Pentagon Papers whistle-blower hails Luy, PDI

LEGENDARY Daniel Ellsberg (left), America’s most famous whistle-blower, is all praises for Filipino whistle-blowers and journalists who exposed the so-called pork barrel scam.He is seen here with INQUIRER correspondent Danny Petilla. CONTRIBUTEDPHOTO

SAN FRANCISCO—For sending two powerful and popular senators, and possibly a third one, to jail, whistle-blowers and journalists who exposed the P10-billion pork barrel scam in the Philippines found an admiring supporter in Daniel Ellsberg, America’s quintessential whistle-blower.

Ellsberg leaked the top secret “Pentagon Papers” in 1971 that galvanized the American public to oppose the Vietnam War.

“I have the greatest admiration for the courage of whistle-blowers and journalists in your country. It is just wonderful,” Ellsberg told this writer.

The 83-year-old Ellsberg was commenting on recent events in the Philippines during a break on Friday at the annual meeting of the Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) held at the Marriott Marquis hotel in this city by the bay.

He was one of more than 100 resource speakers at the four-day conference attended by 1,500 journalists from around the United States and the world. The conference ended on Sunday.

Other war

Considered America’s most famous whistle-blower, Ellsberg was the main resource speaker on the subject called “The Other War: Cracking Down on Journalists and Whistle-blowers.”

Informed by this writer about the Inquirer’s leading role in the exposé in the widespread corruption scandal and the possibility that several Filipino politicians and private individuals might face imprisonment because of their alleged involvement in it, Ellsberg said he was inspired by brave whistle-blowers and journalists in the Philippines and around the world.

Brave

“Your country benefits from having compatriots who are that brave to tell the truth,” he said.

But Ellsberg expressed concern that whistle-blowers in Third World countries were not getting the needed support and protection due them from their governments. He expressed alarm at the rising number of journalists killed in the Philippines under President Aquino.

The National Union of Journalists in the Philippines puts the number of journalists killed under the Aquino administration at 33.

Huge risk

“The risk of life to journalists and whistle-blowers in your country is great. I am just amazed by their courage. They are an inspiration for us over here,” Ellsberg said.

While whistle-blowers in America are protected under a 1989 federal law known as the Whistle-blowers Protection Act, a bill in the Philippines known as the proposed Whistle-blowers Protection, Security and Benefit Act is still pending in Congress.

Another measure, the proposed Freedom of Information Act, intended to curb corruption and encourage transparency and accountability in government, is likewise stuck in the Philippine Congress.

Gov’t retaliation

Ellsberg acknowledged though that the US law signed by President George H. W. Bush was not enough to shield whistle-blowers from retaliation from their government.

“Even our whistle-blowers in this country are under the risk of prison under (President Barack) Obama,” he said.

Ellsberg cited the case of Army Pvt. Bradley Manning (now known as Chelsea Manning), who was jailed for exposing top secret cables that showed US military atrocities in Iraq to antisecrecy organization WikiLeaks.

Convicted in August last year for violation of the Espionage Act, the 26-year-old Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison and was dishonorably discharged from the Army.

Snowden

Ellsberg also referred to the case of Edward Snowden, the 31-year-old computer contractor who exposed the National Security Administration’s massive global surveillance program of American citizens and other foreigners regarding their private communications on their phones and e-mails, with the complicity of telecommunications companies.

Snowden’s passport was canceled by the Obama administration last year. He is in hiding in Russia. With his temporary asylum status granted by Russia expiring next month, Snowden has applied for political asylum to the European Union.

Ellsberg claims he was the first American to be prosecuted under the Espionage Act of 1917 for exposing the 7,000-page Pentagon Papers that detailed widespread government conspiracy in the Vietnam conflict.

He was tried in 1973 by the Nixon administration but was subsequently cleared by the courts. The US Supreme Court also sided with him as the US government tried to stop the publication of the documents in various American newspapers.

Arrested more than 80 times for joining antigovernment protests in the past, Ellsberg uses every forum he attends now to inform the public about the need for whistle-blowers in society and how they are the lifeblood of democracy.

Inquirer reporter

Nancy Carvajal, the Inquirer reporter who broke the story and who wrote extensively about the pork barrel scam since July last year, was named last week Journalist of the Year by the Center for Media, Freedom and Responsibility, an independent media watchdog that promotes integrity and responsibility in journalism.

Benhur Luy and his group of whistle-blowers were named the Inquirer’s “Filipinos of the Year” in 2013 for their role in exposing the scandal that has riveted the nation’s attention.

Luy and his group are protected under the Witness Protection Program of the Department of Justice.

But the Philippine judiciary and executive branch are at loggerheads over who will have control over whistle-blowers under the proposed whistle-blower law.

Ellsberg was a former US Marine lieutenant who fought in the Vietnam War and whose opposition to it later became his country’s human face and symbol of American division in the unpopular conflict that killed more than 58,000 American soldiers.

Pentagon Papers

Forty-three years after he leaked the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times and 17 other US newspapers, Ellsberg still looks spry and continues to be active in political causes, speaking out and protesting against US government secrecy and going on speaking tours around the world in support of his favorite advocacy causes.

The Harvard-educated Ellsberg became the first member of the advisory board of ExposeFacts.org, the online transparency and whistle-blowers’ organization organized this June by the Institute for Public Accuracy and the Freedom of the Press Foundation, two of America’s more visible nongovernment think tanks.

On its website, ExposeFacts reports that it “aims to shed light on concealed activities that are relevant to human rights, corporate malfeasance, the environment, civil liberties and war.”

Ellsberg’s biography, “Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers,” is required reading for all whistle-blowers around the world.

He was also the subject of a 2010 Oscar-nominated documentary, “The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers.”

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