20150101 Blowing the whistle is not a crime

01.01.2015 Blowing the whistle is not a crime

Blowing the Whistle on Government Recklessness Is a Public Service, Not a Crime

A federal indictment accuses former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling of giving classified information to New York Times reporter James Risen -- about a CIA operation that provided flawed nuclear weapon blueprints to Iran in 2000.

The charges in that indictment are unproven, and a trial is set for January 2015. But no one disputes that Sterling told Senate Intelligence Committee staffers about that CIA action, which was dubbed Operation Merlin.

As Risen documented in his book State of War, Operation Merlin was ill-conceived and dangerous. In the name of countering nuclear proliferation, the CIA risked promoting it.

The prosecution of Sterling smacks of selective prosecution. General James Cartwright, who reportedly leaked information on far more recent and sensitive counter-proliferation efforts against Iran, has not faced prosecution. And the Defense Department’s top officials cannot even be identified as leakers by that agency’s Inspector General reports, which apparently protected the former CIA Director and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta from scrutiny for leaking classified information about the Osama bin Laden raid.

Sterling is accused of providing Risen classified information regarding Operation Merlin, a bungled CIA effort to deal Iran bad nuclear weapons information. The information appeared in Chapter 9 of Risen’s 2006 book, State of War, which exposed a number of the Bush Administration’s ill-considered intelligence programs.

Please sign this petition urging the U.S. Department of Justice to drop all charges against Jeffrey Sterling.

Read more and sign the petition http://act.rootsaction.org/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=10707

More information about the background
Marcy Wheeler, ExposeFacts: "The Leaky CIA's Case Against Alleged Leaker"
Norman Solomon, Marcy Wheeler, The Nation: "The Government War Against Reporter James Risen"
Marcy Wheeler, ExposeFacts: "The Government’s Single-Source Theory of Journalism"
Matt Apuzzo, The New York Times, "CIA Leaked Classified Information to Support Program"
Marcy Wheeler, ExposeFacts: "A Tale of Two Alleged Iran Nuke Leakers"
Marcy Wheeler, ExposeFacts: "Grassley Questions Why DOD IG Cannot Report on Leaks"