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WikiLeaks Iraq War Logs Expose US-Backed Iraqi Torture, 15,000 More Civilian Deaths, and Contractors Run Amok
The online whistleblower WikiLeaks has released some 390,000 classified US documents on the Iraq war—the largest intelligence leak in US history and the greatest internal account of any war on public record. The disclosure provides a trove of new evidence on the violence, torture and suffering that has befallen Iraq since the 2003 US invasion. Despite US government claims to the contrary, the war logs show the Pentagon kept tallies of civilian deaths in Iraq. The group Iraq Body Count says the files contain evidence of an additional 15,000 previously unknown Iraqi civilian casualties. The number is likely far higher as the war logs omit many instances where US forces killed Iraqi civilians, including the US assault on Fallujah in 2004. The war logs also show the US imposed a formal policy to ignore human rights abuses committed by the Iraqi military. Under an order known as "Frago 242" issued in June 2004, coalition troops were barred from investigating any violations committed by Iraqi troops against other Iraqis. Hundreds of cases of killings, torture and rape at the hands of the Iraqi troops were ignored. To help analyze the documents, we hold a round table discussion with three guests, including David Leigh, the investigations editor at The Guardian newspaper of London, and investigative journalists Pratap Chatterjee and Nir Rosen. [includes rush transcript]
EPA Whistleblower Accuses Agency of Covering Up Effects of Dispersant in BP Oil Spill Cleanup
With BP having poured nearly two million gallons of the dispersant known as Corexit into the Gulf of Mexico, many lawmakers and advocacy groups say the Obama administration is not being candid about the lethal effects of dispersants. We speak with Hugh Kaufman, a senior policy analyst at the EPA’s Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response and a leading critic of the decision to use Corexit. [includes rush transcript]
With Rumored Manhunt for Wikileaks Founder and Arrest of Alleged Leaker of Video Showing Iraq Killings, Obama Admin Escalates Crackdown on Whistleblowers of Classified Information
Pentagon investigators are reportedly still searching for Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange, who helped release a classified US military video showing a US helicopter gunship indiscriminately firing on Iraqi civilians. The US military recently arrested Army Specialist Bradley Manning, who may have passed on the video to Wikileaks. Manning’s arrest and the hunt for Assange have put the spotlight on the Obama administration’s campaign against whistleblowers and leakers of classified information. We speak to Daniel Ellsberg, who’s leaking of the Pentagon Papers has made him perhaps the nation’s most famous whistleblower; Birgitta Jónsdóttir, a member of the Icelandic Parliament who has collaborated with Wikileaks and drafted a new Icelandic law protecting investigative journalists; and Glenn Greenwald, political and legal blogger for Salon.com. [includes rush transcript]
"Silencing the Whistleblowers": How Will Financial Reform Prevent Another Crash If Banks Subvert Their Warning Systems?
A two-part investigative series called "Silencing the Whistleblowers" reports that when fraud investigators working within big banks tried to warn their superiors of shady practices, they were not only ignored, but frequently harassed, demoted or even fired. We speak to the article’s author, journalist Michael Hudson, and one of the whistleblowers profiled in the article, Ed Parker, the former head of mortgage fraud investigation at Ameriquest. [includes rush transcript]
Jailed Whistleblower: US Lawmakers Held Offshore UBS Accounts
Democracy Now! co-host Juan Gonzalez discusses his interview with UBS whistleblower Bradley Birkenfeld one day after Birkenfield’s Tax Day clemency request to President Obama. Birkenfeld is serving a forty-month sentence despite playing a key role in exposing the biggest tax evasion scheme in US history. [includes rush transcript]
Jailed UBS Whistleblower Bradley Birkenfeld Makes Tax Day Clemency Request to President Obama
A former banker for the Swiss giant UBS who blew the whistle on the biggest tax evasion scheme in US history is asking President Obama today for clemency to coincide with Tax Day, the day US income tax returns are due for most people. In January, Bradley Birkenfeld began serving a forty-month sentence despite playing a key role in uncovering the bank scandal. He first came forward to US authorities in 2007 and began providing inside information on how UBS was helping thousands of Americans evade taxes by hiding billions of dollars in secret Swiss accounts. [includes rush transcript]
"This Is How These Soldiers Were Trained to Act"–Veteran of Military Unit Involved in 2007 Baghdad Helicopter Shooting Says Incident Is Part of Much Larger Problem
We speak with a former member of Bravo Company 2-16, the military unit involved in the 2007 helicopter shooting of Iraqi civilians that killed twelve people, including two Reuters employees, as seen on the military video released by WikiLeaks. "The natural thing to do would be to instantly judge or criticize the soldiers in this video," says Josh Stieber. "Not to justify what they did, but militarily speaking, they did exactly what they were trained to do...If we’re shocked by this video, we need to be asking questions of the larger system, because this is how these soldiers were trained to act." [includes rush transcript]
Families of Victims of 2007 US Helicopter Killing React to Leaked Video
