{"id":3343,"date":"2007-03-10T01:42:52","date_gmt":"2007-03-10T08:42:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2007\/03\/10\/an-open-letter-to-chris-matthews\/"},"modified":"2007-03-10T01:42:52","modified_gmt":"2007-03-10T08:42:52","slug":"an-open-letter-to-chris-matthews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2007\/03\/10\/an-open-letter-to-chris-matthews\/","title":{"rendered":"An Open Letter to Chris Matthews"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dear Sir,<\/p>\n<p>I am writing you today because I think you and your investigative reporter, David Shuster, are two of the only men on TV news who might have the guts to step up and cover a very important story that is currently suffering from a near-total media blackout.<\/p>\n<p>That blackout is deep enough that it&#8217;s likely you haven&#8217;t even heard that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nswbc.org\/Press%20Releases\/PressRelease-March5-07.htm\">2 new FBI whistleblowers have come forward<\/a> \u00e2\u20ac\u201c one named, the other still anonymous \u00e2\u20ac\u201c vouching for the veracity of the claims of former FBI contract linguist-turned-whistleblower Sibel Edmonds, who is once again pushing \u00e2\u20ac\u201c this time <a href=\"http:\/\/www.libertycoalition.net\/state-secrets-privelage\/coalition-letter-to-the-house-committee-on-oversight-and-government-reform-on-criminal-activities-by-the\">backed by more than thirty public interest groups<\/a> \u00e2\u20ac\u201c for public congressional hearings into her case.<\/p>\n<p>One of these new whistleblowers, a 20-year veteran agent named Gilbert Graham, has revealed in a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nswbc.org\/Reports%20-%20Documents\/RequestforInvestigation-SA_Graham_docs.pdf\">leaked letter<\/a> [.pdf] to the Justice Department Inspector General&#8217;s office that the intercepts she was involved in translating as part of official FBI investigations into high-profile criminal activity in 2001 and 2002 were themselves <strong class=\"moz-txt-star\"><span class=\"moz-txt-tag\" \/><\/strong><strong><em><span class=\"moz-txt-star\">illegal<\/span><span class=\"moz-txt-star\"><span class=\"moz-txt-tag\" \/><\/span> wiretaps<\/em><\/strong> on some very influential people \u00e2\u20ac\u201c begun under authority from Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants when they should have been using the old-fashioned 4th Amendment kind.<\/p>\n<p>I think that makes this story an official double-whammy.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps this lawbreaking by the investigators is part of why the Justice Department has waged such a battle against this courageous woman&#8217;s right of free speech and right to seek redress in court by using (abusing) the &#8220;States Secrets Privilege&#8221; to prevent her from saying what she learned during her part in the investigation.<\/p>\n<p>Many current and former federal police and intelligence officials, Senators and Congressmen, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fas.org\/irp\/agency\/doj\/oig\/sedmonds.html\">the Inspector General himself<\/a> have vouched for Edmonds&#8217;s credibility. No one of significance has challenged her facts, only her right to tell us what they are.<\/p>\n<p>Edmonds told me Wednesday, March 7th, in a joint <a href=\"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/orig\/horton.php?articleid=10650\">interview<\/a> with renowned intelligence reporter James Bamford,<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;[I]f Congress moves forward and holds this public hearing, I can guarantee you that you are going to be seeing some major criminal indictments here because we are not talking about light-level stuff \u00e2\u20ac\u201c we are talking about very serious criminal activities.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>From what I understand, this may be an understatement.<\/p>\n<p>Why not invite her on your show?<\/p>\n<p>I am certain she will be an energetic and informative guest, and there&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/media.canal-plus.com\/lib\/media_tools\/image_format.php?path=\/image\/45\/7\/47457.jpg&#038;format=1\">no doubt<\/a> that your TV cameras will like her too.<\/p>\n<p>Her gag order is severe, but she can say enough to set your man Shuster on the path to the story of a lifetime.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nswbc.org\/Reports%20-%20Documents\/RequestforInvestigation-SA_Graham_docs.pdf\">This link<\/a> is to the .pdf file of the unclassified version of Graham&#8217;s letter to the Department of Justice&#8217;s Inspector General&#8217;s office.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks very much for your time.<\/p>\n<p>Best,<br \/>\nScott Horton  (from Antiwar.com, not the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pbs.org\/now\/politics\/horton.html\">world-renowned anti-torture lawyer<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dear Sir, I am writing you today because I think you and your investigative reporter, David Shuster, are two of the only men on TV news who might have the guts to step up and cover a very important story that is currently suffering from a near-total media blackout. That blackout is deep enough that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[676],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-3343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-antiwar-movement"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3343\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3343"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=3343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}