An excerpt from the article:
An article by Mark Hertsgaard, adapted from his new book, Bravehearts: Whistle Blowing in the Age of Snowden, describes how former NSA official Thomas Drake went through proper channels in his attempt to expose civil-liberties violations at the NSA — and was punished for it. The article vindicates open-government activists who have long argued that whistleblower protections aren’t sufficient in the national security realm.
It vindicates NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden who, well aware of what happened to Drake, gave up his attempts to go through traditional whistleblower channels – and instead handed over his trove of classified documents directly to journalists.
And it adds to the vindication for Drake, who was already a hero in the whistleblower’s pantheon for having endured a four-year persecution by the Justice Department that a judge called “unconscionable.” [1]
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Why donate to acTVism Munich?
acTVism Munich plans to continue translating the event organized by the University of Arizona, “A Conversation to Privacy” that hosted Edward Snowden, Glenn Greenwald and Noam Chomsky. acTVism Munich believes that privacy is a central ingredient to democracy and creating awareness on it on a global scale is of utmost important for the future of human freedom and liberty. Secondly, we plan to begin translating an event that was organized by the New York Public Library (NYPL) that hosted Yanis Varoufakis and Noam Chomsky. This event took place on the 26th of April, 2016, and focused, amongst other issues, on the state of European democracy; the underlying problems confronting it and the solutions moving forward.
We lack technical and financial resources to translate both of the above mentioned events.
On the 19th of June 2016, acTVism Munich is planning on travelling to Berlin where WikiLeaks is hosting an event for their founder, Julian Assange, who has been barred from leaving the Ecuadorian embassy in London on allegations which have been proven to be false. In this event, the significance of whistleblowing and investigative journalism will be brought to light and acTVism Munich will produce a report which will include interviews with Sarah Harrison (Lawyer for Wikileaks), Jacob Appelbaum (Founder of Tor), Hans Christian Ströbele (Privacy adocate), PJ Harvey (Musician) and Angela Richter (Theatre Director). This event will also be broadcasted globally via the internet in locations such as New York, Sydney, Naples, Quito, London and Geneva. We are anticipating, as with previous events, a media blackout, and hence acTVism Munich aims to cover all the developments that unfold during this event. This trip requires your assistance – from transportation, lodging, food, production and translations costs – it will be very difficult for our volunteers to raise the necessary financial capital to undertake this trip.
Lastly, acTVism Munich received Edward Snowden’s confirmation about participating in a future event known as “Freedom & Democracy: Global Issues – Connecting the Dots”. In this event we plan to bring leading experts together to discuss the connections between various issues and reveal the system at work. We believe that we can only arrive at viable solutions by increasing public awareness of the principal and structural faults of our system.
We lack the necessary financial and technical resources to execute the projects, trips and events mentioned above. Since we are a non-profit and independent media outlet that has a strict policy against accepting advertisements, government or corporate support – we depend only on you, the public.
1) McLauhglin, Jenna, and Dan Froomkin. “Vindication for Edward Snowden From a New Player in NSA Whistleblowing Saga.” TheIntercept.com. The Intercept, 23 May 2016. Web. 30 May 2016. <https://theintercept.com/2016/05/23/vindication-for-edward-snowden-from-a-new-player-in-nsa-whistleblowing-saga/>.
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