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Related: About this forumDaniel Ellsberg, Thomas Drake and Jesslyn Radack Tell It Like It Is at Whistle-Blowers’ Summit
found at Truthdig:
Unfortunately for our shaky democracy, the U.S. has needed serious and frequent help in exposing the misuse and abuse of government power in recent years. Fortunately for our democracy, people like Daniel Ellsberg, Edward Snowden, Thomas Drake and Jesslyn Radack have been paying attention.
On April 8, Ellsberg, Radack and Drake joined Truthdig Editor-in-Chief Robert Scheer for a valuable meeting of the minds at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California. They discussed the challenges of taking on the top brass in Washington during the moments when they put everything on the line to serve what Radack, who herself has acted as both a whistle-blower and a legal defender of key figures like former NSA executive Drake and contractor Snowden, calls the fifth estate of American governmentthe last final check when pillars of our tripartite democracy are not working.
For his part, Pentagon Papers truth-teller Ellsberg doesnt mince words, giving his withering take on what happens when intelligence agency heads and presidents are presumed to always be doing their jobs, toiling away for the public interest as their mandates dictate:
I think we have to change the culture of secrecy the cult of secrecy change the benefit of the doubt thats given quite wrongly to politicians and the president in terms of what the public should know and should not know. To even think of thinking, for example, [Director of U.S. National Intelligence James] Clapper or [former NSA Director] Keith Alexander or the president should be the last word on what the public should know about what theyre doing in our name represents a kind of culpable ignorance at this point unless youre 16 years old. These people do not deserve the benefit of the doubt at this point. Behind the veil of secrecy, extremely bad, disastrous policy-making goes on without accountability.
On April 8, Ellsberg, Radack and Drake joined Truthdig Editor-in-Chief Robert Scheer for a valuable meeting of the minds at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California. They discussed the challenges of taking on the top brass in Washington during the moments when they put everything on the line to serve what Radack, who herself has acted as both a whistle-blower and a legal defender of key figures like former NSA executive Drake and contractor Snowden, calls the fifth estate of American governmentthe last final check when pillars of our tripartite democracy are not working.
For his part, Pentagon Papers truth-teller Ellsberg doesnt mince words, giving his withering take on what happens when intelligence agency heads and presidents are presumed to always be doing their jobs, toiling away for the public interest as their mandates dictate:
I think we have to change the culture of secrecy the cult of secrecy change the benefit of the doubt thats given quite wrongly to politicians and the president in terms of what the public should know and should not know. To even think of thinking, for example, [Director of U.S. National Intelligence James] Clapper or [former NSA Director] Keith Alexander or the president should be the last word on what the public should know about what theyre doing in our name represents a kind of culpable ignorance at this point unless youre 16 years old. These people do not deserve the benefit of the doubt at this point. Behind the veil of secrecy, extremely bad, disastrous policy-making goes on without accountability.
clip at http://www.c-span.org/video/?318762-1/challenges-facing-whistleblowers
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Daniel Ellsberg, Thomas Drake and Jesslyn Radack Tell It Like It Is at Whistle-Blowers’ Summit (Original Post)
BelgianMadCow
Apr 2014
OP
KoKo
(84,711 posts)1. The "Secrets that the Powerful and Entitled Keep" are overwhelming and keep them in Power...
THIS QUOTE from your POST:
I think we have to change the culture of secrecy
the cult of secrecy
change the benefit of the doubt thats given quite wrongly to politicians and the president in terms of what the public should know and should not know.
To even think of thinking, for example, Clapper or Keith Alexander or the president should be the last word on what the public should know about what theyre doing in our name represents a kind of culpable ignorance at this point unless youre 16 years old.
These people do not deserve the benefit of the doubt at this point. Behind the veil of secrecy, extremely bad, disastrous policy-making goes on without accountability.