Journalists from the investigative team in Iceland that released the now-infamous US military video on WikiLeaks traveled to Baghdad recently to meet with the family members of some of the twelve people killed in the 2007 attack. Ahlam Abdelhussain, the widow of Saleh Mutashar who was killed when the gunship opened fire on a van, asks, "Why was he shot with his children in the car? They did nothing wrong. He was helping a journalist. What was his crime? What was the crime of our children who are left with no father and no support?” We play excerpts. [includes rush transcript]
EXCLUSIVE: One Day After 2007 Attack, Witnesses Describe US Killings of Iraqi Civilians
As the US Central Command says it has no plans to reopen an investigation into the July 2007 helicopter attack that killed a dozen people in Baghdad, including two Reuters news staff, we play never-before-seen eyewitness interviews filmed the day after the attack. [includes rush transcript]
Collateral Murder in Iraq
A United States military video was released this week showing the indiscriminate targeting and killing of civilians in Baghdad. The nonprofit news organization WikiLeaks obtained the video and made it available on the Internet. The video was made July 12, 2007, by a U.S. military Apache helicopter gunship, and includes audio of military radio transmissions.
Massacre Caught on Tape: US Military Confirms Authenticity of Their Own Chilling Video Showing Killing of Journalists
The US military has confirmed the authenticity of newly released video showing US forces indiscriminately firing on Iraqi civilians. On Monday, the website WikiLeaks.org posted footage taken from a US military helicopter in July 2007 as it killed twelve people and wounded two children. The dead included two employees of the Reuters news agency, photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen and driver Saeed Chmagh. We speak with WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange and Salon.com blogger Glenn Greenwald. [includes rush transcript]
"Our President Is Deceiving the American Public": Pentagon Papers Whistleblower on President Obama and the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
We are joined by a man who played a major role in efforts to end the Vietnam War in the 1970s. In 1971, the then-RAND Corporation analyst Daniel Ellsberg leaked to the media what became known as the Pentagon Papers, a 7,000-page classified history outlining the true extent of US involvement in Vietnam. After avoiding a life sentence on espionage charges, Daniel Ellsberg has continued to speak out against US militarism until the present day. [includes rush transcript]
Why Is the Whistleblower Who Exposed the Massive UBS Tax Evasion Scheme the Only One Heading to Prison?
A former banker for the Swiss giant UBS who blew the whistle on the biggest tax-evasion scheme in US history is preparing to head to prison tomorrow to begin serving a forty-month federal sentence. Bradley Birkenfeld first came forward to US authorities in 2007 and began providing inside information on how UBS was helping thousands of Americans hide assets in secret Swiss accounts. We speak with his attorney, Stephen Kohn, the executive director of the National Whistleblowers Center. [includes rush transcript]
Insurance Industry Whistleblower Wendell Potter Blasts Senate Panel Rejection of Public Insurance Option
Efforts to create a government-run health insurance plan were dealt a setback Tuesday after the Senate Finance Committee rejected a pair of amendments to create a public option. Both amendments were defeated when a group of Democrats, including Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus, joined with Republicans to oppose the public option. We speak with Wendell Potter, the former chief spokesperson at CIGNA, one of the nation’s largest private insurers, and now one of the health insurance industry’s most prominent whistleblowers. [includes rush transcript]
As Obama Golfs with UBS CEO Days After Firm Avoids Criminal Prosecution, UBS Whistleblower Given 40-Month Jail Term
On the first day of his vacation in Martha’s Vineyard, President Obama spent five hours golfing with UBS executive Robert Wolf, an early financial backer of Obama’s presidential campaign. As the pair teed off, another UBS banker, Bradley Birkenfeld, had just been handed a forty-month prison sentence after pleading guilty to assisting a client evade taxes. It was the first sentence in a wider scandal that has seen UBS admit to helping wealthy Americans dodge their tax obligations. On his own initiative, Birkenfeld blew the whistle on UBS. His disclosure and cooperation with US authorities provided inside information into the bank’s conduct and sparked the massive federal investigation. [includes rush transcript]
Christopher Pyle, Whistleblower Who Sparked Church Hearings of 1970s, on Military Spying of Olympia Peace Activists
The news of peace activists in Olympia, Washington exposing Army spying, infiltration and intelligence gathering on their groups may strengthen congressional demands for a full-scale investigation of US intelligence activities like those of the 1970s. We speak with law professor and former Army whistleblower Christopher Pyle, whose 1970 disclosure of the military’s widespread surveillance of civilian groups triggered scores of congressional probes, including the Church Committee hearings, where he served as an investigator. [includes rush transcript]
"They Dump the Sick to Satisfy Investors": Insurance Exec Turned Whistleblower Wendell Potter Speaks Out Against Healthcare Industry
