{"id":24827,"date":"2015-01-29T13:11:35","date_gmt":"2015-01-29T21:11:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=24827"},"modified":"2015-01-29T13:13:02","modified_gmt":"2015-01-29T21:13:02","slug":"honoring-nsas-binney-and-amb-white","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2015\/01\/29\/honoring-nsas-binney-and-amb-white\/","title":{"rendered":"Honoring NSA’s Binney and Amb. White"},"content":{"rendered":"

During a standing-room-only event held at Unter den Linden 52 in the shadow of Berlin\u2019s Brandenburg Gate, Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence<\/a> (SAAII) presented its 14th<\/sup> annual award to ex-National Security Agency official William Binney on Jan. 22. Binney ended his 36-year career in intelligence after 9\/11 when he learned that NSA Director Michael Hayden had removed<\/a> Fourth Amendment privacy protections from the agency\u2019s surveillance of Americans.<\/p>\n

More than half of the former Sam Adams award recipients, who were free to travel, took part in the award ceremony. In the not-free-to-travel category, Edward Snowden (recipient in 2013) took part via live-stream video from Russia; former Army Pvt. Chelsea (Bradley) Manning (2014) is serving a 35-year sentence for releasing to WikiLeaks video and classified messages revealing, among other things, U.S. war crimes in Iraq. And WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange (2010) is well into his third year of confinement in Ecuador\u2019s London embassy where he has political asylum.<\/p>\n

As the Berlin ceremony began, Sam Adams Associates made its first posthumous award to U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador Robert White, who died on Jan. 13, 2015. Longtime SAAII veteran David MacMichael accepted the award on Ambassador White’s behalf and will give it to his widow.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

White, like other foreign service officers who have been honored by SAAII, personified integrity by sacrificing his career in the early days of the Reagan administration rather than cover up torture, murder and other human rights crimes by Salvadoran \u201cdeath squads\u201d working with the U.S.-supported Salvadoran army.<\/p>\n

Most memorably, White demanded justice for four American churchwomen who were raped and murdered in December 1980, upsetting the incoming Reagan administration\u2019s plans to downplay that case and other atrocities. [To hear Ambassador White discuss another atrocity, the murder of Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero, click here<\/a>. (Courtesy of journalist Don North)] <\/p>\n

As a CIA analyst, MacMichael encountered similar attempts to conceal human rights crimes by U.S.-backed forces in Central America, an early example of the \u201cpoliticized\u201d intelligence pushed by Reagan\u2019s CIA Director William Casey and his deputy, Robert Gates. MacMichael quit his senior CIA position and testified at The Hague to the truth about the Reagan administration\u2019s secret war to overthrow Nicaragua\u2019s leftist Sandinista government.<\/p>\n

The actions of White and MacMichael fit with the legacy of previous SAAII award recipients, such as former UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray (2005), who pleaded in vain for London to refuse to accept \u201cintelligence\u201d gotten by the most extreme kinds of torture, and U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence Thomas Fingar (2012), whose professionalism and courage played a huge role in exposing the myth that Iran was working on a nuclear weapon.<\/p>\n

[To watch the award event, click here<\/a> and scroll down to the bottom of the article for the video coverage, which begins at minute 8:00 and ends at 1 hour, 26 minutes. (Courtesy of RT) Included are short presentations by Annie Machon, former UK MI5 whistleblower; Katharine Gunn (awardee in 2003), GCHQ (the British NSA) whistleblower; Craig Murray (2005), former UK ambassador to the terror-friendly regime in Uzbekistan; Coleen Rowley (2002), FBI whistleblower about mistakes before 9\/11; Thomas Drake (2011), former senior NSA executive; Jesselyn Radack (2011), former Department of Justice ethics adviser and first whistleblower on U.S torture and now attorney for other whistleblowers; Todd Pierce, Major, U.S. Army Judge Advocate (ret.) and defense counsel at Guantanamo; and Edward Snowden (2013), exposer of NSA abuses (via video live stream); Bill Binney with an engaging acceptance speech after the award citation was read aloud by Annie Machon (in English) and Elizabeth Murray (in German), after which SAAII’s Berlin host Joerg Dreger gave closing remarks.] <\/p>\n

Text of the citation follows:<\/p>\n

The Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence <\/strong>Presents its INTEGRITY AWARD for 2015 to: William Binney<\/strong> Know all ye by these presents that William Binney is hereby honored with the traditional Sam Adams Corner-Brightener Candlestick Holder, in symbolic recognition of Mr. Binney\u2019s courage in shining light into dark places.<\/p>\n

Bill Binney represents the patriotic side of a duel between two unequal adversaries: an exceedingly powerful and ruthless state and Bill, an official who would not break his solemn oath to defend its Constitution. Like Tom Drake and Ed Snowden, he was determined to preserve his integrity, his privacy, and his personal honor.<\/p>\n

On both sides of the Atlantic we hear the mantra: \u201cAfter 9\/11\/2001 EVERYTHING CHANGED;\u201d just like \u201ceverything changed\u201d after the burning of the Reichstag on 2\/27\/1933. That event led many Germans into what the writer Sebastian Haffner called \u201csheepish submissiveness\u201d — with disastrous consequences.<\/p>\n

As a young German lawyer in Berlin at the time, Haffner wrote in his diary one day after the Reichstag fire that Germans had suffered a nervous breakdown. \u201cNo one saw anything out of the ordinary in the fact that, from now on, one\u2019s telephone would be tapped, one\u2019s letters opened, and one\u2019s desk might be broken into.\u201d<\/p>\n

