Cover-ups, Coups, and Drones – A Holiday Sampler of What Wikileaks Reveals about the US

[unhappycamper]

Cover-ups, Coups, and Drones – A Holiday Sampler of What Wikileaks Reveals about the US
by Bill Quigley
Published on Sunday, December 19, 2010 by CommonDreams.org

Human rights advocates have significant new sources of information to hold the United States accountable. The transparency, which Wikileaks has brought about, unveils many cover-ups of injustices in US relations with Honduras, Spain, Thailand, UK and Yemen over issues of torture at Guantanamo, civilian casualties from drones, and the war in Iraq.

The US government has twisted itself into knots over Wikileaks. It routinely disregards the privacy of citizens while at the same time trying to avoid transparency for itself.

The US claims broad authority to secretly snoop on the lives of individuals inside and outside of the US. It also works tirelessly to prevent citizens from knowing what is going on by expansively naming basic government information "state secrets." The government says it has to have the right to keep things secret in order to prevent crime.

But when it comes to revealing evidence of illegal acts by the US government it seeks the most severe sanctions against any transparency.

The most glaring example of the twisted logic is on display within the US Department of Justice. DOJ is searching for creative ways to criminally sanction Wikileaks for publishing US secrets. But the same Department of Justice solemnly decided it should not prosecute the government officials who brazenly destroyed dozens of tapes of water-boarding and torture by US officials. So, DOJ, destruction of evidence of crimes is OK and revealing the evidence of crimes is bad?

[Tsiyu]

1. The Bill of Rights

was all about not letting "The State" get too big for its britches.

Which implies that the feds shouldn't be powerful enough to trample the individual's rights. And that "The State" can at times become dangerous to those rights.

We have as much right to transparency as they have to spy on us - to play dumb and let our government run wild is to be an ungrateful, lazy citizen. To allow our government to invade our privacy, and then to accept their outrage when "they" are also "watched" is to be part of the problem.


Do the right thing. What about that? Then no leak can hurt you.

If you have nothing to hide and so on.....

[Mimosa]

2. Bill Quigley's one of my heroes

He was head of the Louisiana ACLU for a while.

[snot]

3. Thanks! Here's another list, with links:

http://www.pacificfreepress.com/news/1-/7610-a-holiday-sampler-of-what-wikileaks-reveals-about-the-us.html