November, 25 2014, 02:00pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Sarah Damian, Interim Communications Director
Phone:202.457.0034, ext. 130
Email:sarahd@whistleblower.org
'Silenced' Film on Whistleblowers Debuts in Amsterdam
Yesterday, the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam featured the groundbreaking documentary film Silenced. Screening from November 21st to November 24th, the film focuses on prominent Government Accountability Project (GAP) clients - National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Thomas Drake and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) whistleblower John Kiriakou - along with GAP National Security & Human Rights Director Jesselyn Radack, a whistleblower herself.
AMSTERDAM
Yesterday, the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam featured the groundbreaking documentary film Silenced. Screening from November 21st to November 24th, the film focuses on prominent Government Accountability Project (GAP) clients - National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Thomas Drake and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) whistleblower John Kiriakou - along with GAP National Security & Human Rights Director Jesselyn Radack, a whistleblower herself.
Silenced showcases the serious and life-altering decisions whistleblowers make when they are forced to choose between following their conscience and sacrificing their careers or their very freedom. John Kiriakou faced that choice when he refused to be trained in "enhanced interrogation techniques" and instead blew the whistle on the George W. Bush-era torture program, becoming the first CIA official to expose the use of torture as government policy. Silenced chronicles the government's prosecution of Kiriakou under the Espionage Act, a century-old law intended to target spies, not whistleblowers.
Standing by Kiriakou in the film is Thomas Drake, now universally-recognized as a whistleblower (even by the government). Drake exposed billions of dollars of waste and abuse at the NSA to multiple internal oversight bodies, including the Inspector General and Congress, only to have his concerns ignored. Finally, Drake shared unclassified information about the massive fraud to a Baltimore Sun reporter, who wrote a series of award-winning articles that exposed the billion-dollar NSA boondoggle. The Justice Department indicted Drake under the Espionage Act and he faced 35 years in prison until the case collapsed for lack of evidence.
A critical and moving contribution to the narrative on whistleblowing, Silenced makes clear the personal costs of whistleblowing in an era when telling the truth about government waste, fraud, abuse and illegality can mean facing a federal criminal investigation and prosecution under the Espionage Act. The film's screening schedule is here.
The Government Accountability Project (GAP) is a 30-year-old nonprofit public interest group that promotes government and corporate accountability by advancing occupational free speech, defending whistleblowers, and empowering citizen activists. We pursue this mission through our Nuclear Safety, International Reform, Corporate Accountability, Food & Drug Safety, and Federal Employee/National Security programs. GAP is the nation's leading whistleblower protection organization.
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Judge Orders Texas to Remove Buoy 'Death Traps' From Rio Grande
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Migrant rights groups and Texas Democrats on Wednesday welcomed a federal judge's order that the state remove from the Rio Grande about 1,000 feet of orange buoys fastened together with metal cables and anchored with concrete blocks.
The federal Department of Justice sued Texas and Republican Gov. Greg Abbott over the buoys in July. Judge David A. Ezra of the Western District of Texas—an appointee of former President Ronald Reagan—ordered the state to remove the barrier by September 15 and prohibited "building new or placing additional buoys, blockades, or structure" in the river along the U.S.-Mexico border.
"Gov. Abbott announced that he was not 'asking for permission' for Operation Lone Star, the anti-immigration program under which Texas constructed the floating barrier," Ezra wrote. "Unfortunately for Texas, permission is exactly what federal law requires before installing obstructions in the nation's navigable waters."
Democratic Texas Congressman Joaquin Castro said that "Abbott knows his actions are illegal. I'm glad the court is forcing him to remove his death traps from the Rio Grande. He has endangered lives, damaged Texas' working relationship with our largest trading partner, and let politics rather than sensible policy dictate his actions."
U.S. Rep. Greg Casar, another Texas Democrat, also praised the preliminary injunction on X, formerly Twitter, and charged that "Greg Abbott's Operation Lone Star is abusive, illegal, wasteful, and inhumane."
Activists and advocacy groups also celebrated the development on social media. Antonio Arellano of NextGen America called the decision a "major win" for the Biden-Harris administration and human rights.
