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View Full Version : Daniel Ellsberg schools John Kerry on patriotism (and the Espionage Act)




Occam's Banana
06-01-2014, 01:32 AM
Daniel Ellsberg is the whistleblower who was behind the release of the so-called "Pentagon Papers."

US Secretary of State John Kerry calls Ellsberg a "patriot" - and he calls Edward Snowden a "coward" and a "traitor."

Ellsberg says, "John Kerry is wrong" and that Snowden "is the greatest patriot whistleblower of our time" ...

h/t Bob Murphy: http://consultingbyrpm.com/blog/2014/05/ellsberg-vs-kerry-on-snowden.html

Snowden would not get a fair trial - and Kerry is wrong
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/30/daniel-ellsberg-snowden-fair-trial-kerry-espionage-act
Daniel Ellsberg (30 May 2014)

Edward Snowden is the greatest patriot whistleblower of our time, and he knows what I learned more than four decades ago: until the Espionage Act gets reformed, he can never come home safe and receive justice

John Kerry was in my mind Wednesday morning, and not because he had called me a patriot on NBC News. I was reading the lead story in the New York Times – "US Troops to Leave Afghanistan by End of 2016" – with a photo of American soldiers looking for caves. I recalled not the Secretary of State but a 27-year-old Kerry, asking, as he testified to the Senate about the US troops who were still in Vietnam and were to remain for another two years: How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?

I wondered how a 70-year-old Kerry would relate to that question as he looked at that picture and that headline. And then there he was on MSNBC an hour later, thinking about me, too, during a round of interviews about Afghanistan that inevitably turned to Edward Snowden ahead of my fellow whistleblower’s own primetime interview that night:


There are many a patriot – you can go back to the Pentagon Papers with Dan Ellsberg and others who stood and went to the court system of America and made their case. Edward Snowden is a coward, he is a traitor, and he has betrayed his country. And if he wants to come home tomorrow to face the music, he can do so.

On the Today show and CBS, Kerry complimented me again – and said Snowden "should man up and come back to the United States" to face charges. But John Kerry is wrong, because that's not the measure of patriotism when it comes to whistleblowing, for me or Snowden, who is facing the same criminal charges I did for exposing the Pentagon Papers.

[... more at link: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/30/daniel-ellsberg-snowden-fair-trial-kerry-espionage-act ...]

John Kerry's challenge to Snowden to return and face trial is either disingenuous or simply ignorant that current prosecutions under the Espionage Act allow no distinction whatever between a patriotic whistleblower and a spy. Either way, nothing excuses Kerry's slanderous and despicable characterizations of a young man who, in my opinion, has done more than anyone in or out of government in this century to demonstrate his patriotism, moral courage and loyalty to the oath of office the three of us swore: to support and defend the Constitution of the United States.

[emphasis added]

Cleaner44
06-01-2014, 11:51 AM
Kerry is mad because Snowden betrayed the oligarchy. Well tough crap Kerry, Snowden didn't swear an oath to you or the Skull and Bones or your cronies... he swore an oath to the Constitution and the people of the United States. Snowden upheld that oath. Kerry sold his soul long ago. I hope Ellsberg continues to speak out.

francisco
06-01-2014, 12:20 PM
I was very happy to see Ellsberg's comments.