Primary Sources Defending Rights & Dissent

When whistleblowers have been tried under the Espionage Act, the US government has successfully barred them telling the jury about what it is they are on trial for exposing. It’s clear the US government is afraid of juries hearing about the realities of drone strikes, mass surveillance, torture, and other abuses of power. When war crimes are exposed, the government puts the truth teller in jail. The Belmarsh Tribunal, named for the notorious British prison where Julian Assange is being h...

"A prosecution is when you use court proceedings to prosecute a crime. When you misuse judicial institutions to persecute, to silence a dissident who has committed no crime and you're using the judicial machinery to silence him and to punish him, that's persecution." This is how UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer describes to host Chip Gibbons the legal proceedings against Assange. Melzer was initially skeptical and reluctant to become involved in the Assange case. Yet, after ...

This is the story of one of the largest leaks of classified information in US history, leaks which exposed US war crimes and other abuses of power. From 2010 to 2011, WikiLeaks worked with media the world over, to publish the Collateral Murder Video, Iraq and Afghan War Logs, State Department Cables, and Guantanamo Bay Detainee Assessments. It is also the story of the US national security state's ruthless relation against those involved, including the source, whistleblower Chelsea Manni...

The prosecution of Julian Assange marks the first time a publisher of truthful information has been indicted under the Espionage Act. In the first of a series of episodes exploring what WikiLeaks exposed and the lengths the US government went to silence them, Primary Sources looks at WikiLeaks' role in exposing human rights abuses at the notorious US prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Nearly ⅓ of the charges against WikiLeaks publisher Assange pertain to Guantanamo Bay Detainee Assessment files ...

Those in the drone program have witnessed first hand the serious human costs of the US's global assassinations program. For years, veterans of the drone program have worked to alert the public to the realities of the drone warfare. The Kabul Strike, which killed 10 civilians, including 7 children, shocks the conscience of all thinking people. But as drone whistleblowers, have tried to warn, it was hardly an unusual event. Host Chip Gibbons is joined by drone whistleblowers Lisa Ling, Keagan M...

"There's been one systemic process of lying throughout the Afghan War. From the Bush Administration to the Obama Administration to the Trump Administration it has just been systemic lying from the American government about the war."This is what Matthew Hoh says about the US war in Afghanistan during this episode of Primary Sources. Hoh would know. After already completing two assignments in Iraq, Hoh joined the US State Department in Afghanistan. In 2009, he made headlines when he resigned in...