What was missing, wrote Haffner, was \u201ca solid inner kernel that cannot be shaken by external pressures and forces, something noble and steely, a reserve of pride, principle, and dignity to be drawn on in the hour or trial.\u201d<\/p>\n

We are grateful that these traits were NOT missing in Bill Binney. Nor were they missing in Edward Snowden, whose patriotic risk-taking opened the way for Bill and his colleagues to expose the collect-it-all fanatics and the damage they do to privacy everywhere.<\/p>\n

What Ed Snowden called \u201cturnkey tyranny\u201d can still be prevented. But this can only happen, if patriots like Bill Binney can jolt enough people out of \u201csheepish submissiveness.\u201d Goethe understood this 200 years ago when he warned, \u201cNo one is more a slave than he who thinks himself free, but is not.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNiemand ist mehr Sklave, als der sich f\u00fcr frei h\u00e4lt, ohne es zu sein*.<\/p>\n

Presented this 22nd day of January 2015 in Berlin by admirers of the example set by the late CIA analyst, Sam Adams.<\/p>\n

In German: The Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence AUSZEICHNUNG FUER INTEGRITAET, 2015: William Binney<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nehmen Sie bitte alle zur Kenntnis, dass hiermit William Binney mit dem traditionsgemaessen Sam Adams Corner-Brightener (Ecken beleuchtenden) Kerzenstaender ausgezeichnet wird, als symbolische Ehrung fuer Mr Binney\u2019s Mut, auch dunkelste Ecken zu beleuchten.<\/p>\n

Bill Binney repraesentiert die patriotische Seite eines Duells zwischen zwei ungleichen Gegnern: einem ueberaus maechtigen und ruecksichtslosen Staat auf der einen Seite und Bill, einem Beamten, der seinen Amtseid die Verfassung zu verteidigen nicht bricht. Wie Tom Drake und Edward Snowden war auch er entschlossen, seine Integritaet, Privatsphaere und persoenliche Ehre zu wahren.<\/p>\n

Auf beiden Seiten des Atlantiks hoeren wir das Mantra: \u201cNach 9\/11 wurde alles anders;\u201d genauso wie \u201calles auf einmal anders war\u201d nachdem der Reichstag am 27. Februar 1933 brannte. Letzteres fuehrte viele Deutsche in etwas, was Sebastian Haffner einst als \u201cschafsmaessige Ergebenheit\u201d bezeichnete, mit schrecklichen Konsequenzen.<\/p>\n

Haffner war damals ein junger Anwalt in Berlin, und er schrieb einen Tag nach dem Reichstags-Brand in sein Tagebuch, dass die Deutschen gerade \u201ceinen kollektiven Nervenzusammenbruch\u201d erlitten haetten. \u201cKeiner fand etwas Besonderes dabei, dass man in Zukunft seine Telefongespraeche belauschen, seine Briefe oeffnen und seinen Schreibtisch erbrechen durfte.\u201d<\/p>\n

Was fehlte, schrieb Haffner, war \u201cein fester Kern,\u201d der nicht durch aeusseren Druck und Zwang erschuettert werden konnte. \u201cEine gewisse adlige Haerte, eine Reserve an Stolz, Gesinnung, Selbstgewissheit, Wuerde,\u201d aus der man in Zeiten der Herausforderung schoepfen konnte.<\/p>\n

Wir sind sehr dankbar, dass diese Eigenschaften Bill Binney nicht fehlten. Auch Edward Snowden zeigte sie reichlich, als seine patriotische Risikobereitschaft den Weg fuer Bill und seine Kollegen ebneten, damit sie den Schaden aufdecken konnten, den die Sammelwut der Fanatiker zur Folge hat, und beweisen konnten, dass die Privatsphaere ueberall gefaehrdet ist.<\/p>\n

Was Ed Snowden als \u201cFertiggericht Tyrannei\u201d (turnkey tyranny) bezeichnete, kann immer noch verhindert werden. Aber das kann nur passieren, wenn Patrioten wie Bill Binney genuegend Menschen aus der \u201cschafsmaessigen Ergebenheit\u201d aufwecken koennen. Goethe hat das schon vor 200 Jahren gewusst, als er gewarnt hat: \u201cNiemand ist mehr Sklave, als der sich fuer frei haelt, ohne es zu sein.<\/p>\n

22 January 2015, Berlin<\/i><\/p>\n

Roster of SAAII awardees:<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Coleen Rowley — 2002<\/li>\n
  2. Katharine Gun — 2003<\/li>\n
  3. Sibel Edmonds — 2004<\/li>\n
  4. Craig Murray — 2005<\/li>\n
  5. Sam Provance — 2006<\/li>\n
  6. Frank Grevil — 2007<\/li>\n
  7. Larry Wilkerson — 2009<\/li>\n
  8. Julian Assange — 2010<\/li>\n
  9. Thomas Drake — 2011<\/li>\n
  10. Jesselyn Radack — 2011<\/li>\n
  11. Thomas Fingar — 2012<\/li>\n
  12. Edward Snowden \u2013 2013<\/li>\n
  13. Chelsea Manning \u2013 2014<\/li>\n
  14. William Binney \u2013 2015<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. He is a 30-year veteran of the CIA and Army intelligence and co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). McGovern served for considerable periods in all four of CIA\u2019s main directorates.<\/i><\/p>\n

    Reprinted with permission from Consortium News<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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