Once Again, The Administration Vindictively Charges A Whistleblower As Being A Spy

by Mike Masnick

This is getting ridiculous. When President Obama was campaigning and even when he first took office, he claimed that it was a priority to support whistleblowing activities. And yet, as President, he has been ridiculously aggressive in pushing vindictive criminal lawsuits against whistleblowers -- often by abusing the Espionage Act. The Espionage Act is supposed to be used against spies. But the Obama Justice Department has used it over and over again against whistleblowers in a purely vindictive manner. In fact, he's used it to bring charges against whistleblowers more often than every other President combined. This strategy turned out to be a disaster in the Thomas Drake case (which was initiated by President Bush, but continued with strong support by President Obama), where the case completely collapsed, once it became clear that the charges were nothing but a vindictive attack on a whistleblower.

Apparently the Obama administration has not learned its lesson. It has now used the Espionage Act to go after a former CIA agent, John Kiriakou, who blew the whistle on the CIA's waterboarding torture regime. This now makes it the sixth Espionage Act prosecution of a whistleblower brought by the Obama administration. All other presidents before him used it a total of 3 times. As the Government Accountability Project notes, the really stunning thing in all of this is that Kiriakou will be the only person prosecuted in relation to the use of waterboarding -- and simply for blowing the whistle on it.

if you torture a prisoner, you will not be held criminally liable, but if you blow the whistle on torture, you risk criminal prosecution under the Espionage Act.

Something seems very, very wrong about this.

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Seattle Police Vindictively Take Dash-Cam Video Of Man's Traffic Infraction & Show It To Man's Boss

Chris | InformationLiberation

When a Seattle attorney recently made a public records request for two dash-cam videos which involved clients he was representing, the Seattle police astonishingly filed a lawsuit against him to prevent the dash-cam videos from being released.

Despite taking that stance, SPD officers in this case took dash-cam video of a man being harassed over a minor traffic infraction and showed the video to the man's boss in a vindictive attempt to get him fired.

KOMO News reports:

SEATTLE -- For the past year the KOMO 4 Problem Solvers have uncovered case after case of questionable conduct by Seattle Police Officers caught on tape. Now we've found a chilling case that started as a simple traffic stop that could happen to any one of us. Only this time the dash cam video of the incident was shown to a man's boss, jeopardizing his very livelihood.

Most people who know Keiwuan Miller see him as either the assistant high school basketball coach or as a security officer at a local public high school. But on an April day in 2010, drivers could have seen him along the side of a city street, stopped by Seattle police for allegedly not wearing his seat belt.

Miller, who has absolutely no criminal history, says he's been stopped by police time and time again simply because of the color of his skin. And every time he's stopped, "it brings back the first time, the second time, when I was a teenager, when I was 22, It brings all those times back."

Read their full story here.

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Where are all those Second Amendment-fanatics, supposed to protect you from tyranny ? If you have nothing to hide and don't do anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about. Just do what you are told when an officer asks you to do something. She wanted him to lose his job. He wasn't out of control and I can understand the frustration of being stopped for a revenue-generating stupid seatbelt ticket. Nothing has done more to erode respect for the police than their role as basically another taxing agency. If their role is to further impoverish Americans than let some of them go and keep just enough for the purpose of protecting the public. Better yet have them arrest the crooked politicians. LOL @ 67171... from experience, I can assure you that even if you comply and remain polite, you can't be sure that there are reasons to worry! "Under common law, I do not consent and I waive the benefits. Officer, am I free to go?"

...Wait 10 seconds...

"Officer, am I free to go?"

...Wait 10 seconds...

"Officer, if you do no answer in the negative, I will assume I am free to go. Am I free to go, officer?"

When you speak like that to an officer you treat them as a peace officer and you as a citizen. Never answer their questions. Two sentences in and you've verbally contracted to "understand" them, or, more clearly put "stand under their authority". When that happens you become a corporate citizen and they are the agent of the United States Federal Corporation and the subcorps, the states.

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which in some cases has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material is made available for the purposes of news reporting, education, research, comment, and criticism, which constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. It is our policy to respond to notices of alleged infringement that comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (found at the U.S. Copyright Office) and other applicable intellectual property laws. It is our policy to remove material from public view that we believe in good faith to be copyrighted material that has been illegally copied and distributed by any of our members or users.
About Us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy
"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened..." - Winston Churchill

View the original article here