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BRATTLEBORO, Vt. -- It has not been extensively reported, but the Obama Administration has retained and expanded upon many of the national security abuses that were initiated during the Bush Administration. <\/p>\n
The same acts that got liberals angry at President George W, Bush - warrantless wiretapping, the use of drones, indefinite detention of terror suspects without trial - continue under President Obama. <\/p>\n
Daniel Ellsberg, the man who in 1971 leaked the Pentagon Papers - 7,000 pages of top secret information regarding U.S. military planning and strategy in Vietnam - to the press, has said if he tried to release them today, he would end up like Army Cpl. Bradley Manning, who could face life in prison for providing top secret material on U.S. military planning and policy in Iraq and Afghanistan to WikiLeaks. <\/p>\n
That's because the Justice Department under President Obama has been aggressive in seeking prosecutions against suspected leakers, and the rising hostility of those in power toward anyone who challenges the status quo. <\/p>\n
Ellsberg has joined Chris Hedges and Noam Chomsky in filing a lawsuit that challenges the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). They argue that the law, signed on Dec. 31 by President Obama, authorizes the military to jail anyone it considers a terrorism suspect anywhere in the world, without charge or trial. <\/p>\n
Despite assurances that this law only applies to U.S. members of alleged terrorist organizations overseas, there is enough ambiguity in the law that the definition of \"supporter of terrorism\" also includes peaceful activists, authors, academics and journalists. <\/p>\n
That's how much the world has changed since Ellsberg decided to risk his career, and perhaps his life, to show the world the lies and wishful thinking that were behind U.S. intervention in Vietnam. <\/p>\n
The 81-year-old Ellsberg was recently in Brattleboro, Vt., to talk about whistleblowing, and the perils it can bring to those brave enough to do it. <\/p>\n
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