United We Dream Action declared that "these inhumane traps were placed by Greg Abbott to harm and kill people who were just looking to move to survive and thrive."
Krish O'Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, said in a statement that "from the onset, Gov. Abbott's improvised buoy wall was an inhumane response to a humanitarian emergency, but this ruling makes crystal clear its underlying illegality. This 1,000-foot barrier diverted $1,000,000 of Texas taxpayer funds for a political stunt that was designed to secure media coverage, not the border."
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy director at the American Immigration Council, wrote of the ruling: "All in all, a resounding defeat for Gov. Abbott—one they likely knew was coming, despite his puffery about Texas' alleged right to install the barrier. Federal law is quite clear on this issue; if you want to install a structure in a river, get a permit. And Texas didn't."
Reichlin-Melnick added it is "no surprise" Abbott has already pledged that "Texas will appeal." In his statement, the governor also said the state "is prepared to take this fight all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court."
Meanwhile, U.S. Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta said that the Justice Department is "pleased that the court ruled that the barrier was unlawful and irreparably harms diplomatic relations, public safety, navigation, and the operations of federal agency officials in and around the Rio Grande."
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Indigenous tribes and climate campaigners applauded the Biden administration's announcement Wednesday that it will cancel all existing oil and gas drilling leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska and ban drilling across 13 million acres of the National Petroleum Reserve, while hundreds of groups also called on the U.S. Interior Department to go further on fossil fuel leasing.
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Bernadette Dementieff, executive director of the Gwich'in Steering Committee, added that the tribe knows "that our sacred land is only temporarily safe from oil and gas development."
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A government watchdog and lawyers for six Republican and unaffiliated Colorado voters on Wednesday filed a lawsuit to ban former President Donald Trump as a candidate on the state's 2024 GOP presidential primary election ballot and any future ballot, based on the January 6, 2021 insurrection and the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
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"Spending 19 years as a state legislator and serving in leadership gave me the opportunity to work across the aisle and to always work to protect the freedoms our Constitution has given us as citizens," she said. "I am proud to continue that work by bringing this lawsuit and ensuring the eligibility of candidates on Colorado ballots."
The other four plaintiffs are former GOP Congresswoman Claudine (Cmarada) Schneider; Kathi Wright, a previous member of the Loveland City Council; Christopher Castilian, an ex-deputy chief of staff for the state's last GOP governor; and Michelle Priola, "who has been active in Republican politics and is also married to Republican-turned-Democratic state Sen. Kevin Priola," according toThe Denver Post.
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"If the very fabric of our democracy is to hold, we must ensure that the Constitution is enforced and the same people who attacked our democratic system not be put in charge of it."
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"While it is unprecedented to bring this type of case against a former president, January 6th was an unprecedented attack that is exactly the kind of event the framers of the 14th Amendment wanted to build protections in case of," Bookbinder added. "You don't break the glass unless there's an emergency."
The Colorado lawsuit was filed a day after Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio was sentenced to 22 years in prison—the longest insurrection-related sentence so far, followed by 18 years for Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes. They were both convicted of seditious conspiracy.
The suit also comes as Trump has been indicted this year due to two federal investigations led by Special Counsel Jack Smith as well as probes in Georgia and New York. The Georgia case and one of the federal cases involve his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.
So far, polling has indicated Trump's legal issues have not dissuaded many GOP voters, and the candidate has used the 91 felony charges against him to rally supporters—as a campaign representative did in response to the new suit. As NBC Newsreported:
Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung slammed the voters behind the lawsuit, saying in a statement that they're "people who are pursuing this absurd conspiracy theory and political attack on President Trump."
They "are stretching the law beyond recognition much like the political prosecutors in New York, Georgia, and D.C.," Cheung added. "There is no legal basis for this effort except in the minds of those who are pushing it."
Democratic Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold—named as the defendant in the lawsuit because of her position—said in a statement that "I look forward to the Colorado Court's substantive resolution of the issues, and am hopeful that this case will provide guidance to election officials on Trump's eligibility as a candidate for office."
Griswold is among election officials in several key states who have recently received letters from Free Speech for People and Mi Familia Vota Education Fund urging them to keep Trump off the ballot because of the 14th Amendment.
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