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Thought-Crime in Washington
Federal employees are the only ones who know what’s happening inside the government and their voices are being silenced.
~ Peter Van Buren 01 Dec 2011: Al-Jazeera [edited ~R]
[ America always like to do things bigger and better – but if you think the same thing can’t happen here then you are sadly deluded. ~R ]
Here’s the First Amendment, in full:
” Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;
or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press;
or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. “
Those beautiful words, almost haiku-like, are the sparse poetry of the American democratic experiment. The Founders purposely wrote the First Amendment to read broadly, and not like a snippet of tax code.
As the occupiers of Zuccotti Park, like those pepper-sprayed at UC Davis, or the Marine veteran shot in Oakland, recently found out, the government’s ability to limit free speech, to stopper the First Amendment, to undercut the right to peaceably assemble and petition for redress of grievances, is perhaps the most critical issue our republic can face.
If you were to write the history of the last decade in Washington, it has entrenched itself in a comfortable shadowland of ever more impenetrable secrecy, while going after any whistleblower who might shine a light in.
Now, it also seems to be chipping away at the most basic American right of all, the right of free speech, starting with that of its own employees.
Over the years, government in its many forms has tried to claim that you lose your free speech rights when you, for example, work for a public school, or join the military.
The courts have found that any loss of rights must be limited and specific. Free speech is considered so basic that the courts have been wary of imposing any limits at all.
The government versus Morris Davis: Morris Davis got fired from his research job at the Library of Congress for writing a Wall Street Journal article and a similar letter to the editor of the Washington Post. (The irony of being fired for exercising free speech while employed at Thomas Jefferson’s library evidently escaped his bosses.) With the help of the ACLU, Davis demanded his job back. On January 8, 2010, the ACLU filed a lawsuit. The case is being heard this month.
Some day it will likely define the quality of people who will make up our government. It’s the millions of lower-ranked, unelected federal employees who decide by their actions how the laws are carried out (or ignored) and the Constitution upheld (or disregarded).
On November 12, 2009, the day after his op-ed and letter appeared, Davis was told by his boss in a letter of admonishment that the pieces had caused the library concern over his: poor judgment and suitability to serve… not consistent with ‘acceptable service’. It referred only to his op-ed and Washington Post letter, and said nothing about his performance as a researcher. One week later, Davis was fired.
Morris Davis is not some dour civil servant. He was, in fact, the chief military prosecutor at Guantanamo and showed enormous courage in October 2007 when he resigned from that position and left the Air Force. Davis had stated he would not use evidence obtained through torture back in 2005. When a torture advocate was named his boss in 2007, Davis quit.
He was respected at work. Even the people who fired him do not contest that he did his “day job” well. The Library of Congress does not restrict its employees from writing or speaking, so Davis broke no rules.
Morris Davis was fired by the Library of Congress because the government just did not like what he wrote. The simple act of speaking out on a subject at odds with an official government position was the real grounds for his firing. The government picked Davis out for selective, vindictive persecution. Certainly in the present atmosphere in Washington, they felt they had an open path to stopping their employee from saying what he did, or at least to punishing him for doing so.
A thought crime: As any devoted fan of George Orwell, Ray Bradbury or Philip K Dick would know, Davis committed a thought crime.
As some readers may also know, I evidently did the same thing.
Because of my book, op-ed’s and blog posts, I first had my security clearance suspended by the Department of State, and then was suspended from my job there. State has placed me on indefinite administrative leave; that is, I’m without a job pending action to terminate me formally through a more labourious process. In removing me from my position, the document the State Department delivered to me darkly echoed what Davis’ boss at the Library of Congress said to him.
There is a pattern of punishing federal employees for speaking out, or whistle-blowing, and in this way a precedent is being set for an even deeper cloud of secrecy to surround the workings of government.
From Washington in other words, no news other than good or officially approved news, is to emerge.
Free speech is for Iranians, not government employees.
It’s okay to blog about your fascination with knitting – or to support official positions. Or if you happen to be Iranian, Chinese or Syrian, not terribly fond of your government and expressing yourself on the subject, the US government will support your right to do so, 110% of the way.
If a federal employee writes publicly in a way that offends or embarrasses the government, then the very definition of good judgment will rest with the government. Simply put, you can be fired for what you write if your bosses don’t like it, that’s bad judgment on your part, and the First Amendment goes down the drain.
Free speech is increasingly coming at a price in Washington: for federal employees, a conscience could cost them their jobs.
If you don’t like McDonald’s because of its policies, go to Burger King, or a soup kitchen or eat at home. But government is different than private business, you don’t get a choice of governments.
Clothilde Le Coz, Washington director of Reporters without Borders, told me, “Secrecy is taking over from free speech in the United States. We naively thought the Obama administration would be more transparent than the previous one.” Scary, especially since this is no longer an issue of one rogue administration.
So the critical need for its employees to be able to speak, informs the republic. We are the only ones who can tell you what is happening inside your government. It really is that important.
We have a problem as a country if freedom of speech only holds as long as it does not offend the government. The courts have consistently supported a commitment to real free speech as the price of a free society.
[ there are far too many dark corners all over, and Vermin love the dark. It is not just free speech that is necessary for a free society, it is also dramatically improved transparency. ~R ]
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Peter Van Buren spent a year in Iraq as a State Department Foreign Service Officer serving as Team Leader for two Provincial Reconstruction Teams.
Now in Washington, he writes about Iraq and the Middle East at his blog, We Meant Well.
His book, We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People (The American Empire Project, Metropolitan Books), has recently been published.
Follow him on Twitter: @WeMeantWell.
A version of this article was first published on TomDispatch.
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