As the debate over healthcare reform intensifies on Capitol Hill, we spend the hour with a former top insurance executive who’s now exposing the industry’s dirty secrets. Wendell Potter once served as the head of corporate communications at CIGNA, one of the nation’s largest health insurance companies. We speak to Potter about his own transformation from industry mouthpiece to whistleblower, the healthcare industry’s extensive PR and lobbying machine, the campaign to discredit Michael Moore’s film Sicko, and the insurance industry’s most pressing task: the fight against a public option, let alone a single-payer system. [includes rush transcript]
Justice Dept. Whistleblower Defends Decision to Leak Bush Domestic Surveillance Program & Calls for Prosecution of Gov’t Officials and Telecoms
We speak with Thomas Tamm, the man who blew the whistle on the Bush administration’s secret domestic surveillance program. Tamm worked as an attorney at the Justice Department when he leaked the story to the New York Times in 2004. In 2007, the FBI raided his home and seized three computers and personal files. He still faces possible arrest for disclosing classified secrets. [includes rush transcript]
“The Fed Who Blew the Whistle"
The whistleblower behind the exposure of the Bush administration’s domestic spy program has revealed his identity. In an interview with Newsweek, former Justice Department official Thomas Tamm says he personally called the New York Times from a Washington, D.C. subway pay phone in 2004 to tell them about the program. Tamm was working as an attorney in the Justice Department’s Office of Intelligence Policy and Review. The secretive unit oversees surveillance of terrorist and espionage targets. [includes rush transcript]
AT&T Whistleblower Urges Against Immunity for Telecoms in Bush Spy Program
The Senate is expected to vote on a controversial measure to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act tomorrow. The legislation would rewrite the nation’s surveillance laws and authorize the National Security Agency’s secret program of warrantless wiretapping. We speak with Mark Klein, a technician with AT&T for over twenty-two years. In 2006 Klein leaked internal AT&T documents that revealed the company had set up a secret room in its San Francisco office to give the National Security Agency access to its fiber optic internet cables. [includes rush transcript]
Telecom Whistleblower Discovers Circuit that Allows Access to All Systems on Wireless Carrier—Phone Calls, Text Messages, Emails and More
Babak Pasdar is a computer security expert who was hired in 2003 to help restructure the tech infrastructure at a major wireless telecommunications company. What he found shocked him. The company had set up a system that gave a third party, presumably a governmental entity, access to every communication coming through that company’s infrastructure. This means every email, internet use, document transmission, video, text message, as well as the ability to listen to and record any phone call. [includes rush transcript]
EXCLUSIVE...Bush’s Law: Eric Lichtblau on Exposing the NSA’s Warrantless Wiretapping Program and How the White House Pressured the New York Times to Kill the Story
In a national broadcast exclusive, we speak with New York Times reporter Eric Lichtblau about his new book, Bush’s Law: The Remaking of American Justice. Lichtblau won the Pulitzer Prize for exposing the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program in December 2005. He reveals the inside story of the New York Times’s decision to delay publication of the story for more than a year after intense lobbying from the White House. [includes rush transcript]
Broadcast Exclusive: Abu Ghraib Whistleblower Samuel Provance Speaks Out on Torture and Cover-Up
In a national TV broadcast exclusive, we spend the hour with Abu Ghraib whistleblower and former Army sergeant, Samuel Provance. From September 2003 to the spring of 2004, Provance ran the top-secret computer network used by Military Intelligence at Abu Ghraib. He was the first intelligence specialist to speak openly about abuse at the prison and is the only Military Intelligence soldier listed as a witness in the Taguba report. Among the abuses he lists is the torture of a sixteen-year-old Iraqi boy in order to make his father talk. After Provance spoke out, the Army stripped him of his security clearance, demoted him and threatened him with ten years in jail. [includes rush transcript]
Leaked Guantanamo Military Operating Manual Reveals Isolation, Sensory Deprivation Was Official Army Policy to Break Prisoners
Just over a week ago, a major operating manual for the US military’s prison camp at Guantanamo Bay was leaked and posted on the internet. Among other disclosures, it reveals that isolation and sensory deprivation of prisoners was official Army policy. We take a look at how this affects the debate within the American Psychological Association and the participation of its members in interrogations. [includes rush transcript]
How the Pentagon Papers Came to be Published by the Beacon Press: A Remarkable Story Told by Whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, Dem Presidential Candidate Mike Gravel and Unitarian Leader Robert West
Thirty-five years ago this weekend, Beacon Press lost a Supreme Court case brought against it by the US government for publishing the first full edition of the Pentagon Papers. It is now well known how the New York Times first published excerpts of the top-secret documents in June 1971. But less well known is how the Beacon Press–a small, nonprofit publisher affiliated with the Unitarian Universalist Association–came to publish the complete 7,000 pages that exposed the true history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Their publication led the Press into a spiral of two and a half years of harassment, intimidation, near-bankruptcy, and the possibility of criminal prosecution.
