And why haven’t I done this before? As the saying goes ‘choose your enemies carefully’. How about ‘there’s so little time and so much to fight against’? Well, I’m sure you have heard various versions of those sayings and others, and you get my meaning, thus the reason I chose to remain fairly quiet on this important aspect of whistleblowing and whistleblowers.

It will take far more than one brief article/commentary to discuss and analyze the cases of ‘fairytale whistleblowers’ and the purpose of popping up and propping up those select whistleblowers with tremendous help and participation from the media-publishers-Hollywood, corporate-owned and government-managed NGOs. That’s right: it takes the entire village of establishment participants to create these fairytale whistleblowers, promote and market them, and succeed in selling them to the public as genuine. Thus, for the purpose of this warm-up, introduction, I am going to limit myself to a few macro points and examples.

The real whistleblower armed with information really dangerous to the establishment-government ends up with one or more of the following outcomes and consequences: mysterious death, prison, prosecution, persecution, gag order-blackmail- threats (including their family members), financial destruction, scandalization, censure, marginalization by the media-publishers… 

The fairytale whistleblower trap meets the exact opposite end: no ‘real’ threat of prosecution or imprisonment, no ‘real’ censorship-gag order, fame, enormous financial gain-reward, wide media coverage, hero-status granted by the media, mega dollars book and movie deal, position with big-name corporate-foundation owned and government-ruled NGOs, future high-dollar government contracts and positions, clear and present partisan status…

Okay, now I am going to move from the above general ground rules to a bit more specific distinction between real whistleblowers versus fairytale whistleblower traps.

I am going to start with a man who is considered ‘the father of all government whistleblowers.’ I am talking about Dan Ellsberg: “the Most Dangerous Man in America.” It doesn’t matter whether you agree with Ellsberg’s views, politics or style, you know, and so does everyone, that he put it all at risk; that is, enormous risk. They persecuted him, scandalized him, prosecuted him, and were about to imprison him for life. Wouldn’t you agree he is the most famous government whistleblower in our history? Right. Now let me tell you something as someone who knows Ellsberg, has spent personal time with him, and considers him a friend: Ellsberg lives and has been living an extremely modest and frugal life (Dan, I know you read everything I write, and I hope you’ll forgive me for sharing a few personal examples here):

This man traveled (and still does) from one part of the country to the other via the cheapest airfare available, obtained under financial strains and difficulties, and while he suffered from excruciating back/knee pain, to be there for whistleblowers who needed his support. He wears years old pants lovingly patched were needed. He and his family live a modest frugal life.

Ellsberg, the most famous whistleblower of all time, was never offered a million-dollar movie deal. He was never given million-dollar book deals. He never took million-dollar positions in multi-million dollar establishment-front NGOs or the like. He has not held any position with government agencies since his case, and has never joined the government tentacle contractors or think-tanks offering mega bucks. You see, Ellsberg is still a very ‘dangerous man.’ And ‘they’ know that. He’d expose fraud and criminality today as fiercely as he did four decades ago. ‘They’ can’t afford having a ‘dangerous man’ like him inside the corrupt circle and extension of the establishment machine.

Then there was, and is, the FBI whistleblower, one of Time Magazine’s persons of the year, Coleen Rowley. She and I may not agree on everything, but a certain dynamic in our relationship remains a constant: I trust this lady, and I respect her integrity. What you see with Rowley is what you get, and what you get is this fierce and unrelenting adherence to integrity.

I remember one of our government whistleblowers’ congressional rallies in 2006 with Coleen Rowley as one of the participants. We had a short coffee recess in a café near one of the congressional buildings. An individual from one of the NGO circles bought a round of coffee for our group of 10-12 people. We offered to reimburse him but he waved us off. At the end of our coffee recess Rowley stopped by his table, placed 5 quarters on the table, and said something like until her official retirement she could not accept anything that could be considered as gift or contribution…

This may seem like an insignificant example to some, but it isn’t. It is a small representation of a much bigger picture of principle and integrity when it comes to Rowley. When she was offered generous speaking fees she’d ask to be compensated for her travel expenses (frugally arranged travel) and donate the fee to various charities. When she dared to challenge the political establishment by running for office at tremendous personal expense (time-energy-emotion), she refrained from being pocketed by anyone – whether those from the Israeli lobby groups who approached her or those from the big corporate fronts. Those of you who’ve known me and my writings know that I rarely compliment or list positives. The top adjectives I use to describe Rowley start with genuine, highly ethical, principled …

Coleen Rowley did not get millions of dollars for books and or Hollywood movie rights either. Her integrity has acted as a very strong repellent against corporate and corporate-foundations. And I have not detected any partisan marketing signal from this lady, and you know how sensitive my detectors for partisanship can be.

