July, 08 2013, 03:14pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167
Whistleblowers Blast NSA Programs, Award Snowden
Edward Snowden has been named recipient of this year's "award for truth telling" given by Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence. The following are members of the group or past recipients of the award. The group's statement is below.
WASHINGTON
Edward Snowden has been named recipient of this year's "award for truth telling" given by Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence. The following are members of the group or past recipients of the award. The group's statement is below.
DANIEL ELLSBERG, ellsbergd1 at gmail.com
Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971. He wrote an op-ed that was published today in the Washington Post, which notes that "for the whole two years I was under indictment, I was free to speak to the media and at rallies and public lectures. I was, after all, part of a movement against an ongoing war. ... There is no chance that experience could be reproduced today, let alone that a trial could be terminated by the revelation of White House actions against a defendant that were clearly criminal in Richard Nixon's era ... There is zero chance that [Snowden] would be allowed out on bail if he returned now and close to no chance that, had he not left the country, he would have been granted bail. Instead, he would be in a prison cell like Bradley Manning, incommunicado...."
Ellsberg concludes: "What [Snowden] has given us is our best chance -- if we respond to his information and his challenge -- to rescue ourselves from out-of-control surveillance that shifts all practical power to the executive branch and its intelligence agencies: a United Stasi of America."
McGovern is a veteran CIA analyst. He wrote an op-ed that was published today in the Baltimore Sun: "There is a way out for President Barack Obama as he attempts to cope with Edward Snowden's disclosures about the National Security Agency's overreaching eavesdropping, the turbulent world reaction, and the lack of truthfulness shown by National Intelligence Director James Clapper and NSA Director Keith Alexander. The President should seize the initiative by suggesting to both that they 'spend more time with their families.'"
COLEEN ROWLEY, rowleyclan at earthlink.net
Rowley is a former FBI special agent and division counsel whose May 2002 memo described some of the FBI's pre-9/11 failures and was named one of Time magazine's "Persons of the Year" in 2002. She recently appeared on CNN and wrote a piece for their website, "Massive Spying on Americans is Outrageous."
BILL BINNEY, williambinney0802 at comcast.net
Binney was with the NSA for decades and resigned shortly after 9/11. He was recently interviewed by "Democracy Now!"
DAVID MacMICHAEL, dmacm at political-dog.com
MacMichael is a former analyst for the CIA. See his "Former Commander of Headquarters Company at Quantico Objects to Treatment of Bradley Manning."
THOMAS DRAKE, @Thomas_Drake1
Drake was a senior executive of the U.S. National Security Agency.
The following statement was released today by Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence:
Edward Snowden has been named recipient of this year's award for truth telling given by Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence, the group announced today.
Most of the Sam Adams Associates are former senior national security officials who, with the other members, understand fully the need to keep legitimate secrets. Each of the U.S. members took a solemn oath "to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic."
When secrecy is misused to hide unconstitutional activities, fealty to that oath -- and higher duty as citizens of conscience -- dictate support for truth tellers who summon the courage to blow the whistle. Edward Snowden's disclosures fit the classic definition of whistle blowing.
Former senior NSA executive Thomas Drake, who won the Sam Adams award in 2011, has called what Snowden did "an amazingly brave act of civil disobedience." Drake knows whereof he speaks. As a whistleblower he reported waste, fraud, and abuse -- as well as serious violations of the Fourth Amendment -- through official channels and, subsequently, to a reporter. He wound up indicted under the Espionage Act.
After a lengthy, grueling pre-trial proceeding, he was exonerated of all ten felony charges and pleaded out to the misdemeanor of "exceeding authorized use of a government computer." The presiding judge branded the four years of prosecutorial conduct against Drake "unconscionable."
The invective hurled at Snowden by the corporate and government influenced media reflects understandable embarrassment that he would dare expose the collusion of all three branches of government in perpetrating and then covering up their abuse of the Constitution. This same collusion has thwarted all attempts to pass laws that would protect genuine truth tellers like Snowden who see and wish to stop unconstitutional activities.
