Jesselyn Radack, a former Justice Department attorney and whistleblower, discusses the expanding culture of secrecy in the US government as well as in our most respected institutions, including academia and the press. She points out that former government employees, who took a moral stance and merely stated that what they observed in their work place was unethical, were targeted by the US government.
In one case, (the John Kiriakou case), a former CIA employee merely stated he felt water-boarding was torture. This simple ethical position, created so much anger that his life was dismantled piece by piece, and eventually he was charged with a crime, convicted, and sentenced to years in prison. Radack says he was targeted ONLY because of his ethical statement about torture. She describes other CIA employees who are able to do exactly what was considered a crime in Kiriakou’s case, but are not charged with crimes and even given promotions and tenure in academia. She goes on to say that she believes such targeting by the US government of it’s own citizens, is meant to intimidate others from exposing unethical acts, and maintaining a dangerous regime of secrecy and corrupt power. She also makes a point that such actions against whistleblowers which escalated in the Bush era, have exponentially increased in the Obama years, even though he ran his campaign on transparency in government.
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