July, 28 2010, 04:41pm EDT
Obama Going After Whistleblowers
WASHINGTON
COLEEN ROWLEY
Rowley, whose May 2002 memo described some of the FBI's pre-9/11 failures, was named one of Time Magazine's people of the year in 2002 along with Enron and WorldCom whistleblowers Sherron Watkins and Cynthia Cooper.
Rowley said today: "The Obama administration is detaining Bradley Manning in Kuwait. It is prosecuting Thomas Drake [formerly of the National Security Agency] for blowing the whistle on aspects of the illegal spying program Bush started. It is threatening Thomas Tamm (a former lawyer in the Department of Justice) with the same, as well as New York Times reporter James Risen. Even the Bush administration was careful not to go this far to repress truthful disclosures involving government/corporate fraud, waste, abuse, illegality and/or risks to public safety. Now, Obama -- who promised transparency and more whistleblower protection -- is."
She co-wrote "Un-gagging the Whistleblowers" and "Wikileak Case Echoes Pentagon Papers."
MARSHA COLEMAN-ADEBAYO
also via Kevin Berends
Coleman-Adebayo has been described by Time Magazine as "a former EPA employee whose complaints of a 'racially toxic' environment there led to the signing of the Notification and Federal Employee Anti-Discrimination and Retaliation Act of 2001."
She just wrote the piece "Shirley Sherrod's Bizarre Week in the Sacrifice Zone," which draws parallels between Sherrod and whistleblowers: aEURoeThere are inside the federal bureaucracy tens of thousands of discrimination complaints filed annually against discriminating managers by countless whistleblowers -- decent people just like Shirley Sherrod -- who are discriminated against and suffer retaliation in absolute anonymity.
Background: See Jesselyn Radack's Los Angeles Times piece "Obama's Record-Setting Leak Prosecutions"
From the Washingtonian: "Plugging the Leaks: Barack Obama hates leaks, and thanks to a tenacious prosecutor, the Justice Department is on its way to setting a record for leak prosecutions"
A nationwide consortium, the Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA) represents an unprecedented effort to bring other voices to the mass-media table often dominated by a few major think tanks. IPA works to broaden public discourse in mainstream media, while building communication with alternative media outlets and grassroots activists.
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