Really messed up case. I have no idea what really happened, but from reading a handful of articles, it looks like he got the Obama whistleblower treatment. It looks like his first "crime" was to file a report with the senate intelligence committee. While perfectly lawful for him to do, and nothing gets released to the public, that's still a quick way of getting on some people's shit lists that you don't want to be on. It seems he was involved in tricking the Iranians with fake plans for building and operating nuclear facilities. His second "crime" was having a reporter for an aquaintance. It's unclear what exactly they talked about, but all of the governments claims were not backed up by any documentation(emails, phone calls, etc). The reporter refused to testify about their conversations, and the government dropped trying to force him to testify. The government never drops anything like that, unless it's on purpose. I really understand why the government pushes secrecy so much, and it's for a good reason. But thousands of people every day are on the front lines of keeping us safe, and they are in the best position to warn us if something fucked up is being done in our name. When the government takes a legit whistleblower and runs them through a gauntlet of discrediting, making up fake shit about them, or outright prosecuting or killing them, it does a disservice to us all. He should take into account that you can't be charged for the same crime twice, and talk to a room full of reporters and spill it all, every detail.
Dissent is a major part of the immune system of a healthy democracy. The free & unadulterated flow of true and accurate information is its lifeblood.
We must patiently and persistently establish a dialogue with those who appear to not want or understand these benevolent (albeit sometimes infuriating) principles, and seriously question those those who deliberately oppose them.
Because who and for what reason would benefit from the obstruction of accurate data and ongoing self criticism or evaluation? That is definitely what we should be asking... now & ever more...
Now....... if only we were living in a democracy.................................
Try putting a K in there...
a backwards K?
Demokrazy?
Demockracy :)
I ♥ NOFX
its amazing how many people dont realize the dictator type laws that have been placed in the last few years. ive been blind to it until recently. the tek brought up a few of these scenarios
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh a surprising amount of people know about the laws in place.
I go into DC all the time, and you have two groups of feelings towards the laws.
Obama can do no wrong, so the laws are good.
And muslims are scary so lets go back to like we were in the cold war.
Idiots. Idiots everywhere in DC.
People here in CA ask me all the time if I used to drive up to DC all the time when I lived in VA.
"Hell no.... only good thing there is a few museums...."
its fun if your 21 but as far as driving through dc is the worst experience in the world. ill take LA/austin traffic over that anyday