Friends,
The Pledge of Resistance-Baltimore will do its annual Interdependence Day visit
to the National Security Agency. We will depart at 10:15 AM on July 4 for
Fort Meade, and then vigil at the NSA from 11 AM to noon. We will then
have a 6 PM potluck picnic. RSVP to me at 410-323-1607 or mobuszewski at
verizon.net. I will inform you as to where we are meeting to carpool to
the NSA and the site of the picnic. Get to know better the government
agency which is keeping close attention to you.
Kagiso,
Max
Pledge of
Resistance-Baltimore, 325 East 25th Street, Baltimore, MD 21218 Email
mobuszewski at verizon.net; Phone 410-323-1607
June 30, 2016
Vice Admiral
Michael S. Rogers
Director, National
Security Agency
Chief, Central
Security Service
National Security
Agency
Fort George G.
Meade, MD 20755
Dear Admiral
Rogers:
For years,
members of the Pledge of Resistance-Baltimore have expressed a grave concern
for the National Security Agency’s role in the invasions of Afghanistan and
Iraq, and the attacks on Libya, Pakistan, Syria and Yemen. The loss of
lives, the devastation wreaked on civilian populations, and the resulting
instability has only emboldened the terrorists to take advantage of the
disarray.
Your agency has a well-recognized history of illegal surveillance and other
activities which violate the constitution. The Obama administration is
engaged in an assassination program through the use of unmanned aerial
vehicles. We believe this program using killer drones is immoral, illegal
and unconstitutional. Even U.S. citizens have been assassinated by drones
without a semblance of due process. Of course, your agency is culpable by
providing potential targets for the president's "kill list."
Because of
these concerns, we would like to meet with you or your representative. The
Nuremberg Tribunals taught us that when a government is involved in war crimes,
citizens must speak out. As a government employee, you have a responsibility to
hear from the citizenry. We are willing to adjust our schedules to be
available at any time or day. We do plan to be at Fort Meade for our
annual Interdependence Day visit.
Fortunately, there
is a handful of courageous insiders who have stepped forward to blow the whistle
on the NSA. Sadly, if unsurprisingly, these whistleblowers have not been
recognized as the heroes that they are for attempting to shine the light on the
NSA’s illegal and unconstitutional activities. For example, after blowing
the whistle on the Stellar Wind program and revealing key details about the
NSA’s illegal warrantless wiretapping and data collection of U.S.
citizens, NSA employees William Binney and J. Kirk Wiebe suffered the
consequences. After being punished, both chose to accept early retirement
packages rather than to work for an agency that was breaking the law.
Unfortunately, NSA
psychologists have labeled whistleblowers as mentally ill. One person who
was so labeled was Russ Tice, one of the sources for the New York Times story
that first exposed the NSA’s illegal surveillance program. Because he
blew the whistle, he was fired. NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake was one of
only four people ever to be charged under the Espionage Act of 1917 with the
crime of “willful detention” of “national security information.” These bogus
charges were eventually dismissed, but his career with the government was
over. Drake accepted a plea agreement to plead guilty to a misdemeanor of
“misusing the agency’s computer system.”
The whistleblowers
who have probably suffered the most are Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden and
Julian Assange. Manning may be incarcerated for decades. As for Snowden
and Assange, they are men without a country. Our government, instead of
welcoming the assertions of whistleblowers, severely punishes those who expose
serious violations of the law. Of course, the intent is to remind
government employees of the severe consequences meted out to whistleblowers.
On the Fourth of
July, we will celebrate these whistleblowers who exposed government
malfeasance. We ask you to join the celebration. First, publicly
acknowledge that the above whistleblowers were right to speak out and that they
should never have been punished; second, say that they must be
compensated for their suffering; third, state that all pending and future
charges against Assange and Snowden should be dismissed; and fourth, inform the
president that he should commute Manning’s sentence.
We could
provide a long list of the times the NSA shredded the constitution. Instead,
we will mention a few notorious examples.
In 2015, it was
revealed that bogus intelligence caused the deaths of Warren Weinstein, 73, an
aid worker from Maryland who was a contractor for the U.S. Agency for
International Development, and Giovanni Lo Porto, 39, an Italian citizen
working for a German aid agency, in a U.S. drone strike. Both were kidnapped by
al-Qaeda in Pakistan.
In 2003, the NSA’s
Frank Koza was involved in a scheme to spy on members of the UN Security
Council prior to a vote on an invasion of Iraq by the Bush
administration. Finally, as you know, the NSA failed miserably to protect
us from the 9/11 terror attacks, possibly because illegal surveillance gathered
too much data to recognize an impending attack on U.S. soil.
We hope that you
will take our concerns seriously, and decide to set up a meeting with us.
You exist in an insular world, and you could benefit from a meeting with peace
and justice activists. At this meeting we will urge the NSA to promote
reconciliation and diplomacy and renounce pernicious killer drone strikes and
illegal surveillance which violates the 4th Amendment. Doing what we
suggest will be a positive step for the National Security Agency to rebuild its
tarnished reputation. We look forward to your response.
In peace,
Max Obuszewski
On behalf of the
Pledge of Resistance-Baltimore
Donations can be sent
to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218.
Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their
lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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