#daniel ellsburg

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DANIEL ELLSBURG (1931-2023)

"Always stand on principle...even if you stand alone." ~ John Adams

"The people are the only legitimate fountain of power." ~ James Madison

"You needn't think there is nothing you can do - you can tell the truth." ~ Daniel Ellsburg

[garudabluffs]

Daniel Ellsberg (left) gives a news conference regarding the Pentagon Papers, Jan. 17, 1973, outside the Federal Building in Los Angeles, as codefendant Anthony Russo looks on

Daniel Ellsberg, the original whistle-blower, looks back — and forward

The leaker of the Pentagon Papers had expected to spend his life in prison.

November 14, 2019

When you leaked the Pentagon Papers back in 1971, did you expect to go to prison? I was certain I would go for life. [President] Richard Nixon had in mind 115 years. If I had had good behavior, which my friends didn’t count on, I would have gotten out after 35 years.

How did you elude the FBI for two weeks before you turned yourself in? After 13 days, I asked my lawyer, “What is the FBI actually good at?” He said: “Taking surrenders.” Which is what I did.

READ MORE https://www.bostonglobe.com/2019/11/14/opinion/daniel-ellsberg-original-whistle-blower-looks-back-forward/

93 Comments “I worked for a person who presented a seminar on whistleblowers several years ago. He quoted a study from the New England Journal of Medicine that said that more than 90 percent of whistleblowers say that, although they believe they did the right thing, they would never do it again. The majority of whistleblowers lose their jobs, their ability to get new jobs, they face the loss of their families, divorce, lose their homes, can't even get jobs in fast food places. Once their cases finally get to court several years later, many get huge financial settlements, but by that time, they're all alone, dejected, depressed, often homeless or couch-surfing. They know they did the right thing, ethics-wise, but they wouldn't do it again. This has nothing to do with politics. This has to do with a moral obligation that someone carries within him- or herself to do the right thing, to bring to the forefront something that is corrupt or wrong. It could be about embezzlement in the corporate world or about human trafficking, for example, neither of which is necessarily a political issue. The public, in the end, may call this person a hero or a heroine for taking a stand, but what these people go through is something none of us may know unless we ourselves do it. More than ninety percent say they wouldn't do it again. That's a pretty telling statistic.”

[gordoncstewart]

Whistleblowers, traitors, or patriots?

Whistleblowers, traitors, or patriots?

Watching and listening to Rep. Trey Gowdy during last week’s House Intelligence Committee hearing with FBI Director James Comey and NSC Director Mike Rogers was  deja vu for those of us old enough to remember Joseph McCarthy’s use of the U.S. Espionage Act of 1917. With stern face and the determined voice of a righteous prosecutor Gowdy shifted the focus of the hearing away from the question of…

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[sgreffenius]

Wikileaks and press freedom

Wikileaks and press freedom

Historians of the First Amendment, and of press freedom in the United States, will see Washington’s effort to shut down WikiLeaks as a pivotal case. When WikiLeaks published information obtained from Chelsea Manning in 2010, it did what a journalistic organization is supposed to do. It did what the New York Timesdid when it published information it obtained from Daniel Ellsberg in 1967. It did…

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Daniel Ellsburg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times speaks at the Unitarian Universalist conference in Portland, Oregon in 2007

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They talked to Daniel Ellsburg!

[boogiemanjournal-blog]

Quote of the Day

Amplify’d from nameigoob.blogspot.com

Quote of the Day

"Richard Nixon, if he were alive today, might take bittersweet satisfaction to know that he was not the last smart president to prolong unjustifiably a senseless, unwinnable war, at great cost in human life... He would probably also feel vindicated (and envious) that ALL the crimes he committed against me -- which forced his resignation facing impeachment -- are now legal." -- Daniel Ellsburg, in an interview with CNN.

Read more at nameigoob.blogspot.com

 See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a14wdm

[kitten-liberation-blog]

"One of my best friends, Dan Ellsburg, was the person who released the Pentagon Papers, and he was sitting here with those papers, which would show the country that the President was lying about the Vietnam War. He was sitting here with those papers and asking himself the question, "What will happen to me if I go public with these?" And when he asked that question, he conjured up all kinds of horrible things that would happen to him, and he got paralyzed and he couldn't do it. But one day, mostly under the gentle persuasion of Patricia Ellsburg, instead of putting the question that way, he said to himself, "what could I do if I were willing to go to jail?" And that immediately opened it up. He said, "oh, I could do this; I could do that; I could…and then the next thing you knew, he was walking across the street with those 70,000 pages, and putting them out Xerox copies to all the major newspapers. So what I'm saying is not that you want to die, but there's a great deal of power that comes from your willingness to die. And in terms of this administration, we're somewhere back here [gestures behind], I would say, on this. So it needs direct opposition and concrete measures."

-Michael Nagler