CALENDAR: Save these dates -- Fri., Jan. 10 & Sat., Feb. 8!
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UFPPC will cosponsor an important event in Tacoma on Sat., Feb. 8: a joint presentation by nationally known whistleblowers Jesselyn Radack and Thomas Drake at the Washington State History Museum. -- While this event will be free to the public, it involves considerable expense, and on Fri., Jan. 10, at the Tacoma Urban League, we're having a fundraising party to help raise money to defray some of the expenses of the event. -- So please put these events on your calendar, and help us spread the word about them. -- See below for more information on these events.[1] ...
ACTIVISM: Contingency plans on Syria in Tacoma
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CALENDAR: Live Skype with Thomas Drake to follow Jul. 24 screening of 'War on Whistleblowers'
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As previously announced, at 7:00 p.m. on Wed., Jul. 24, UFPPC will screen Robert Greenwald's 2012 film "War on Whistleblowers" at the Grand Cinema, in Tacoma (606 South Fawcett) as a fundraiser for Bradley Manning. -- UPDATE: Thomas Drake, the former NSA senior executive whose whistleblowing is discussed in the film, will join the Tacoma audience via a live Skype after the screening. -- "I've dedicated the rest of my life to defending life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness," says Drake, 56. -- Don't miss the chance to hear this contemporary American hero at Tacoma's Grand Cinema on Wed. evening, Jul. 24. -- BACKGROUND: In May 2011 "60 Minutes" reported on Drake's case.[1] -- The 14:28 episode, broadcast on May 22, 2011, described how Drake blew the whistle on mismangement at the NSA, then discovered that after 9/11 the NSA embarked on a vast program of illegal warrantless wiretapping. -- His internal appeals ignored, Drake contacted a journalist; the government responded by indicting him for violating the Espionage Act. -- He faced up to 35 years in prison. -- The point of this malicious prosecution, Drake says, was to send "a chilling message" to other potential whistleblowers that "we will hammer you" if you "speak truth to power." -- At about the same time as the "60 Minutes" episode, Jane Mayer wrote about Drake in the New Yorker. -- Her article concludes: "Mark Klein, the former AT&T employee who exposed the telecom-company wiretaps, is also dismayed by the Drake case. 'I think it’s outrageous,' he says. 'The Bush people have been let off. The telecom companies got immunity. The only people Obama has prosecuted are the whistleblowers.'"[2] -- With their persecution exposed in the media, the government dropped all charges and settled the case. -- WHAT'S AT STAKE: A few days after Edward Snowden revealed his identity to the public, Thomas Drake issued an urgent warning: "Since the government unchained itself from the Constitution after 9/11, it has been eating our democracy alive from the inside out. -- There's no room in a democracy for this kind of secrecy: it's anathema to our form of a constitutional republic, which was born out of the struggle to free ourselves from the abuse of such powers, which led to the American Revolution."[3] -- "I feel a kinship with Snowden: he is essentially the equivalent of me." ...