I could name and write about many other well-known and genuine whistleblower cases. Whether it is Richard Barlow, the CIA whistleblower who exposed AQ Khan’s nuclear network and paid an incredible price for doing so, or NSA whistleblower Russell Tice, these real heroes, genuine and well-known government whistleblowers, never received million-dollar book deals, multi-million-dollar movie deals, or became members of the mega-dollar contracting-consulting industry. It is as if they have these built-in and coded repellents that keep the establishment and their parasites at bay.

Then you have what I refer to as phony fairytale whistleblowers. Let me give you an example:

A former government insider who has set up a shop, his own firm, and becomes a lobbyist and a consultant, gets highly agitated when the new administration constantly leaves him out of mega-million dollar contract deals. Interestingly, his operations and activities, including his revenge plans against the new administration, were being recorded by the FBI due to nefarious foreign operations he was involved in. He cuts a deal with certain insiders, makes a pact with the ‘other’ political party, all together they get one of the top establishment mainstream media channels on board, and then he writes a true and semi-damaging commentary. Immediately after that, by design he is made out to be a heroic whistleblower.  And right after that, the involved establishment operators on his side concoct a partially-true scenario, and then they sell that as his scripted heroic whistleblowing. Now fast forward only a couple of years:

The man and his spouse collectively get a nearly $2 million book deal, regardless of tanking sale numbers in the end. Right after that they get another $2 million for a Hollywood deal; again, regardless of sinking outcome. Their collaborators pay for their entire legal costs for show only lawsuits. They buy a mansion and start living like their Hollywood impostors. Fast forward again:

Then comes 2008 and the fairytale whistleblower couple have to partially payback their collaborating masters. They sign up to actively campaign for one of the Democratic Party Presidential candidates, and they campaign for that dirty candidate big time. That Democratic Party candidate ends up not getting the presidency, but a lower position: Secretary of State. After a few months in office as Secretary of State, she starts forwarding lucrative government contract to the fairytale whistleblower couple.

It took an entire establishment village to concoct this fairytale whistleblower case. The entire establishment village participated: from the mainstream media providing the script-coverage, to Huffington Post spreading wings to go under, to publisher deal, to Hollywood deal, to Democratic Party position deals, to future lucrative government contract deals. The public was left with this grand and conning illusion. The concocted phony fairytale whistleblowers got a very fair deal and considered it a fair game to be engaged in. Those in the know did recognize the game, and they knew right from the start this was not a whistleblowing case, because real whistleblowing has never been a fair game. And it can never be- unless it is part of a fairytale-one concocted by the masters above.

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The AQ Khan nuclear network was first introduced to the public in early 2004, with Abdul Qadeer Khan’s dramatic televised confession to the Pakistani public that he had participated in selling nuclear technology, including bomb-making designs and equipment, to countries including Iran, North Korea, and Libya. Right from the beginning, the sensational nature of the network and its eventual discovery, a tale of international intrigue and shadowy spy craft, seemed tailor-made for headline-grabbing reports, or sensationalistic BBC docudramas.

As is typical with these events, a popular understanding has emerged around the early reporting on the subject, one that suggests that Dr. Khan was working essentially off the radar and out of sight of the intelligence agencies whose very existence is predicated on identifying such threats long before they develop.

Inevitably, however, as happens every time that an intelligence operation leads to some catastrophic result, the “incompetence theory” is trotted out as a way to explain what happened. In the Khan case, it is argued that the CIA, despite infesting every layer of this plot, somehow remained completely oblivious to Khan’s efforts to proliferate these weapons to North Korea, Iran, and Libya until it was already too late.

This is our EyeOpener Report by James Corbett, presenting the documented but under-reported facts and intrigues on AQ Khan’s nuclear network, the CIA’s knowledge and surveillance of the network from its very inception, and the collaborative efforts by the CIA and certain US politicians to fund, protect and further the network’s nuclear black-market activities and expansion.