Today, we hear the story from three men at the center of the storm: Former Pentagon and RAND Corporation analyst, famed whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg who leaked the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times. Mike Gravel–the former Alaska Senator who is now a Democratic Presidential candidate–who tells the dramatic story of how he entered the Pentagon Papers into the Congressional record and got them to the Beacon Press. And Robert West, the former president of the Unitarian Universalist Association which owned the Press and agreed to risk publication of the Pentagon Papers. [includes rush transcript]
HMO Whisteblower Dr. Linda Peeno on the Subordination of Healthcare to a For-Profit System
A decade ago Dr. Linda Peeno made headlines when she told Congress about her work as a medical reviewer for the giant HMO Humana, where she says she denied a man life-saving medical care in order to boost company profits. She would go on to become one of the country’s best known whistleblowers about HMOs and the healthcare industry. [includes rush transcript]
Former Wal-Mart Worker Blows Whistle on Company Surveillance Operation, Spying of Critics
A former worker at Wal-Mart is claiming the retail giant is running a sophisticated surveillance operation that targets employees, journalists, stockholders and critics. The worker, Bruce Gabbard, says the retail giant spied on employees, journalists, stockholders and critics of the company. We speak with the Wall Street Journal reporter who broke the story. [includes rush transcript]
Pentagon Papers Whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg to Government Insiders: Risk Prison to Leak Information Exposing Illegal Government Actions
As we focus on the government crackdown against leakers, we speak with perhaps the most famous government whistleblower of the twentieth century, Daniel Ellsberg. In 1969 he leaked the Pentagon Papers, setting in motion actions that would eventually topple the Nixon presidency and end the Vietnam War. [includes rush transcript]
FBI Whistleblower Colleen Rowley Warns Zacarias Moussaoui Trial May Mark Last Time Bush Administration Use Courts to Try Terror Suspects
Although a jury ruled Moussaoui is eligible for the death penalty on Monday, Rowley says administration officials may stop using criminal courts for future cases. "If you don’t deal with them in the criminal court then you are allowed to go around all criminal procedure and the Constitution," she said. [includes rush transcript]
Whistleblower Warns the Bush Administration Is Cutting Back Mining Safety Regulations
We speak with Jack Spadaro, the former head of the National Mine Health and Safety Academy, a branch of the Department of Labor. Spadaro discusses how we was forced out of his job as he attempted to investigate a 2000 mining accident. We are also joined by Hillary Hosta with the West Virginia-based Coal River Mountain Watch. [includes rush transcript]
EXCLUSIVE: National Security Agency Whistleblower Warns Domestic Spying Program Is Sign the U.S. is Decaying Into a "Police State"
Former NSA intelligence agent Russell Tice condemns reports that the Agency has been engaged in eavesdropping on U.S. citizens without court warrants. Tice has volunteered to testify before Congress about illegal black ops programs at the NSA. Tice said, "The freedom of the American people cannot be protected when our constitutional liberties are ignored and our nation has decayed into a police state." [includes rush transcript]
Fired Wal-Mart Executive Sues After Blowing the Whistle on Factory Conditions in Central America
Wal-Mart executive James Lynn was fired from the company, he says, after he blew the whistle on factory conditions in Central America. Lynn documented forced pregnancy tests, 24-hour work shifts, extreme heat, pat-down searches, locked exits and other labor law violations. He is now suing the retail giant. We speak with Lynn’s attorney and a Wal-Mart spokesperson. [includes rush transcript]
Protecting Whistleblowers or Shielding Government Wrongdoing? Supreme Court on Journalists and Anonymous Sources
The Supreme Court rejected appeals from two journalists–Judith Miller of The New York Times and Matthew Cooper of Time Magazine–who may face jail time for refusing to reveal sources in the leak of the identity of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame. We take a look at anonymous sources and how journalists used them to sell the war in Iraq. [includes rush transcript]
FBI Whistleblower: White Supremacists Are Major Domestic Terrorist Threat
We speak with Mike German, an ex-FBI agent who resigned from the agency last year in protest of what he saw as continuing failures in the FBI counter terrorism program. German had worked for years going under cover to infiltrate domestic terrorist organizations like white supremacist skinhead groups and anti-government militias. [includes rush transcript]
