Moore, the creator of Metasploit, which is an “ethical hacking tool, told the Guardian that U.S.
The government would not be able to invoke secrecy laws to shut down reviews of their conduct.Īdditionally, a summary indicates it would shield “cybersecurity experts from prosecution when they publish research showing discoveries of government backdoors in encryption algorithms.” Whistleblower protections would be able to provide classified information to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB), and inspector generals to help them investigate privacy abuses. The legislation would also protect disclosures of classified information related to signals intelligence to any member of Congress. It would protect the rights of members of the press that “solicit, obtain, or publish government secrets” from prosecution. This bill ensures only personnel with security clearances can be prosecuted for improperly revealing classified information.”
Wyden declared in a press statement, “The Espionage Act currently provides sweeping powers for a rogue attorney general like Bill Barr or unscrupulous president like Donald Trump to target journalists and whistleblowers who reveal information they’d rather keep secret. When asked to predict the whistleblowers and their fate under the Trump administration Devine stated he is “ not optimistic on the president’s intolerance for criticism” and believes that whistleblowers who plan on exposing his abuses of power will be met with harsh consequences.Under legislation proposed in Congress, the United States government would not be able to prosecute journalists like WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange who publish classified information.ĭemocratic Senator Ron Wyden and Representative Ro Khanna introduced the Espionage Act Reform Act to reaffirm “First Amendment protections for journalists” and ensure “whistleblowers can effectively report waste, fraud, and abuse to Congress.”
#OBAMA ESPIONAGE ACT JOURNALISTS SERIAL#
I have numerous clients facing serial with-hunts.”įinally “ If there is a chilling effect from the specter of unemployment, there is a freezing effect from the prospect of imprisonment.” The worst that will happen is they close the case, and then can open a new one soon after. With his Presidential Policy Directive ( PPD 19) Obama specifically protected whistleblower among intelligence agencies “to ensure that IC employees can effectively report instances of waste, fraud, and abuse.”ĭevine explains that if we are comparing Obama with previous presidents, one must know that “ more whistleblowers are being prosecuted, because the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act has made it much harder to fire employees, while neither it nor other US laws protect against retaliatory civil and criminal investigations and litigation.”ĭevine goes on to say that “ harassment through a criminal case, especially by opening a criminal investigation, also is easier and less risky because agencies don’t have to deal with all the work of a lawsuit when they open a criminal investigation and give the wber the choice of resigning or risking indictment.”Īlso because “ Opening a retaliatory criminal investigation is risk-free. He established a restriction of criminal charges for those who leaked classified information as opposed to those who simply released information opposing the government.
government, he also aided in the protection of whistleblowers. He classifies Obama’s relationship with whistleblowers as “schizophrenic” and says that in his field they often referred to his behavior as a battle of“Obama vs Obama,” because of his contradictory stances regarding informers.ĭevine explains that Obama was “American whistleblowers’ best friend, all while seeking to tighten up national security through the Espionage Act.” The Legal Director adds that the former president has an “unusually broad deference to national security community.”Īlthough Obama took a surprisingly strong stance on national security, prosecuting individuals he deemed threatening to the U.S. Tom Devine, the Legal Director at the Government Accountability Project (GAP), the most prominent whistleblower support organization, explains the complexity of the issue.
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