ELLSBERG: OBAMA WORSE THAN GEORGE III
OBAMA'S OMINOUS LEGAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL REVOLUTION
"So here we have a president – a democratic president – who’s wiping out the Magna Carta, as well as the Constitution," says Daniel Ellsberg.
"King George the Third didn’t have the power. No King of England had that power since John the First."
"Disgraced former Republican President M. Nixon would admire Obama's boldness in trying to stifle whistle blowers" says Daniel Ellsberg, the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers 40 years ago. In today's modern surveillance state, the crimes that got Nixon impeached would be legal (Raw Story). Now Ellsberg is speaking out as a prophetic voice about the totalitarian state that Obama is attempting to create.
After the terrorist attacks of September 11th in 2001, the U.S. government has been pushing a legal revolution of information control that is unprecedented in history. The American government now has the legal power to listen to phone calls, spy on emails, detain people suspected of terrorist activity without trial, and is conducting a covert drone war around the globe where they can kill anyone on the planet without legal boundaries. These actions would have been unthinkable before 2001, yet "terrorism" has been used as a reason to violate America's most cherished liberties. Obama has done much to accelerate and amplify the legal revolution towards totalitarianism that George Bush started.
Ellsberg also mentions Obama's Indefinite Detention Bill, the bill that allows the president to detain anyone he wants without trial or jury:
Is Obama trying to be Judge, Jury and Executioner for American citizens as well as for others around the world? In a chilling legal memo from Obama, the Department of Justice justifies his assasination of U.S. citizens. (The Guardian)
So what we have here is the creation of a Totalitarian State that has more power than George III of England ever did, as well as a totalitarian state that gives itself the authority to make decisions of life and death without jury or trial.
THE ROLE OF TECHNOLOGY IN THE CREATION OF A TOTALITARIAN STATE
What people need to understand is that technology is morally neutral. There is all this talk that the internet will usher in an age of information freedom, and that the internet will create more free speech. Even the United Nations' Human Rights Council unanimously backed a notion that online freedom is a basic human right. “It's an empowering thing for humanity to be connected at high speed and without borders,” Tim Berners-Lee (the man credited with inventing the web) (BBC April 2011).
Yes, the internet does have much potential for spreading awareness and educating the public. Yet technology can also become a powerful tool for controlling and monitoring the public. The technology we have today gives leaders unprecedented power to spy on their own people, power that no leader in history has ever had. Evgeny Morozov details this more in his book: "The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom" by Evgeny Morozov.
Morozv argues that world leaders today now have the internet at their finger tips to threaten dissidents, crush opposition and further monitor the private activities of their people. Thus making the internet a tool to crush Democracy rather than spread it.
In America today, Obama and the NSA have a power to spy on the public that is unthinkable. Such technology gives a leader complete power over the public flow of information. When leaks develop in the system, the leader punishes the leak with harsh and cruel punishments. All dissent is crushed with an iron fist.
The pursuit of complete information control is evident in Obama's historically harsh crusade against whistle blowers.
OBAMA'S WAR AGAINST WHISTLE BLOWERS
President Obama has waged a relentless campaign against whistle blowers. The Obama Administration has charged more than six people under the 1917 Espionage Act for allegedly mishandling classified information, which is more than all past presidencies put together. Before Obama, there were only three such cases in the whole of American History (Mother Jones).
Daniel Ellsberg has spoken out against the actions of Obama, and has even said that Obama is now worse than Nixon. At least Nixon got impeached for his activities, while Obama's actions are receiving very little protest. Those who do speak out, by leaking information to the public, are punished very severely.
Bradley Manning was subjected to cruel and unusual punishment for leaking State Department information to WikiLeaks. Meanwhile Edward Snowden, the man who revealed that the NSA was tapping millions of phone calls, is being regarded as a traitor for making an honest report about the illegal activities of his own government.
The first person in American history to be prosecuted under the 1917 Espionage Act was Daniel Ellsberg. In 1971, this American military analyst gave a New York Times reporter a copy of “United States – Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967: A Study Prepared by the Department of Defense,” a multi-volume work that became known as the Pentagon Papers. At the time this was a huge leak, that revealed to the public an unflattering and candid portrait of the military's conduct in the Vietnam War. Yet the case was thrown out after the judge learned that the government had engaged in the illegal wiretapping of Ellsberg and other misconduct.
Yet Edward Snowden's NSA leak may be bigger than the Pentagon Papers that were leaked by Daniel Ellsberg 40 years ago. The major difference between our current time period and that of Nixon, is that the privacy invasion committed by the current presidency is now legal.
