National Security Whistleblowers Coalition
FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE- July 28, 2006
Contact: Sibel Edmonds, National Security
Whistleblowers Coalition, sedmonds@nswbc.org
NSA WHISTLEBLOWER IS
SUBPOENAED TO TESTIFY BEFORE FEDERAL GRAND JURY
Government Begins its Witch Hunt Targeting
Whistleblowers
On Wednesday,
July 26, Russell Tice, former National Security Agency (NSA) intelligence
analyst and a member of National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC), was
approached outside his home by two FBI agents who served him with a
subpoena to testify in front of a federal grand jury. NSWBC has obtained a copy
of the subpoena issued for Mr. Tice’s testimony and is releasing it to the
public for the first time. The subpoena directs Mr. Tice to appear before the
jury on August 2, 2006 at 1:00 p.m. in the Eastern District of Virginia. Mr.
Tice “will be asked to testify and answer questions concerning possible
violations of federal criminal law." [To view the subpoena click here].
In response to
the subpoena, Mr. Tice issued the following statement: “This latest action by
the government is designed only for one purpose: to ensure that people who
witness criminal action being committed by the government are intimidated into
remaining silent.” He continued: “To
this date I have pursued all the appropriate channels to report unlawful and
unconstitutional acts conducted [by the government] while I served as an
intelligence officer with the NSA and DIA. It was with my oath as a US
intelligence officer to protect and preserve the U.S. Constitution weighing
heavy on my mind that I reported acts that I know to be unlawful and
unconstitutional. The freedom of the American people cannot be protected
when our constitutional liberties are ignored and our nation has decayed into a
police state.”
On December 22,
2005, the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition made public a request by Tice to report to Congress probable unlawful and
unconstitutional acts by the government while he was an intelligence officer
with NSA and DIA. In a press release, NSWBC urged the congress to
hold hearings and let Mr. Tice testify. Mr. Tice, a responsible veteran
intelligence officer, tried to use the so-called appropriate channels,
including the United States Congress, to responsibly and lawfully disclose
government wrongdoing. [To read the release click here].
“What we are
seeing here is a government desperate to cover up its criminal and unconstitutional
conduct. They now are going beyond the usual retaliation against whistleblowers
who courageously come forward to report cases of government fraud, waste,
abuse, and in some cases such as this one, criminal actions. Their old tactics
of intimidation, gag orders, and firing, have not stopped an unprecedented
number of whistleblowers from coming forward and doing the right thing.
Desperate to prevent the public’s right to know, they now are getting engaged
in a witch hunt targeting these patriotic truth tellers.” stated Sibel Edmonds, the Director of National Security Whistleblowers
Coalition.
In addition, the timing of the
subpoena appears to be more than a little suspect. On July 25, 2006, Judge
Matthew Kennelly upheld the government’s assertion of the state secrets
privilege in Terkel v. AT&T. The crucial issue in the case was
whether or not the government’s program of surveillance had been publicly
acknowledged, and Kennelly wrote "the focus should be on information that
bears persuasive indication of reliability." If there were reliable public
reports of the program then the fact of the program’s existence could not be a
state secret. Kennelly found that there were no reliable sources of public
information about the contested program’s existence sufficient to thwart the
government’s need for secrecy. In other words, the existence of the program had
not been conclusively established, and the government therefore had a right to
prevent probing into the matter. This stops a case that represented a serious
threat to the Bush administration.
Professor William Weaver, NSWBC Senior Advisor,
stated: “Russ Tice is the only publicly identified NSA employee connected to
the New York Times in its December 2005 story publicizing warrantless
Bush-ordered surveillance. Tice is also publicly perceived as someone who could
authoritatively establish the existence of the program at issue in Terkel;
Tice could remedy the defect in the plaintiff’s case cited by Kennelly that
allowed the government’s assertion of the state secrets privilege to be
successful. Later, on the same day Kennelly’s opinion was filed, the Department
of Justice sent out Tice’s subpoena. The date on the subpoena is July 20th,
before Kennelly’s decision was filed, but the issue in the Terkel case was so
pregnant that it would be easy for the government to anticipate the ruling and
only issue the subpoena to Tice if necessary. It has now become necessary, and
the government seems to be moving to put pressure on Tice not to reveal
information that would confirm the electronic surveillance program at issue in Terkel
by threatening him with investigation and possible indictment.”
National Security Whistleblowers Coalition, founded in August
2004, is an independent and nonpartisan alliance of whistleblowers who have
come forward to address our nation’s security weaknesses; to inform authorities
of security vulnerabilities in our intelligence agencies, at nuclear power
plants and weapon facilities, in airports, and at our nation’s borders and
ports; to uncover government waste, fraud, abuse, and in some cases criminal
conduct. The NSWBC is dedicated to aiding national security whistleblowers
through a variety of methods, including advocacy of governmental and legal
reform, educating the public concerning whistleblowing activity, provision of
comfort and fellowship to national security whistleblowers suffering
retaliation and other harms, and working with other public interest
organizations to affect goals defined in the NSWBC mission statement. For
more on NSWBC visit www.nswbc.org
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© Copyright 2006, National Security Whistleblowers Coalition. Information in this release may be freely
distributed and published provided that all such distributions make appropriate
attribution to the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition.