The Government Science of Preventing Whistleblowers From Speaking OutBy Lucas Dare The very word secrecy is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. ~John F. Kennedy Today, as the world hangs on every WikiLeaks release coming from Julian Assange, it is clear that the role of whistleblower in our society is critical to the survival of freedom, and also clear the public demandsthe truth. There is a definitive science to preventing and destroying whistleblowers which includesa continuum of intimidation tactics that are very effective at keeping government employees from going public with information that could be harmful to the state. Author of From the Company of Shadows, and a decorated former CIA officer and anti-terrorism specialist turned whistleblower, Kevin Shipp, recently spoke ina publicawareness event in Northern California on the issues that moral people face when confronted with evidence of state corruption. He begins byasking why there are not more whistleblowers in a world where government secrecyand covert activity has become the norm. Speaking from his personal experience, both as a witness from inside the CIA and as a person who is directly taking the risks associated with exposing government corruption, he reveals his insight into this issue, offering a solid explanation of why more people dont come forward with the truth about our governments unconstitutional and immoral activities. According to Shipp, there is a complete game plan in play that covers all the bases of intimidation, harassment and coercion; and, as outlined below, here arethe main things that prevent more people from becoming speaking out. Ninety-nine percent of all would-be whistleblowers are convinced to look the other way by use of binding secrecy agreements as terms for employment or promotion. Essentially, in order to work for the government in any capacity that would involve one in any of the many unconstitutional programs it operates today, employees must sign binding secrecy agreements where they cannot talk without going to prison for doing so. This type of agreement was originally designedas a way to legitimately protect sources, methods and technology; however, the intention has changed dramatically and it is now used broadly as a form of intimidation used to conceal criminal activity. These agreements are forfeitures of constitutional rights such as the right to a jury trial, the right to sue the government, and all rights to due process. There is a massive, mammoth, complex secret mechanism in the U.S. Government, its called the intelligence community. It is so powerful that not even the Congress or the Senate can control it. Matter of fact, it controls them. It does whatever it wants. They have these Senate investigations, and theyll come and they say, sorry Senator, we cant tell you what were doing because you dont have the agency clearance. And thats where its shut down. ~Kevin Shipp By using the state secrets privilege, which wascreated by the executive branch of the U.S. Government, the intelligence community can prevent and stop any investigation into sensitive issues, it can prevent disclosure of pertinent information in an investigation, and it can stop any lawsuits it wishes to shut down. The state secrets privilege (SSP) is a common law privilege that allows the head of an executive department to REFUSE to produce evidence in a court case on the grounds that the evidence is secret information that would harm national security or foreign relation interests if disclosed. [Source] If someone persists on going public with state secrets, or even indicates an intention to do so, there are a numberof tactics that can be applied to embarrass, intimidate, and directly penalize them. This may come in the form of demotion, of givingsomeone embarrassing or compromising assignments, or by directly intervening in their personal lives in illegal ways such as financially destroying ones family by blocking retirement funds or by raising interest rates on credit union loans so their vehicles and homes become unaffordable. This tool is used to officially discredit a potential whistleblower before they actually go public so that if they succeed at drawing attention to an agency their character is already defamed and documented as being unstable. What theyll do is theyll say, we can see that youre very stressed out by all of this, and we want to help you, so, were going to refer you to the office of medical services so you can undergo some psychological counseling to help you sleep at night and make you better and get rid of your anxiety, so, were going to set up an appointment for you to meet with a psychologist. Now, where do you suppose that goes? The interviews over, the document is falsified, employee is paranoid, obsessive-compulsive, and disgruntled. That goes in the file, so if it ever does get to the Congress or Senate or court, they pull it out and say, well look, he or she went under an evaluation and theyre basically unstable, end of story, shut the case down. ~Kevin Shipp Inspectors general are presented as an objective and honest safeguard in thebureaucratic process; however, this is not always true. When a significant case is presented with overwhelming evidence is presented against the state, an inspector general for any agency can step in with their own conclusions citing there isno problem nor wrongdoing, and that theirinternalinvestigation had not revealed anything. This effectively prevents any outside body from being able to fully examine whistleblower allegations. They will destroy you. Theyll destroy your career, your finances, destroy your family. Theyll take you all the way down as far as they can. ~Kevin Shipp All in all this creates a culture of fearwithin all government agencies, effectively silencing dissent before it happens. Weve seen what happened to Bradley Manning who was prosecuted under the Espionage Act for releasing military documents to WikiLeaks. Julian Assange and Edward Snowden have been living for years in exile under the protection of foreign governments for their roles in exposing how the state is violating our constitutional rights. Even at the civil level people who expose state corruption are persecuted beyond common sense as is evidenced in the case of Ramsey Orta, the only person going to jail in relation to the murder of Eric Garner by the NYPD, after he filmed Garners murder in 2014. In light of all of this, it is no wonder that more people do not speak out on government programs that violate our natural and civil rights, for it takes tremendous courage and incurs significant risk to do so. LucasDareis a staff writer for Waking Times, where evolution and revolution unite, and forOffgrid Outpost. Image Credit: Anthony Freda Art I thought this was a very informative article. The author and Shipp focus on the non-lethal methods used to silence whistleblowers. If these methods fail, options still exist. The beast in th east is nuthing if not pure criminal. Bunch of satanic goat and owl worshipers. And they wonder why the disgruntled employee suddenly becomes crazed and shoots all his coworkers. No, he shot the bastards who were going to burn him. Most people are far too civilized to do that, forgetting that the corrupt administrators have no such restrictions. 