Chelsea Manning was freed on Thursday after two months in an Alexandria, Virginia jail for refusing to testify to a grand jury. That grand jury’s term expired but prosecutors immediately convened a new grand jury and sent a new subpoena to Manning requiring her to appear in court again this Thursday, May 16. It is expected that she will again refuse to respond to questions about WikiLeaks or Julian Assange. In that case, she could be returned to jail until the new grand jury completes its term.
Julian Assange has been forcibly removed from Ecuador’s embassy
At 9:15 this morning, London’s Metropolitan Police entered the Ecuador embassy where they arrested, handcuffed and forcibly removed WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange at the invitation of Ecuador’s president, Lenin Moreno. Police transported Assange to a London court where District judge Michael Snow called Assange a “narcissist” and ridiculed concerns about getting a fair trial before declaring him guilty of violating bail, and ordering him held for sentencing.
Trump’s Space Force rejects whistleblower protections
President Trump’s proposal for a Space Force to assure US military dominance in space has come under fire for its proposed personnel system, an alleged “merit-based” system that would give fired employees no right of appeal or external review. The Federal News Network quotes AFGE National President J. David Cox, who observed that “an employee or whistleblower adhering to his or her oath of office could be terminated at will.” That would seem to violate the Constitutional oath every elected official and federal employee takes.
Chelsea Manning jailed “in defense of a free press”
![Manolo Luna [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)]](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chelsea_Manning,_20_January_2018.jpg)
Chelsea Manning at protest in front of “A Night For Freedom.” Photo by Manolo Luna [CC BY-SA 4.0]
Chelsea Manning, the Army whistleblower, is again in jail less than two years after her release from prison on a grant of clemency from President Obama. US District Court judge Claude Hilton ordered Manning to be taken into custody for after she refused to answer questions before a grand jury thought to be targeting Julian Assange for prosecution.
Switzerland’s highest court acquits banking whistleblower
Switzerland’s Federal High Court today confirmed a lower court ruling, finding that Rudolf Elmer did not violate Swiss banking secrecy laws when he revealed information about offshore banking tax avoidance schemes.
Breaking bank secrecy is a criminal matter in Switzerland that carries a penalty of up to three years in jail.
Office of Special Counsel’s mission at risk, GAO reports
An investigation by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found serious problems at the Office of Special Counsel (OSC), the federal agency responsible for investigating whistleblower disclosures and retaliation complaints.
Requested by members of Congress for the fiscal years (FY) 2011-2016, the investigation found an increase in complaints to OSC and a backlog that increased from 953 to 1,858. The backlog, GAO notes, “puts OSC’s ability to fulfill its mission of protecting federal employees at risk,” “delays attaining desired favorable actions and remedying wrongdoings,” and may discourage whistleblowers from making disclosures.
OSHA releases fact sheet on nuclear industry whistleblowing
U.S. Government image
The OSHA has released a new fact sheet [pdf] on current legal protections for workers in the nuclear industry who report perceived violations of the Energy Reorganization Act (ERA) or the Atomic Energy Act (AEA).
Jeffrey Sterling is free–but are we?
Jeffrey Sterling, a whistleblowing former CIA employee, emerged from prison last month after serving most of a 42-month sentence. Like his trial, his release drew little media attention, but his case has important implications for all Americans at a critical time in US history.
The federal government arrested Sterling in 2011 and charged him with violating the Espionage Act in allegedly passing classified information to a reporter. It based the charges on circumstantial evidence: “envelope” information or metadata, including the dates and times of calls made between two telephone numbers. One number belonged to Sterling, who had lawfully informed members of the Senate intelligence committee about a “bungled” secret CIA program named “Merlin.” The other number belonged to James Risen, a New York Times reporter who later criticized the program in his 2008 book, “State of War.”
“Sister Cathy” murder cold case warms up
Heroic whistleblower-nun “Sister Cathy” died in valiant effort to stop brutal sexual abuse at her high school, witnesses say
by Tom Nugent
BALTIMORE – More than 47 years after a 26-year-old teaching nun was found murdered in a garbage-littered patch of scrubland on the outskirts of Baltimore, there is convincing new evidence that she died in a tragic bid to blow the whistle on rampant sexual abuse involving both priests and police officers at the nun’s Catholic high school.