*Beginning next week our EyeOpener Video Report will be available only to our subscribers.

**The Transcript for this video is now available at Corbett Report: Click Here

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I want to revisit a topic which happens to be extremely important to me, both personally and politically, and even more important to our civil liberties.

Some of you have already read my brief piece on Richard Horn & the CIA dishing out $3 million to buy silence in this narco scandal. Those of you who have not read it click here and read it – because this story also goes to the heart of a very significant and ongoing issue: The State Secrets Privilege.

My recent heads-up piece on Horn focused mainly on the CIA’s attempt to hush another narco scandal where the agency was directly and actively involved. Although I introduced Horn as ‘another recipient of the government’s State Secrets Privilege invocation’, I didn’t delve into the significance of this case on this repeatedly used and abused draconian privilege. This was partly due to wrongly assuming that the media, at least the alternative media, would have gotten all over it since lately the SSP has been a quite fashionable and talked about topic among the wanna-be progressive community. Well, I was wrong. Despite the scandalous nature of the case, and despite the massive implications to SSP, those who’ve been publicizing themselves and cashing in using SSP did not touch or mention the case.

The last time I wrote about the State Secrets Privilege and how it was being misrepresented and twisted by puppets in the media my blood was very close to reaching the boiling point. This time, with this recent Horn case and its direct SSP implications, my blood actually did reach the boiling point. In fact it is boiling now!

Here are a few excerpts from my previous piece on the State Secrets Privilege, starting with the intro:

During the past few months I have been actively following the latest activity on the state secrets privilege (SSP). First, I was pleasantly surprised to see that this issue of extreme importance to our civil liberties and constitutional rights was finally getting long-over-due and deserved attention from the media. After all, the memories of fighting SSP in the federal courts all the way up to the Supreme Court, holding press conferences together with the ACLU to bring needed media attention to this draconian abuse, making the rounds in Congress to have them address this ‘privilege’ through legislation to restrict its misuse and abuse, are still fresh and vivid for me.

Then I started detecting some troubling common trends showing up in media reports and subsequently in discussions and statements within Congress. The most suspicious of these came in the form of sanitizing major SSP abuse cases from reports put forth by both the mainstream media and some in alternative publications. The first invocation of the SSP by the Bush Administration was in my case. Back then, if you had done a Google search on ‘state secrets privilege’ you would have come up with only ‘7’ results; three of them repeats. After successfully getting away with SSP invocation in my case, the administration opened the flood gates for others. Now I invite you to search all the archived news reports on SSP in the last year or so. As you will see, in every single report in which the abuses of SSP and its history are cited, you will not find this first case; my case. Further, if you were to look for other major abuses of SSP, such as the Barlow Case, you will find none. The valid cases cited are mainly limited to:

I then went on citing the cases covered by the MSM and pseudo-alternative alike: Khalid Al-Masri, Maher Arar, Al Haramain Islamic Foundation, and Binyam Mohamed.

Finally, I decided to dig further and explore the reasons behind these significant omissions and the accompanying information spin that seems to be packaged with the intention of fulfilling Washington’s objective – seeing the related campaign and activities fail…

I found one of the puppet masters to be: The United States Congress, Bipartisan

A well seasoned congressional staff member connected to a well-known ‘Centrist’ office active in the current SSP debate, who ‘insisted’ on being granted anonymity, had the following to say:

“Contrary to what they may claim in order to pacify the recent ‘Anti State Secrets Privilege’ movement, the Congress does not want to deal with this issue. And this applies to members of both parties…of course we will hold a couple of hearings and show we have investigated and reviewed cases…”

He then went on to list several enlightening points regarding the ‘real’ factors driving the current position on SSP:

• We are being told that the President [Obama] will veto any proposed legislation dealing with State Secrets Privilege…that and that no one in Congress really wants to touch this area. Having the press limit the information to ‘War on Terror Suspects’ [Emphasis added] helps both: the President and the reluctant Congress.
• The cases before us are ‘selectively’ [Emphasis added] related to the War on Terror. A few Arab guys with their claims will not bring sympathy from the majority in this country. Not in Iowa, not in Utah…you catch my drift?
• …I am talking about cases where there are no questions of ‘Criminality’ being involved or covered up. We won’t touch those cases. No one will go for that. The reasons…obvious… Being unfair or making the wrong call to determine if someone is a terrorist does not constitute ‘criminal.’ [Emphasis Added]. As for the NSA related case, well, the new legislation took care of that…
• By the way, we don’t expect to see any cases of abuses of SSP by the Clinton Administration cited anywhere. Holder’s office in the background and the majority leaders up on the front lines are ensuring this through the media and the NGOs.

