Why Are We Doing This Story?

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People often ask me why I am working on this documentary, as if to question my motivation. The range of comments is comical. It spans from people thinking that it is just more liberal dribble to “it is another missile from the libertarian nuts who see all government as evil.” They want to know our agenda.

It is simple. Our purpose is to help restore our democracy and our rights by bringing good, solid information to the public so we can make informed decisions. We want transparency in our systems, where appropriate checks and balances are in place, giving us the opportunity to hold officials accountable to the people. We want to get back to the original intent, where the government serves the people instead of the people serving a political and economic elite.

Our goal is not to attack our government, but to call the country back to its positive core–the deep, democratic values and principles that our founders fought and struggled to achieve.

– Wendy White

The Next Generation Of Whistleblowers

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Since we began interviewing whistleblowers for Seizing Power, we’ve noticed what appears to be a change in the kinds of people taking a stand. We have been very fortunate to meet with courageous whistleblowers such as Dan Ellsberg, Bill Binney, Kirk Weibe, George Christian, Mark Klein and others. They all have one characteristic in common, they are aged 50 plus and well established in their careers.

Since we embarked on this project, the face of the whistleblower is changing. In the past year a new, younger set of voices is speaking out. They tend to be in their 20’s and willing to sacrifice everything to bring information forward. In the last few months we have heard from Aaron Swartz, Bradley Manning and now, Edward Snowden, potentially the most influential of all. Add to that the youth leadership in the Occupy Movement, the Arab Spring and other activist movements and we have an interesting new trend emerging.

This 9/11 generation has the potential to change everything. What will they do?

— Wendy White

 

The Courageous Conscience of Ed Snowden

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Snowden

If you haven’t seen it yet, take a look at this interview with Ed Snowden, the 29-year old whistleblower who publicly admitted that he is the source who leaked top secret documents exposing how the National Security Agency (NSA) has been secretly collecting and storing all of our phone records for years, and tapping into the computer systems of major Internet companies.

Snowden, who worked for Booz Allen Hamilton, an NSA contractor, says, “I can’t in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they’re secretly building.” Snowden is risking a lot with his act of conscience. Like Bradley Manning, he will be made an example of if he is caught, and could spend the rest of his life in prison.

We are hearing the usual statements from officials that secrecy is necessary in order to keep the terrorists from knowing what the US is doing to thwart them. In the case of the phone records at least, this explanation is laughable. The real reason is to keep it hidden from the American public who otherwise would never go along with it. As with Obama’s drone wars, the strategy has been to put these programs into practice without the public’s knowledge, and to keep them secret for as long as possible. Then when it finally does become known, it is a fait accompli that is difficult, if not impossible, to reverse.

We are now seeing a full-scale effort by the Obama administration and its supporters to spin the story in their favor, with cooperation from their media allies. Yet there are figures in the corporate media, and across the political spectrum, who are challenging the administration’s justifications and letting dissenting voices be heard.

The question now is: Will the government’s determination to build and operate this huge surveillance capability in secret continue to succeed, or is it beginning to fall apart? There are an increasing number of insiders who have been willing to take the risk to expose government abuses, several of whom appear in Seizing Power. Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who published the original story in The Guardian, says that he has more revelations yet to be released. We are likely to see more insiders willing to make the sacrifice to protect our Constitutional rights. We owe them a lot.

-David Kasper

 

The Government’s War On Whistleblowers

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The Obama administration has prosecuted more whistleblowers than all past presidents combined.

Why?

According to Wikipedia, the definition of a whistleblower is “a person who tells the public, or someone in authority, about alleged dishonest or illegal misconduct occurring in a government department or private company or organization. The alleged misconduct may be classified in many ways; for example, a violation of a law, rule, regulation and/or a direct threat to public interest, such as fraud, health/safety violations and corruption.

We need whistleblowers.

With the current level of rampant secrecy, and the increasing control of the media, one of the few remaining ways that we can find out what is happening comes from people on the inside who have the courage to put aside their own safety to inform the public.

A powerful documentary from Brave New Films, The War On Whistleblowers, was recently released. It uncovers how the government has been targeting and harassing whistleblowers. We recommend that you check it out.

We interviewed a number of whistleblowers including Kirk Wiebe and Bill Binney, former National Security Agency (NSA) employees, during our last DC shoot. Their story will be featured in Seizing Power.

 

Verizon Providing Millions of Phone Records to NSA

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The recent scandal exposing the Justice Department’s seizure of phone records from the Associated Press is just the tip of a much larger iceberg. For years we have suspected that the government is colluding with phone companies to collect, store and analyze records of telephone calls on American citizens, without individual warrants or probable cause.

According to whistleblowers who appear in Seizing Power, this surveillance goes far beyond just collecting and analyzing phone records, and includes the contents of emails and phone conversations themselves. Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall, who sit on the Senate Intelligence Committee, have warned that the Obama administration is carrying out widespread surveillance of Americans under a secret interpretation of the Patriot Act that the Administration refuses to disclose.

We now have actual evidence that millions of call records are being collected by the National Security Agency. A top secret order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court became public yesterday, and was published in The Guardian. It demands that Verizon provide call records of ALL of its American business customers and that the very existence of the court order be kept secret. As Juan Cole observed, this means that it is illegal for us to even look at it. Although the demand is directed at Verizon, we can assume that the same demand is being made to all other phone companies and Internet service providers, and that this has been going on for years.

We can now expect a massive investigation by the FBI and the Justice Department to hunt down and punish the source of this leak, which will no doubt include an effort to seize the phone records of The Guardian, and Glenn Greenwald, the reporter who exposed it, in an effort to intimidate other potential whistleblowers from communicating with them.