For those who try the legal route to no avail and turn to the
media, Zaid advises, "accept the consequences and fight back."
Manning and Snowden are not the first -- nor will they be the
last, to leak classified or other information to media sources. The difference
is, today's media no longer supports the whistleblower -- as they did in
Ellsberg's day, and instead are obvious proponents for protecting government
and corporations.
The director of Project Censored and
the Media Freedom Foundation ,
Professor Mickey Huff says,
"During the 1960s and 70s, the major news media outlets seemed
to have an inkling about their role as a free press. While there were gross
failures in media coverage of the war in Viet Nam, the corruption of the
Johnson/Nixon administrations, when Dan Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers came
along, the press actually published them and stood behind him while Nixon, et
al, attacked him, tried to discredit him, and more."
In comparison, Mickey further explains,
"Today, the press isn't even timid about covering the
established powers, meaning, they are clearly part of them. It is the executive
branch, along with its minions in the corporate press that do the
propagandistic bidding of their corporate/political overlords. Today, major
media talking heads do the attacking, challenge whether someone is a
"real" journalist, and play constant games of shoot the messenger.
That's a striking shift that clearly indicates the so-called
"mainstream" press is hardly mainstream, it's merely a mouthpiece for
the plutocracy at best, but at worst, it has become an enemy of truth, and an
enemy of the people."
In an NPR interview, Pentagon Papers leaker,
Daniel Ellsberg, declared his support for both Manning and Snowden saying they [Manning
and Snowden] "did it right" versus how he had initially gone
about trying to maneuver through the appropriate legal channels stressing,
"I wasted years trying to do it through channels, first
within the executive branch and then with Congress."
Even still, the media and many on the legal side of the equation
refuse to not only acknowledge the realty for a whistleblower today, but also
the credibility and importance of whatever information has been leaked.
Attacking the messenger does not change his message.
*
For Reference:
Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989
Ethics in Government Act of 1978
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