Let me recap what is being said, the reality ‘on the ground’ here:

Like any other president before him, and probably those who’ll come after him, President Obama is not going to limit his presidential powers when it comes to this draconian absolute executive power. He has made it clear to his now the majority party members and they are set to follow his guideline on this. It is a slam dunk position with a guaranteed ‘win’ since the minority in Congress also encourages and backs this position.

Somehow the Executive Branch and the Congress have managed to accomplish their objectives on SSP through the U.S. media. They want the reporting massaged and messaged in such a way that the publicity on SSP is limited to only ‘select’ cases where ‘executive criminality’ and or ‘covering up executive criminality’ will not be an issue. Those SSP cases where the executive branch used this level of secrecy to cover up criminal deeds would make the need for Congressional action on SSP far greater. After all, we even have an Executive Order that currently prohibits secrecy and classification from being used by the Executive Branch in order to conceal violations of law. Of course with the case(s) involving NSA warrantless wiretapping, as quoted by the congressional source above, they no longer have to worry, since they took care of it through retroactive legislation.

With cases involving wrongful detention and abuse of those ‘wrongfully accused’ in the government’s war on terror, it has been set up so that these cases can be written off as ‘egregious labeling, handling and treatment’ committed immediately following the September Eleven Attacks. Excuses such as ‘extraordinary’ circumstances, ‘bureaucratic bungling,’ and the previous administration’s ‘excess’ have been all lined up to be used if or when SSP makes it’s way into Congress. Further, the government also counts on bigotry to insure that there will be no major public pressure, since the involved victims are not (at least most) Americans, have Arabic names, and are of Muslim background. They believe that the majority of Americans will not be sympathetic to these plaintiffs, so there will be no problem killing any chance of restraining the long-abused SSP through meaningful legislation.

Both the mainstream media and pseudo-alternatives gone mainstream were consistent in serving the objectives cited above and the Congress determined NOT to tackle this draconian and unconstitutional privilege. In doing so, they made sure that any recent SSP cases that did not involve Arabic or Muslim names were left out of their popularized articles, analysis, and TV appearances. Here are a few of these cases omitted, blacked out, and censored:

Richard Barlow, an intelligence analyst and a former senior member of the Counter-Proliferation unit at the CIA lost his job when he objected internally to the George H.W. Bush Administration’s misleading Congress over Pakistan’s nuclear program. For more detailed background and related official documents on Barlow see here.

My case: The legal outline of SSP abuse by the Bush Administration invoked to cover up ‘criminal’ activities and subsequent cover up of these criminal activities can be found on the ACLU site.

And of course, the case of Richard Horn, where CIA got caught with its pants down, lying & cheating in court procedures:

“If Lamberth’s judicial opinions in the Horn case are allowed to remain in the court record — to be recalled and cited going forward by other lawyers, judges and academics — then untold damage could be done to the reputation of the CIA and its leadership. Those judicial opinions memorializing the CIA’s fraud on the court also would serve as a permanent reminder of the occasionally dubious credibility of the Agency’s pronouncements invoking national security and the state-secrets privilege.”

Scholars and activists have been trying to expose the main reason, in fact the only reason, for invocation of this draconian executive privilege as an attempt (so far a very successful one) to cover up illegal and criminal acts committed by the executive branch. In the Richard Barlow case, it was to cover up blatantly lying to Congress to cover up for Pakistan and AQ Khan. In my case, it was to cover up treasonous and espionage activities of US officials. And here, in Richard Horn’s case, it was to cover up the CIA’s involvement and covert activities in thwarting DEA’s anti-narcotics mission in Burma in the early 1990s. However, thanks to a judge with some degree of independence and principle, in Horn’s case the real reason for invocation of States Secrets Privilege seems to be officially, formally, and on the record, exposed and proven.

