Today our host Jorge Gestoso interviews whistleblower Jesselyn Raddick, the Human Rights Director of the Government Accountability Project (GAP) and author of the book Traitor. After being fired from her job as Ethics Officer at the Justice Department, smeared, placed under a criminal investigation and added to a “no fly” list for blowing the whistle on the CIA’s illegal questioning and persecution of the young man who came to be known as the “American Taliban,” Jesselyn Raddick took up the legal defense of a number of other whistleblowers. Her clients include Edward Snowden and several drone whistle-blowers who are confident that they have killed innocent civilians. The discussion begins with a look at the USA Freedom Act that just passed the House of Representatives and a recent federal court decision that declared Article 215 of the Patriot Act illegal. The interview covers issues such as the uselessness of the NSA in fighting terrorism, the normalization of U.S. government intrusion and unlawful search and seizure after 9/11, the reasons why people aren’t marching in the streets over the loss of their liberties since then, the common motivations of whistleblowers and the treatment they receive in the press and in the courts, and the fact that civil rights and liberties are at an all-time low in the United Stares. teleSUR
