Two Whistleblowers: Two Different Times

Nobody Remembers

“This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs.: When he first appears, he is a protector”–

                                                                                        —Plato, the Republic.

I was cleaning out some files this morning when I came upon this drawing. It was made by a young guitar player named Glenn Fink, in a hotel room, and if I remember correctly, we were  in Omaha, Nebraska. I was a drummer on the road with a group, and I do remember Glenn played just about the best Jeff Beck around, so we were best buddies. While I was watching the Nixon interview Glenn kept laughing at me, because then, just as now, I get real intense when I hear a politician talk nonsense. So..he  drew a quick sketch.

I had to laugh. I still have this same expression on my face whenever I’m watching Obama  on TV.

The picture also brought me back to the question of how Nixon was brought down…it was really by one man:   Daniel Ellsberg. Nixon was taken down by Watergate, and Watergate was all about Nixon’s ‘plumbers” looking for psychological dirt on Ellsberg because he had just leaked the Pentagon papers.

For those of you who are younger and don’t remember, basically the Pentagon papers revealed this:

From Wikipedia:

After serving in Vietnam, Ellsberg resumed working at RAND. In 1967, he contributed to a top-secret study of classified documents regarding the conduct of the Vietnam War that had been commissioned by Defense Secretary McNamara. These documents, completed in 1968, later became known collectively as the Pentagon Papers. It was because Ellsberg held an extremely high-level security clearance and desired to create a further synthesis from this research effort that he was one of very few individuals who had access to the complete set of documents.

In late 1969—with the assistance of his former RAND Corporation colleague Anthony Russo and the staff of Senator Edward Kennedy—Ellsberg secretly made several sets of photocopies of the classified documents to which he had access; these later became known as the Pentagon Papers. They revealed that the government had knowledge, early on, that the war could most likely not be won, and that continuing the war would lead to many times more casualties than was ever admitted publicly. Further, as an editor of the New York Times was to write much later, these documents “demonstrated, among other things, that the Johnson Administration had systematically lied, not only to the public but also to Congress, about a subject of transcendent national interest and significance”.

Yes, WE were being lied to…by three President no less.  See…it’s not the first time is it?

Daniel Ellsberg became an overnight hero, but unlike Snowden, he didn’t leave the country.

On June 28, 1971, two days before a Supreme Court ruling saying that a federal judge had ruled incorrectly about the right of the New York Times to publish the Pentagon Papers, Ellsberg publicly surrendered to the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts in Boston. In admitting to giving the documents to the press, Ellsberg said:

“I felt that as an American citizen, as a responsible citizen, I could no longer cooperate in concealing this information from the American public. I did this clearly at my own jeopardy and I am prepared to answer to all the consequences of this decision.^“

Now, fast forward to today–it’s much the same thing that Edward Snowden said, but Daniel Ellsberg had something Snowden did not have. At that time, the government couldn’t legally listen to your conversations, and Nixon was wiretapping him.

On May 9, further evidence of illegal wiretapping against Ellsberg was revealed in court. The FBI had recorded numerous conversations between Morton Halperin and Ellsberg without a court order, and furthermore the prosecution had failed to share this evidence with the defense. During the trial, Byrne (The judge in the case) also revealed that he personally met twice with John Ehrlichman, who offered him directorship of the FBI.

So, Daniel got off, Nixon quit, and many of his boys in the White House hood went to jail.

(Ahhhhhhhh, those were the good old days!)

Later on, Ellsberg claimed that Watergate Prosecutor William H. Merrill told him of an aborted plot by Liddy to kill him. In his autobiography, Liddy said it was an “Ellsberg neutralization proposal.” They were going to put LSD in his soup. And then, kill him, and let’s see…didn’t Obama just say he was REALLY good at killing people? So, in light of this knowledge,  many said that Snowden should have stayed here and gone on trial. But, does anyone think, that Snowdon would have gotten a fair trial?

Nobody Thinks that Snowden would have just ‘disappeared”  Remember, Obama has GIVEN himself the power  to  put anyone he deems a threat to the United States away forever, without a trial. While Daniel had a decent court system to protect him: Snowden does not.

I doubt seriously if China would have ‘protected’ him.

Putin, on the other hand, gained immensely from welcoming Snowden into Russia. Putin would protect Snowden–if only to rub it in Obama’s face that Russia, is superior…and that’s exactly what he did. Snowden is a bright shiny feather of an American pawn in Putin’s game.

And IF your FIRST plan is to stay alive—-let’s just say that Nobody Thinks I might have made the same choice as Snowdon with Obama as President, being as he did sign the National Security Authorization Act, giving himself the power of judge, jury and executioner.  Nixon did NOT have that luxury.

Both these men, Ellsberg and Snowdon, in their time, have done the world a great service. It’s clear that both men, did what they did because of their own conscience and morality.

And Ellsburg recently, had more to say:

“Various things that were counted as unconstitutional then have been put in the president’s hands now. He’s become an elected monarch. Nixon’s slogan, “when the president does it, it’s not illegal,” is pretty much endorsed now. Meaning not only Obama but the people who come after him will have powers that no previous president had. Abilities on surveillance that no country in the history of the world has ever had.”

Hey, makes perfect sense to me. See the rest of his interview where he enlightens us about the Manning arrests here:

By the rights of our Constitution, we have a right to know what our government is doing, and let’s hope more whistleblowers come out…

Common Core, Obama’s new educational tool for America, is teaching our children that you must NEVER disobey the government.

Tyranny—-is just a whisper away, I’ll be listening for the whistlers.

November 7, 2013 Posted by Joyanna Adams | NSA, Obama, Spy technology, tyranny, Uncategorized | Daniel Ellsberg, Edward Snowden, History, Obama, Whistleblowers | 3 Comments