Now, I am going to ask you, my truly progressive and independent readers, to go and check out ‘Google News’ or any other news search engines you tend to rely upon, and see if you can find any mention of this case, or its implications for the State Secrets Privilege. You ain’t gonna find any. Why?

In my previous piece I reported on the congressional agenda and the media puppets serving this agenda to prevent any chances of getting the State Secrets Privilege issue before the Congress. Are there any other puppet masters involved? Probably, since Congress is usually in the position of puppet rather than puppet master. Is it the Justice Department? Is it the CIA? The Pentagon? Maybe a combination of all three? And the White House, the White House of any administration?

I would say all those possibilities seem logical and foreseeable. Now let’s talk about the puppets in the media:

As far as the MSM is concerned, who’s surprised?! As Senator Grassley puts it: ‘just the usual!’ But let’s talk about the puppet(s) in the pseudo-alternative-gone-mainstream media, since they’ve been doing the most damage by misguiding the ‘REAL PROGRESSIVES’ who believe in them and follow their propaganda.

I’m not going to throw out names and make this a pissing contest between personalities. Just go and check: who’s been making names for themselves on the State Secrets Privilege topic after it became safe to discuss (around 2007)? Who’s been cashing in on writing and speaking on SSP? Who’s been getting invited over and over on MSM run channels and publications to offer ‘misguidance’ on SSP? As we all know, the MSM ain’t in the business of inviting true progressives on real civil liberties related issues and cases.

Once you go and check, and believe me it won’t take you long to have a short list, take a little time and read their polished BS (the ingredients remain BS no matter how polished), and see whether you find Horn, Barlow, Edmonds, or any American sounding names cited in their list of SSP cases. Now you have your culprits. Next, go and actually ask them, send them a note, question them:

Why is the first and most egregious invocation of SSP, Edmonds V DOJ, missing in every single case analysis and article you’ve written?

Why is Richard Barlow’s SSP case, involving AQ Khan and the CIA-Pentagon’s misleading of Congress, absent from every single piece, article, and speech?

Why in the world is this recent explosive revelation in the Richard Horn case, where the CIA abused the SSP but was caught doing it, not showing up in your work?

Come on people, do me a favor and go after these phony puppets and grill them. This is very important because the damage caused by these lowlifes impacts all of us, all our civil liberties, greatly. Not only that, these puppets are fueling racism and hatred by singling out Arab & Muslim based names in their citation of State Secrets Privilege cases, and singling them out as the only recipients of the SSP, and as cases related to our perpetual ‘war on terror’ excuse.

These pseudo progressive puppets have successfully taken the SSP topic off the table in Congress, relieving Congress from having to do, or pretending to do, something about a very dangerous Executive Power never written into the Constitution. They have made many believe that SSP is selectively and rarely used in only ‘terror suspect’ cases with Arabic names, thus, preventing a more wide-spread expression of public outrage. They have undone much great work by civil liberties organizations such as the ACLU & EFF, by actually blending with them to garner more credibility. They have churned, twisted, and spun the facts on SSP, and unfortunately even many progressives have bought into it. So let’s expose them for who they are, and let’s help the public get the facts straight on the State Secrets Privilege.

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During the past few months I have been actively following the latest activity on the state secrets privilege (SSP). First, I was pleasantly surprised to see that this issue of extreme importance to our civil liberties and constitutional rights was finally getting long-over-due and deserved attention from the media. After all, the memories of fighting SSP in the federal courts all the way up to the Supreme Court, holding press conferences together with the ACLU to bring needed media attention to this draconian abuse, making the rounds in Congress to have them address this ‘privilege’ through legislation to restrict its misuse and abuse, are still fresh and vivid for me.

Then I started detecting some troubling common trends showing up in media reports and subsequently in discussions and statements within Congress. The most suspicious of these came in the form of sanitizing major SSP abuse cases from reports put forth by both the mainstream media and some in alternative publications. The first invocation of the SSP by the Bush Administration was in my case. Back then, if you had done a Google search on ‘state secrets privilege’ you would have come up with only ‘7’ results; three of them repeats. After successfully getting away with SSP invocation in my case, the administration opened the flood gates for others. Now I invite you to search all the archived news reports on SSP in the last year or so. As you will see, in every single report in which the abuses of SSP and its history are cited, you will not find this first case; my case. Further, if you were to look for other major abuses of SSP, such as the Barlow Case, you will find none. The valid cases cited are mainly limited to:

Khalid Al-Masri, Maher Arar, Al Haramain Islamic Foundation, Binyam Mohamed

With a note here and there on ‘NSA’ related information and the historical Reynold’s Case from 1953.

