A line-up of the some of the most prominent US whistleblowers yesterday gathered in London for a major ‘Stand Up for Truth’ rally this week on Monday 1st of June to be followed by a press conference on the 2nd of June.
Legendary whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the top secret Pentagon papers in 1971, will be joined by a number of campaigners as well as recent former US security officers who have taken the brave and principled step of speaking out against their government’s breaches of democratic rights.
Among them are Coleen Rowley, a former FBI special agent whose May 2002 memo to the FBI Director exposed some of the agency’s pre-9/11 failures, and Thomas Drake, a former senior executive at the NSA who blew the whistle on massive multi-billion dollar fraud and secret mass surveillance programmes.
Rowley said: ‘Lord Acton is famous for his insights on how power corrupts but he also figured out that "everything secret degenerates, even the administration of justice." The creators of democratic forms of government throughout the ages, including America's Founding Fathers knew these things too so they tried to ensure governmental transparency, in part through guarantees of freedom of speech and press. Yet those systems have been tipped upside down, leading to excessively secret government but almost no privacy for ordinary citizens.’
The rally will be joined by Eileen Chubb from the UK, one of the Bupa 7 Whistleblowers who lost their jobs after reporting widespread abuse of elderly people in care homes, while Michelle Stanistreet, General Secretary of the National Union of Journalists, will be speaking at the press conference which her union is hosting.
Commenting on the event’s significance in the light of shocking revelations from the Trident whistleblower William McNeilly, Prof. Des Freedman, Chair of the Media Reform Coalition, one of the main organisers, said: ‘The Conservative government is launching a new wave of attacks on free speech, just at a time of heightened tensions when we need journalists and security insiders to sound the alarm over dangerous breaches of the public’s rights and safety. McNeilly follows in a long line of brave and principled individuals. His US counterparts will be sending him warm greetings when they arrive in London.’