Kiriakou writes: "The Washington DC bar announced recently that it would
lodge ethics charges against Thomas Tamm, a Justice Department attorney who
blew the whistle against the National Security Agency's illegal warrantless
wiretapping program. This is despite the fact that the Justice Department
ruled in 2010 that Tamm had not committed a crime."
Thomas Tamm. (photo: Nigel Parry/CPI/Newsweek)
The Case Against Whistleblower Thomas Tamm, Ethics or Retribution?
By John Kiriakou, Reader Supported News
31 January 16
The Washington DC bar announced recently that it would lodge ethics charges
against Thomas Tamm, a Justice Department attorney who blew the whistle
against the National Security Agency's illegal warrantless wiretapping
program. This is despite the fact that the Justice Department ruled in 2010
that Tamm had not committed a crime.
Tamm came to the Department's attention in 2008 when he revealed that he had
been one of the sources for a 2004 New York Times article on the wiretapping
program, which President George W. Bush had begun in 2001. Tamm had learned
that information gathered from the warrantless wiretaps was making its way
into applications that the Justice Department was filing with the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) Court asking to conduct legal wiretaps.
Fruit from the forbidden tree.
Tamm, believing correctly that his superiors were in on the program, elected
to go to the press, rather than up the chain of command. This act was
prescient. The Times later revealed that Attorney General John Ashcroft had
approved of the program from the start.
Tamm has moved on with his life and is now a public defender in Maryland. He
faces disbarment if found guilty.
But this whole situation isn't just about Thomas Tamm. It's about all
national security whistleblowers. Thomas Drake, an NSA whistleblower,
learned in 2006 that the NSA was conducting dragnet electronic surveillance
on American citizens. He did go through the chain of command.
First, he reported the illegality to his superiors. He was told to mind his
own business. Then he went to the NSA Inspector General. Again he was told
to back off. He went to the NSA General Counsel and was told to drop it. He
went to the Pentagon Inspector General, which then illegally destroyed
evidence that Drake had presented. There is now a criminal case pending
against employees there. Drake finally went to the House Permanent Select
Committee on Intelligence, NSA's oversight committee, and reported the
illegal surveillance.
His reward? Drake was charged with 10 felonies, including five counts of
espionage. The case against him finally collapsed, but not after he lost his
job, his pension, his friends, and even his family.
But that's the plan. Even if there's no real legal case against the
whistleblower, the Justice Department and other bodies, like bar
associations, just keep filing charges to make the whistleblower defend
himself, knowing full well that at the same time, the whistleblower is going
broke and is being abandoned by his friends and colleagues.
Jesselyn Radack went through the same thing. Radack, a former ethics
attorney at the Justice Department, complained up her chain of command that
John Walker Lindh, the "American Taliban," had been interrogated without
having been read his rights and without having had access to an attorney.
The information gathered in the interrogation was later used to prosecute
him.
After Radack complained up her chain of command, the Lindh file was
mysteriously purged. One of Radack's supervisors told her to walk away.
Instead, she went to the media. Within months, she was fired from her job at
Justice, and then fired from her next job with a private law firm after
Justice officials told her new employers that she was likely to be indicted.
(She wasn't.) She was placed on the "no-fly list," presumably as a terrorist
sympathizer, and ethics charges were filed against her with the DC bar
association. That was 14 years ago. Those charges are still pending. And
she's still detained and harassed every time she goes through an airport.
Again, the Justice Department never seriously considered charging Radack
with a crime. The goal was to ruin her. But they failed. She is now a
celebrated whistleblower defense attorney.
NSA whistleblowers Bill Binney, Kirk Weibe, and Ed Loomis; State Department
whistleblower Peter van Buren; NSA and CIA contractor Ed Snowden; and I all
have similar stories.
The DC bar should be demanding that the Justice Department protect national
security whistleblowers, not harass, indict, and prosecute them. It should
then work to protect those whistleblowers. If the Justice Department took
whistleblower disclosures seriously and investigated accusations of official
waste, fraud, abuse, and illegality, there wouldn't need to be leaks to the
press.
A good start would be for the DC bar to stop being the Justice Department's
lap dog.