Finally, I decided to dig further and explore the reasons behind these significant omissions and the accompanying information spin that seems to be packaged with the intention of fulfilling Washington’s objective – seeing the related campaign and activities fail. Of course, based on my own case and experience with SSP, I had my own theories as to why the issue was being narrowed down to certain ‘selected’ cases and interpretations; counterproductive to the objective shared by SSP recipients and organizations who have been truly active in seeking to have it abolished or reformed through congressional legislation. But I was also interested in getting the opinions of those who have been actually involved with these cases, either as plaintiffs or attorneys representing SSP cases, or even a few trusted insiders in Congress with direct knowledge. So I contacted several and include their views and interpretations here.

The Congressional Angle

A well seasoned congressional staff member connected to a well-known ‘Centrist’ office active in the current SSP debate, who ‘insisted’ on being granted anonymity, had the following to say:

“Contrary to what they may claim in order to pacify the recent ‘Anti State Secrets Privilege’ movement, the Congress does not want to deal with this issue. And this applies to members of both parties…of course we will hold a couple of hearings and show we have investigated and reviewed cases…”

He then went on to list several enlightening points regarding the ‘real’ factors driving the current position on SSP:

• We are being told that the president [Obama] will veto any proposed legislation dealing with State Secrets Privilege…that and that no one in Congress really wants to touch this area. Having the press limit the information to ‘War on Terror Suspects’ [Emphasis added] helps both: the President and the reluctant Congress.

• The cases before us are ‘selectively’ [Emphasis added] related to the War on Terror. A few Arab guys with their claims will not bring sympathy from the majority in this country. Not in Iowa, not in Utah…you catch my drift?

• …I am talking about cases where there are no questions of ‘Criminality’ being involved or covered up. We won’t touch those cases. No one will go for that. The reasons…obvious… Being unfair or making the wrong call to determine if someone is a terrorist does not constitute ‘criminal.’ [Emphasis Added]. As for the NSA related case, well, the new legislation took care of that…

• By the way, we don’t expect to see any cases of abuses of SSP by the Clinton Administration cited anywhere. Holder’s office in the background and the majority leaders up on the front lines are ensuring this through the media and the NGOs.

Let me recap what is being said, the reality ‘on the ground’ here:

Like any other president before him, and probably those who’ll come after him, President Obama is not going to limit his presidential powers when it comes to this draconian absolute executive power. He has made it clear to his now the majority party members and they are set to follow his guideline on this. It is a slam dunk position with a guaranteed ‘win’ since the minority in Congress also encourages and backs this position.

Somehow the Executive Branch and the Congress have managed to accomplish their objectives on SSP through the U.S. media. They want the reporting massaged and messaged in such a way that the publicity on SSP is limited to only ‘select’ cases where ‘executive criminality’ and or ‘covering up executive criminality’ will not be an issue. Those SSP cases where the executive branch used this level of secrecy to cover up criminal deeds would make the need for Congressional action on SSP far greater. After all, we even have an Executive Order that currently prohibits secrecy and classification from being used by the Executive Branch in order to conceal violations of law. Of course with the case(s) involving NSA warrantless wiretapping, as quoted by the congressional source above, they no longer have to worry, since they took care of it through retroactive legislation.

With cases involving wrongful detention and abuse of those ‘wrongfully accused’ in the government’s war on terror, it has been set up so that these cases can be written off as ‘egregious labeling, handling and treatment’ committed immediately following the September Eleven Attacks. Excuses such as ‘extraordinary’ circumstances, ‘bureaucratic bungling,’ and the previous administration’s ‘excess’ have been all lined up to be used if or when SSP makes it’s way into Congress. Further, the government also counts on bigotry to insure that there will be no major public pressure, since the involved victims are not (at least most) Americans, have Arabic names, and are of Muslim background. They believe that the majority of Americans will not be sympathetic to these plaintiffs, so there will be no problem killing any chance of restraining the long-abused SSP through meaningful legislation.