Senators George McGovern and Mike Gravel Reflect on How Deep Throat Helped Bring Down the Nixon Presidency by Exposing the Watergate Scandal
We look back at President Nixon’s political dirty tricks and intelligence-gathering operations that had helped Nixon win re-election over McGovern in 1972. [includes rush transcript]
Whistleblower Charges Justice Dept. with Misconduct in Chertoff’s Prosecution of John Walker Lindh
We speak with former Justice Department attorney, Jesselyn Radack, who charges that department officials under Michael Chertoff improperly questioned John Waker Lindh and that her memos raising ethical concerns about his interrogation were purged and not turned over to a criminal court. [includes rush transcript]
EXCLUSIVE: International War Whistleblowers Tell Why They Exposed Their Governments
In a Democracy Now! U.S. exclusive, two former intelligence officials from Britain and Denmark discuss why they blew the whistle on their governments in relation to the war in Iraq. Katharine Gun is a former British employee who leaked details of a secret U.S. spy operation on UN Security Council members in the run-up to the Iraq invasion. Major Frank Grevil is a former military intelligence officer from Denmark who was fired for leaking classified reports that showed no weapons of mass destruction would be found in Iraq. He currently faces charges for breaching the country’s official information law. [includes rush transcript]
Part II of Democracy Now!’s Conversation with Israeli Nuclear Whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu
We hear the conclusion of our conversation with Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu who defied Israeli government restrictions to speak to us. He discusses his views on Ariel Sharon, the Israeli-Palestinian situation, and his feelings on suicide bombings.
Exclusive: Israeli Nuclear Whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu Risks Jail To Speak to Democracy Now! in First Nat’l U.S. Interview
Risking prison again, nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu defies Israeli government restrictions and speaks for the first time to a national audience in this country.
Mordechai Vanunu worked as a nuclear technician at Dimona, Israel’s secret nuclear installation from 1976 to 1985. He worked there at a time when Israel was insisting it would not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons to the Middle East. What Vanunu discovered is that Israel had secretly developed an extensive nuclear program, hiding its existence from the Israeli people and parliament, and the world.
Vanunu leaked information and photos of Israel’s nuclear weapons program to the Sunday Times in London. He was subsequently kidnapped by Israeli spy agency Mossad in Italy and then jailed. He would go on to spend 18 years behind bars including 11 in solitary confinement.
He was released on April 21 under strict government restrictions.
Democracy Now!'s Amy Goodman reached Vanunu on his cell phone in East Jerusalem where he has been staying since his release in April. He defied the Israeli government's restriction on speaking with foreigners to talk with us.
Whistleblowers From Vietnam to 9/11: A Conversation with Daniel Ellsberg and Sibel Edmonds
We speak with two whistleblowers from different eras about their experiences in speaking out: Sibel Edmonds, a former FBI translator hired to translate pre-9/11 intelligence, has said the U.S. had considerable evidence that al Qaida was planning to strike the U.S. with airplanes. The Bush administration is now trying to block her from testifying at a major 9/11 lawsuit. And Daniel Ellsberg, perhaps the most famous whistleblower in U.S. history who leaked the Pentagon Papers setting in motion actions that would eventually topple the Nixon presidency and end the Vietnam war. [includes rush transcript]
Two FBI Whistleblowers Accuse Bureau of Ignoring Warnings Before 9/11
We speak with FBI agent Coleen Rowley, who accused FBI headquarters in 2002 of hampering the investigation into alleged 20th hijacker Zacarias Moussaoui and former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds who was hired shortly after 9/11 to translate intelligence related to the attacks and says the FBI had information that an attack using airplanes was being planned before Sept. 11, 2001. Rowley reveals one of her fellow FBI agents contacted FBI HQ before Sept. 11 and said Moussaoui was the type that might try to fly a plane into the World Trade Center. [includes rush transcript]
A Bigger Leak Than the Pentagon Papers?: Daniel Ellsberg Discusses the Leaked Email That Shows the U.S. Is Spying On UN Diplomats
Yesterday on Democracy Now! we reported that a 28-year-old woman working at the top-secret British Government Communications Headquarters has been arrested on charges of contravening the Official Secrets Act.
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