"These are the times that try men's souls," warned Thomas Paine in 1776, adding that "The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.
It is in this spirit that Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence are proud to confer on Edward Snowden the Sam Adams Award for 2013.
The Sam Adams Award has been given in previous years to truth tellers Coleen Rowley of the FBI; Katharine Gun of British Intelligence; Sibel Edmonds of the FBI; Craig Murray, former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan; Sam Provance; former US Army Sgt. at Abu Ghraib; Maj. Frank Grevil of Danish Army Intelligence; Larry Wilkerson, Col., US Army (ret.), former chief of staff to Colin Powell at State; Julian Assange of WikiLeaks; Thomas Drake, former senior NSA official; Jesselyn Radack, Director of National Security and Human Rights, Government Accountability Project; and Thomas Fingar, former Assistant Secretary of State and Director, National Intelligence Council.
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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"The Mexican government is both wise and on solid ground in refusing to allow its people to participate in the experiment that the U.S. government is seeking to impose."
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Friends of the Earth U.S. on Monday released a brief backing Mexico's ban on genetically modified corn for human consumption, which the green group recently submitted to a dispute settlement panel charged with considering the U.S. government's challenge to the policy.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced plans to phase out the herbicide glyphosate as well as genetically modified (GM) or genetically engineered (GE) corn in 2020. Last year he issued an updated decree making clear the ban does not apply to corn imports for livestock feed and industrial use. Still, the Biden administration objected and, after fruitless formal negotiations, requested the panel under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).
"The U.S. government has not presented an 'appropriate' risk assessment to the tribunal as called for in the USMCA dispute because such an assessment has never been done in the U.S. or anywhere in the world," said agricultural economist Charles Benbrook, who wrote the brief with Kendra Klein, director of science at Friends of the Earth U.S.
"The U.S. is, in effect, asking Mexico to trust the completeness and accuracy of the initial GE corn safety assessments carried out 15 to 30 years ago by the companies working to bring GE corn events to market."
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Blasting the Biden administration's case statement to the panel as "seriously deficient," Klein said Monday that "it lacks basic information about the toxins expressed in contemporary GMO corn varieties and their levels. The U.S. submission also ignores dozens of studies linking the insecticidal toxins and glyphosate residues found in GMO corn to adverse impacts on public health."
The brief explains that "since the commercial introduction of GE corn in 1996 and event-specific approvals in the 1990s and 2000s, dramatic changes have occurred in corn production systems. There has been an approximate four-fold increase in the number of toxins and pesticides applied on the average hectare of contemporary GE industrial corn compared to the early 1990s. Unfortunately, this upward trend is bound to continue, and may accelerate."
The U.S. statement's assurances about risks from Bacillus thuringiensis or vegetative insecticidal protein (Bt/VIP) residues "are not based on data and science," the brief warns.
"The U.S. is, in effect, asking Mexico to trust the completeness and accuracy of the initial GE corn safety assessments carried out 15 to 30 years ago by the companies working to bring GE corn events to market," the document says. "The Mexican government is both wise and on solid ground in refusing to allow its people to participate in the experiment that the U.S. government is seeking to impose on Mexico."
"The absence of any systematic monitoring of human exposure levels to Bt/VIP toxins and herbicides from consumption of corn-based foods is regrettable," the brief adds. "It is also unfortunate that the U.S. government rejected the Mexican proposal to jointly design and carry out a modern battery of studies able to overcome gaps in knowledge regarding GE corn impacts."
"The U.S. government's case against Mexico has no more scientific merit than its sham GMO regulatory regime, and should be rejected by the USMCA dispute resolution panel."
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His submission notes that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration "does not require a GE plant developer to do anything prior to marketing its GE crop or food derived from it. Instead, FDA operates what it calls a voluntary consultation program that is designed to enhance consumer confidence and speed GE crops to market."
"When governmental review is optional; and even when it's conducted, starts and ends with the regulated company's safety assurance—what's the point?" Freese asked. "Clearly, it's the PR value of a governmental rubber stamp."