Richard Barlow and the State Secrets Privilege

Richard Barlow, an intelligence analyst and a former senior member of the Counter-Proliferation unit at the CIA lost his job when he objected internally to the George H.W. Bush Administration’s misleading Congress over Pakistan’s nuclear program. Following Congress-ordered investigations, the inspector-general at the State Department and the CIA concluded that Barlow had been fired as a reprisal. Further, a final investigation by Congress’ own Government Accountability Office completed in 1997 largely vindicated Barlow. The Senate Armed Services and Intelligence Committees concluded that Barlow was due Congressional relief in light of unjustified DOD actions against him and cover-ups with Congress. A relief bill was introduced but the Senate Judiciary Committee referred the bill the Court of Federal Claims for more “fact finding” in what is known as a Congressional Reference, in which the Congress still remains the deciding body. For more detailed background and related official documents on Barlow see here.

On February 10, 2000, in the Barlow Case before the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, CIA signed a declaration and a formal claim of SSP. Separately, in another declaration, Michael Hayden, Director of NSA, also formally invoked SSP. The decision by the Court to accept the government’s broad invocation of SSP prevented Barlow from obtaining needed facts and evidences. With the court proceedings closed to the public, without the ability to present numerous official reports and evidence due to the court’s acceptance of the blanket SSP, Barlow’s case lost in 2002. For more legal background and facts on the court case see the memo by Louis Fisher of the Congressional Research Service.

-On ‘executive criminality & cover up’:

Top U.S. officials were allowing Pakistan to manufacture and possess nuclear weapons, and the A.Q. Khan nuclear network was violating U.S. laws. Not only that – the same officials were also lying to Congress. They were hiding these activities because the truth would have legally obligated the U.S. government to cut off its overt military aid to Pakistan.

-On Partisan Focus & Excluding other Administrations’ abuses:

Barlow’s SSP case involved four administrations: Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton, and George W. Bush.

The case involved both parties; Democrats & Republicans.

-On Congress’ bigoted view of Public Sympathy:

The invocation of SSP in Barlow’s case can not be easily written off as extreme measures for extreme situations under the ‘war on terror.’

Mr. Barlow was and is an exemplary U.S. citizen, was awarded the CIA’s Exceptional Accomplishment Award in 1988, and was considered a patriot for serving America’s interests by Congress and even by the executive branch who went after him.

When I contacted Mr. Barlow and asked for his view on the troubling trend by the media and Congress in packaging SSP related information to mislead the public and destroy any chance of reform, this is what he had to say:

“Long before the Congress even begins to address issues relating to the use of SSP in court cases involving private charities, foreigners, suspected terrorists, or any private parties, it clearly needs to first address the use of SSP by the Executive Branch to conceal crimes, abuses, or fraud by the Executive Branch against the Congress itself or against federal intelligence officers or other federal employees [who] are the victims, and especially when it involves issues [of] Congress being lied to or willfully misled regarding intelligence information.”

He then added the following:

“The media must go further than merely reporting the actions and inactions of Congress and the courts: we need investigative reporting on why the Congress has failed to address cover-ups of illegal activity by the Executive Branch and what Members of Congress are responsible for this abdication of Constitutional responsibility, particularly if Obama continues to break his campaign promises on SSP and follow in the footsteps of Bush on this and other national security matters.”

Sibel Edmonds & the State Secrets Privilege

I am not going to re-visit the many-times-repeated details of the SSP invocation in my case. The legal outline of SSP abuse by the Bush Administration invoked to cover up ‘criminal’ activities and subsequent cover up of these criminal activities can be found on the ACLU site. According to Ann Beeson, former legal director at the ACLU:

“The state secrets privilege should be used as a shield for sensitive evidence, not a sword the government can use at will to cut off argument in a case before the evidence can be presented. We are urging the Supreme Court, which has not directly addressed this issue in 50 years, to rein in the government’s misuse of this privilege.”

In my case the government also used the privilege to exclude members of the press from covering the court proceedings:

“The ACLU is also asking the Supreme Court to reverse the D.C. appeals court’s decision to exclude the press and public from the court hearing of Edmonds’ case in April. The appeals court closed the hearing at the eleventh hour without any specific findings that secrecy was necessary.”