________________________________________
John Kiriakou is an associate fellow with the Institute for Policy Studies.
He is a former CIA counterterrorism officer and a former senior investigator
with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
Supported News.
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Thomas Tamm. (photo: Nigel Parry/CPI/Newsweek)
http://readersupportednews.org/http://readersupportednews.org/
The Case Against Whistleblower Thomas Tamm, Ethics or Retribution?
By John Kiriakou, Reader Supported News
31 January 16
he Washington DC bar announced recently that it would lodge ethics charges
against Thomas Tamm, a Justice Department attorney who blew the whistle
against the National Security Agency's illegal warrantless wiretapping
program. This is despite the fact that the Justice Department ruled in 2010
that Tamm had not committed a crime.
Tamm came to the Department's attention in 2008 when he revealed that he had
been one of the sources for a 2004 New York Times article on the wiretapping
program, which President George W. Bush had begun in 2001. Tamm had learned
that information gathered from the warrantless wiretaps was making its way
into applications that the Justice Department was filing with the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) Court asking to conduct legal wiretaps.
Fruit from the forbidden tree.
Tamm, believing correctly that his superiors were in on the program, elected
to go to the press, rather than up the chain of command. This act was
prescient. The Times later revealed that Attorney General John Ashcroft had
approved of the program from the start.
Tamm has moved on with his life and is now a public defender in Maryland. He
faces disbarment if found guilty.
But this whole situation isn't just about Thomas Tamm. It's about all
national security whistleblowers. Thomas Drake, an NSA whistleblower,
learned in 2006 that the NSA was conducting dragnet electronic surveillance
on American citizens. He did go through the chain of command.
First, he reported the illegality to his superiors. He was told to mind his
own business. Then he went to the NSA Inspector General. Again he was told
to back off. He went to the NSA General Counsel and was told to drop it. He
went to the Pentagon Inspector General, which then illegally destroyed
evidence that Drake had presented. There is now a criminal case pending
against employees there. Drake finally went to the House Permanent Select
Committee on Intelligence, NSA's oversight committee, and reported the
illegal surveillance.
His reward? Drake was charged with 10 felonies, including five counts of
espionage. The case against him finally collapsed, but not after he lost his
job, his pension, his friends, and even his family.
But that's the plan. Even if there's no real legal case against the
whistleblower, the Justice Department and other bodies, like bar
associations, just keep filing charges to make the whistleblower defend
himself, knowing full well that at the same time, the whistleblower is going
broke and is being abandoned by his friends and colleagues.
Jesselyn Radack went through the same thing. Radack, a former ethics
attorney at the Justice Department, complained up her chain of command that
John Walker Lindh, the "American Taliban," had been interrogated without
having been read his rights and without having had access to an attorney.
The information gathered in the interrogation was later used to prosecute
him.
After Radack complained up her chain of command, the Lindh file was
mysteriously purged. One of Radack's supervisors told her to walk away.
Instead, she went to the media. Within months, she was fired from her job at
Justice, and then fired from her next job with a private law firm after
Justice officials told her new employers that she was likely to be indicted.
(She wasn't.) She was placed on the "no-fly list," presumably as a terrorist
sympathizer, and ethics charges were filed against her with the DC bar
association. That was 14 years ago. Those charges are still pending. And
she's still detained and harassed every time she goes through an airport.
Again, the Justice Department never seriously considered charging Radack
with a crime. The goal was to ruin her. But they failed. She is now a
celebrated whistleblower defense attorney.
NSA whistleblowers Bill Binney, Kirk Weibe, and Ed Loomis; State Department
whistleblower Peter van Buren; NSA and CIA contractor Ed Snowden; and I all
have similar stories.
The DC bar should be demanding that the Justice Department protect national
security whistleblowers, not harass, indict, and prosecute them. It should
then work to protect those whistleblowers. If the Justice Department took
whistleblower disclosures seriously and investigated accusations of official
waste, fraud, abuse, and illegality, there wouldn't need to be leaks to the
press.
A good start would be for the DC bar to stop being the Justice Department's
lap dog.
John Kiriakou is an associate fellow with the Institute for Policy Studies.
He is a former CIA counterterrorism officer and a former senior investigator
with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
Supported News.
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