"Disgraced former Republican President M. Nixon would admire Obama's boldness in trying to stifle whistle blowers" says Daniel Ellsberg. In today's modern surveillance state, the crimes that got Nixon impeached would be legal (Raw Story).
Ellsberg has also stated, "I'm sure that President Obama would have sought a life sentence in my case (Washington Post)."
In his statement on Obama's war against whistle blowers, Ellsberg has this to say:
"First of all, there’s no question that President Obama is conducting an unprecedented campaign against unauthorized disclosure. The government had used the Espionage Act against leaks only three times before his administration. He’s used it six times. He’s doing his best to assure that sources in the government will have reason to fear heavy prison sentences for informing the American public in ways he doesn’t want. In other words, he’s working very hard to make it a government where he controls all the information. There will be plenty of leaks of classified information, but it will be by his officials in pursuit of his policies. We will not be getting information that the government doesn’t want out, that [reveals government actions that are] embarrassing or criminal or reckless, as we saw in Vietnam and Iraq."
PENTAGON PAPERS LAWYER JAMES GOODALE COMPARES OBAMA TO NIXON
“Obama has all these things that he’s done to the press on national security matters that Nixon never did.” (Observer)
BRADLEY MANNING
Daniel Ellsberg has also been public in his support of Bradley Manning. When asked why, he has stated the following:
"There are two reasons. One is to educate the public on the wars that he was exposing and the information that he put out. He has said his goal was to help the public make informed decisions. We’re grateful for that, and we’re trying to extend that word and bring that about. Also, I and a lot of other people feel that we need more whistle blowers, and that to allow the government simply to stigmatize them without opposition does not encourage that. I think we’ve got to convey to people appreciation for the information that we do get, the idea that someone can make a difference."
The treatment of Bradley Manning has also been
particularly cruel. The United States government subjected Manning to
solitary confinement on May 2010 in Iraq on suspicion of leaking
hundreds of thousands of secret State Department cables and other
documents to WikiLeaks (Truth Out). The "Report of the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment",
further describes the treatment towards Bradley Manning, someone who
was held on "suspicion" who had not been officially found guilty of a
crime: "Mr Manning was held in solitary confinement for twenty-three
hours a day following his arrest in May 2010 in Iraq, and continuing
through his transfer to the brig at Marine Corps Base Quantico (page 74
section a)." His solitary confinement lasted 11 months.
ELLSBERG QUOTES ON INDEFINITE DETENTION BILL
"The indefinite detention provision of the defense bill allows you to put an American citizen – a civilian – in military custody, treated like Bradley Manning in the marine barracks right now, indefinitely – without charges – that’s not a fight that we had to make in 1776
King George the Third didn’t have the power. No King of England had that power since John the First.
So here we have a president – a democratic president – who’s wiping out the Magna Carta, as well as the Constitution.
The senators supporting the indefinite detention provisions are well-described as “enemies of the constitution of the United States“.
And I’m afraid that this is true of the [current] president of the United States, having gone along with it … and encouraged it earlier. [And it's also true for] every senator who voted for it. (Washingtons Blog)"
COVERING UP THE BUSH TORTURE PROBE
A wikileaks cable has also revealed Obama's complicit activity in covering up a Bush torture probe. In the beginning months of President Obama's first term, he also worked with Republicans to protect Bush Administration officials facing criminal investigation overseas for their involvement in the questionable interrogation techniques (illegal torture) of detained terrorist suspects. (Huffington Post, 5-25-12)
LINKS
Totalitarianism in America (World Future Fund)
Obama's Drone War (World Future Fund)
The United States Should Be in the Dock, Not Bradley Manning (The Independent, 6-14-13)
Daniel Ellsberg: ‘I’m sure that President Obama would have sought a life sentence in my case’ (Washington Post, 6-5-13)
Bradley Manning Was Our Voice When We Were Ordered To Stay Silent (Truth-Out, 6-3-13)
Is Obama the New Nixon? (Common Dreams, 5-16-13)
Silencing the Whistle-Blowers (The New York Times, 3-27-13)
Obama's War on Whistle Blowers (Mother Jones, 6-12-12)
US Subjected Manning to Cruel, Inhuman, Degrading Treatment, UN Torture Chief Concludes (Truth Out, 3-13-12)
Obama Creates Tyrannical Powers That Even Hitler and Stalin Never Claimed (Washington Blogs, 12-9-11)
Ellsberg: All the crimes Nixon committed against me are now legal (Raw Story, 6-9-11)