How does this case fit the Congress’ criteria to exclude?

-On ‘Executive criminality & Covering it Up by invocation of SSP & abuses of classification:

In addition to the Dickerson Case, which was characterized by Senator Grassley as “a very major internal security breach, and a potential espionage breach,” and later confirmed by the DOJ-IG (investigation [PDF]), my case also involves espionage activities by several high-level U.S. officials, both elected and appointed. Several elected officials, an official at the State Department, and a few high-level officials in the Pentagon were involved in passing highly classified information to foreign entities connected to Turkey, Pakistan and Israel. Along with the confirmed Dickerson case involving Lt. Colonel Douglas Dickerson – who worked for Douglas Feith and Marc Grossman – other connected officials’ espionage activities were also covered up by invoking SSP.

-On Partisan Focus & Excluding other Administrations’ abuses:

• The information involved in my case covered the time period 1996-2002. It involved two administrations and two political parties.
• Similarly, information implicating several elected officials in major corruption cases also involved both parties.

-On Congress’ bigoted view of Public Sympathy

• My case does not fit the ‘War on Terror’ excuse.
• The case didn’t involve a ‘mistaken’ suspect terrorist or suspect organization.
• I, as the plaintiff, was and am a United States Citizen, thus my constitutional rights were directly violated by invocation of SSP.

I believe providing background on and an overview of these two relevant and major SSP cases will suffice to establish the reasons behind the intentional sanitization of SSP media coverage and other reports – so far successfully achieved by the executive branch and the Congress.

The recent ‘supposed’ leak of a report by the Congressional Research Service on SSP under the title of “The State Secrets Privilege and Other Limits on Litigation Involving Classified Information” is a very appropriate example:

“The Congressional Research Service has prepared a new account of the state secrets privilege, which is used by the government to bar disclosure of certain national security information in the course of civil litigation. While the CRS report contains nothing new, it is a detailed, dispassionate and fairly comprehensive account of the subject. A copy was obtained by Secrecy News.”

Assuming that this report in fact was leaked (my congressional sources claim otherwise, but I couldn’t substantiate it definitively.), I invite the readers to review the ‘analyzed’ and ‘cited’ cases. Please carefully review the citations, and take note of the cases taken into examination, especially those since 2000. Here is the list:

Al-Haramain Islamic Fund v. Bush, El-Masri v. US, Mohamed v. Jeppesen Dataplan

Not surprisingly, the ‘leaked’ report intended for Congress based on the ‘latest’ anti State Secrets Privilege movement’s pressure on Congress to act, meets the ‘qualification’ criteria.

I contacted Mark Zaid, a Washington attorney who has represented many plaintiffs in SSP cases, including me, and this is what he had to say:

“The abuse of the privilege extends beyond protecting Bush Administration policies; it is often focused on covering up institutional misconduct and embarrassment that transcend political lines.”

Regarding the latest media coverage, mainstream and alternative, and their either naïve or agenda-driven case selections Mr. Zaid states:

“This provides an incomplete portrait of the dangers of the invocation of the privilege and in some ways fosters further abuse.”

Based on the ‘sanitization’ criteria as explained by the quoted congressional staff member, it is obvious why the major SSP cases provided above ‘could not’ be included in any potential/future congressional discussions and or hearings. These cases cannot be quickly written off under the excuses of ‘war on terror’ or ‘bureaucratic bungling.’ The inclusion of them would make it difficult, if not impossible, for Congress to shrug off SSP and let its abuses continue. The coverage of these cases would likely garner outrage by the public majority regardless of political partisanship.

What is not obvious is how the press, both mainstream and alternative, has come to implement these shrewd political objectives, serving both the Congress and the executive branch. As for the mainstream media it doesn’t come unexpected. We have gotten used to it; whether from their record and coverage in leading us to war in Iraq, or the latest revelations of their inner workings when it came to the NSA warrantless wiretapping of Americans.

However, I am not ready to attach the same cynical but realistic agenda to the alternative press. The reasons may be as simple as pure ignorance, naivety, myopic partisanship, or simply stupidity. Whatever the reasons, the likely consequences of them playing into the hands of the political establishment and their agenda is to help us lose the battle against SSP when we seem to finally have momentum and a strong movement to address this draconian abuse once and for all through sound legislation with teeth.
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