14 in the Washington Post, the film is mostly about sexism. Streep says that the new film came from a place of “grievance” about sexism.  “People were really scared and demoralized [after Trump was elected],” Streep told the Post. But...

In what is being described as the largest release of secret U.S. military documents ever, the whistle-blowing web site WikiLeaks has released a trove of classified reports about the war in Iraq, including a secret U.S. government tally that puts the Iraqi death toll between 109,000 and 285,000, according to news sources that received advanced copies of the documents.

A WHISTLEBLOWER has made a series of extraordinary claims about how corrupt government officials allowed Pakistan and other states to steal nuclear weapons secrets. Sibel Edmonds, a 37-year-old former Turkish language translator for the FBI, listened into hundreds of sensitive intercepted conversations while based at the agency's Washington field office. She approached The Sunday Times last month after reading about an Al-Qaeda terrorist who had revealed his role in training some of the 9/11 hijackers while he was in Turkey. Edmonds described how foreign intelligence agents had enlisted the support of US officials to acquire a network of moles in...

Andrew Sullivan says the man who heckled Rummy was Not some crazed lefty. The man who demanded that Rumsfeld answer the questions we all want to have answered turns out to be the man who gave former president George H. W. Bush his daily intelligence briefing. And he was right in the exchange; and Rummy was factually wrong. Yep: Rumsfeld lied. Quelle surprise. No not some crazed lefty. The man was Ray McGovern, who Sweetness and Light noticed was part of Daniel Ellsberg's Truth Telling Project. Here's the relevant blog entry from the Belmont archives: Sweetness and Light has...

Sweetness and Light has noticed that the press has quoted two former counterterrorism experts in defense of Mary McCarthy but omitted one interesting detail, which may or may not be relevant. Here's ABC News report quoting the first expert, Ray McGovern to the effect that McCarthy had a higher duty to "defend the constitution". To supporters, McCarthy is a woman of conviction who exposed actions she believed were against the law."This a matter of principle," said Ray McGovern, a former fellow CIA analyst, "where she said my oath, my promise not to reveal secrets is superceded by my oath to...

Newly hired as a translator of Turkish and Farsi (the language spoken in Iran), Sibel Edmonds was sitting at her desk in FBI headquarters in Washington on Sep. 20, 2001, retranslating a communications intercept headquarters had received some time before from an agent in Phoenix. The intercept contained references to skyscrapers and to U.S. immigration procedures, clues to the intentions of the 9/11 hijackers, clues overlooked by the person who first translated the document. Edmonds raced to her supervisor and asked to speak on a secure line to the agent who had obtained the intercept, to tell him of the...

UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL The Department of Justice has abandoned its argument that charges made by a fired FBI translator are secret, paving the way for a court case involving charges of incompetence, poor security and possible espionage in the translation unit of the bureau's Washington field office. At issue are accusations by Sibel Edmonds, a contract translator for the FBI hired in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks. Mrs. Edmonds, fluent in Turkish and in the Farsi language spoken in Iran, reported that many of those hired to work in the unit barely could speak English; that they...

The Justice Department has backed away from a court battle over its authority to classify and restrict the discussion of information it has already released, handing a local advocacy group a victory by granting it explicit permission to publish letters written by two senators that contain the contested information. The case was considered a potential test of limits to the government's power to restrict access to information in the public domain on national security grounds. Former attorney general John D. Ashcroft had strongly defended the practice in this case by likening it to putting "spilt milk" back in a jar...

WASHINGTON -- A federal appeals court turned aside efforts to open to the public closed-door arguments Thursday in the case of a fired FBI contractor who alleged there were security breaches and misconduct at the bureau. Sibel Edmonds is seeking to revive her lawsuit against the government. It was thrown out of U.S. District Court when the Bush administration invoked the state secrets privilege, which allows the government to withhold information to safeguard national security. Edmonds says she was dismissed from her job as a wiretap translator because she told superiors she suspected a co-worker was leaking information to targets...

Home Project Activities Writing & Interviews Press Coverage Links Contact Contribute For Immediate ReleaseSeptember 22, 2004 11 FORMER AND CURRENT US AND UK GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES ISSUE LETTERSUPPORTING DANISH WHISTLEBLOWER FRANK GREVIL Frank Grevil’s press contact is: Tom Clark tclark@tiscali.dkhome (+45) 4444 1343work (+45) 4452 6447mobile (+45) 4095 0574 or (+45) 6062 1763 OPEN LETTER TO THE DANISH GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC: We, the undersigned citizens of the United States and the United Kingdom, have recently come to learn of the criminal proceedings against our Danish fellow truth-teller, Mr. Frank Grevil. As his case has been presented to us, Mr. Grevil...