"The Mexican government's prohibition of GM corn for tortillas and other masa corn products is fully justified," he asserted. "The U.S. government's case against Mexico has no more scientific merit than its sham GMO regulatory regime, and should be rejected by the USMCA dispute resolution panel."
In a Common Dreams opinion piece last week, Ernesto Hernández-López, a law professor at Chapman University in California, pointed out that Mexico's recent submission to the panel also "offers scientific proof and lots of it," including "over 150 scientific studies, referred to in peer-review journals, systemic research reviews, and more."
"Mexico incorporates perspectives from toxicology, pediatrics, plant biology, hematology, epidemiology, public health, and data mining, to name a few," he wrote. "This clearly and loudly responds to American persistence. The practical result: American leaders cannot claim there is no science supporting the decree. They may disagree with or dislike the findings, but there is proof."
The Biden administration's effort to quash the Mexican policy notably comes despite the lack of impact on trade. While implementing its ban last year, "Mexico also made its largest corn purchase from the U.S., 15.3 million metric tons," National Geographicreported last month.
Kenneth Smith Ramos, former Mexican chief negotiator for the USMCA, told the outlet that "right now, it may not have a big economic impact because what Mexico is using to produce flour, cornmeal, and tortillas is a very small percentage of their overall imports; but that does not mean the U.S. is not concerned with this being the tip of the iceberg."
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Dean Baker, senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, replied that the CEO of BlackRock apparently doesn't know the U.S. already raised the full retirement age for Social Security to 67 under a law passed during the Reagan administration—a change that inflicted benefit cuts across the board.
"I love how rich people are treated as sources of great wisdom when they obviously don't know their ass from their elbow," Baker wrote on social media.
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"When people are regularly living past 90, what should the average retirement age be?" Fink wrote. "How do we encourage more people who wish to work longer, with carrots rather than sticks?"
Alex Lawson, executive director of the progressive advocacy group Social Security Works, told Common Dreams in response to the BlackRock CEO's letter that "Larry Fink is the definition of an out-of-touch billionaire."
"He is welcome to work as long as he wants to, but that doesn't mean that everyone else—including people who do demanding physical labor—should work until they die," said Lawson.
"Half of Americans age 65 and older are living on less than $30,000 per year. This is absurd. Congress must expand Social Security."
Roughly half of older Americans have no retirement savings, a fact that Fink acknowledged in his letter.
While progressive lawmakers such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) have called on policymakers to expand Social Security benefits by forcing rich people like Fink to contribute more to the program, the BlackRock CEO argued that the private sector and federal government should team up to "ensure that future generations can live out their final years with dignity."
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Fink's letter comes days after the Republican Study Committee—a panel comprised of around 80% of the House GOP caucus—released a budget proposal calling for "modest adjustments to the retirement age for future retirees to account for increases in life expectancy" in a purported bid to "secure Social Security solvency for decades to come."
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Since the farmer protests began in France and started spreading to other countries including Spain, Belgium, and Italy, policymakers have offered concessions including delayed implementation of another set of biodiversity rules calling for the agriculture industry to keep 4% of farming land free of crop production to regenerate healthy soil. The European Commission also shelved an anti-pesticide law in February in response to the protests.
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Anikó Raisz, Hungary's minister of state for environmental affairs, said the law would "overburden the economy" and cited concerns about the "sensitive situation" in the agriculture sector. Italy also said it was concerned about the biodiversity rules' impact on farmers.
The World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF) accused far-right Hungarian President Viktor Orbán, who has dismissed European climate policies, of being behind the "unexpected and clearly politically motivated change in Hungary's position."
Hungary's opposition "was left unchallenged by Sweden, Poland, Finland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, and Italy—who continue to either abstain or oppose," and "has now put the [Nature Restoration Law] in jeopardy again, giving Hungary's President Viktor Orbán the green light to further his own agenda and hold E.U. decision-making hostage," said WWF.
Eamon Ryan, Irish minister for the environment, accused other policymakers in the bloc of "buckling" before the farmer protests, which continued Tuesday, ahead of June elections.
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