Rabbi Arthur Green and Rabbi Michael Lerner – 2013-07-06 02:26:15
Special to EAW
ACTION ALERT: President Obama:
Stop Prosecuting Whistleblowers!
Free Edward Snowden and Pfc. Bradley Manning
Rabbi Arthur Green and Rabbi Michael Lerner
(July 4, 2014) — Many of us signing this petition were among the tens of millions of people who imagined that in your second term in office, freed from the political constraints of electoral politics, you would become the champion of human rights and civil liberties you portrayed yourself as being when you first ran for public office.
Your Administration’s frenetic struggle to imprison Edward Snowden for revealing that tens of millions of Americans are having their communications monitored by the NSA, and your allowing the Army to continue to prosecute Private Bradley Manning , is shocking, immoral, and unacceptable.
The message your Administration is giving is clear: Americans do not have the right to know that they are being spied upon by their government, not the right to reveal crimes being perpetrated by their government. But this, President Obama, is morally outrageous.
Manipulating public opinion by appeals to fear about terrorist attacks as a justification for invading our privacy puts your Administration at the same low level of credibility as the Bush Adminstration whose values you promised to replace with a more open and honest government.
Threatening Russia, China, and Ecuador with unspecified negative consequences because they would not cooperate in your government’s pursuit of Edward Snowden makes your Administration appear to have lost all sense of proportion.
President Obama, please come back to your highest self. Stop being a puppet of the national security state and become a champion of our privacy, our human rights, and human decency.
If you want to look “tough” on crime, prosecute those who tortured detainees at Guantanamo and other US prisons, those bankers and investment firms who caused millions to lose their homes and their jobs in the continuing Great Recession, those who run corporations that are destroying the earth’s environment for future generations, and those who exploit the poor and the powerless.
If instead your legacy is to prosecute the whistle blowers who call attention to the misdeeds of government, the military, the national security apparatus and the corporate elites, you will rightly be scorned by future generations of Americans.
Signed by:
Rabbi Arthur Green, Rector, Hebrew College
Rabbi Michael Lerner, Editor, Tikkun & Chair, The Network of Spiritual Progressives
Gar Smith, co-founder, Environmentalists Against War
President Obama: Stop Prosecuting Whistle-Blowers:
Free Edward Snowden and Pfc. Bradley Manning
Many of us signing this petition were among the tens of millions of people who imagined that in your second term in office, freed from the political constraints of electoral politics, you would become the champion of human rights and civil liberties you portrayed yourself as being when you first ran for public office.
Your Administration’s frenetic struggle to imprison Edward Snowden for revealing that tens of millions of Americans are having their communications monitored by the NSA, and your allowing the Army to continue to prosecute Private Bradley Manning, is shocking, immoral, and unacceptable.
The message your Administration is giving is clear: Americans do not have the right to know that they are being spied upon by their government, not the right to reveal crimes being perpetrated by their government. But this, President Obama, is morally outrageous.
Manipulating public opinion by appeals to fear about terrorist attacks as a justification for invading our privacy puts your Administration at the same low level of credibility as the Bush Adminstration whose values you promised to replace with a more open and honest government.
Threatening Russia, China, and Ecuador with unspecified negative consequences because they would not cooperate in your government’s pursuit of Edward Snowden makes your Administration appear to have lost all sense of proportion.
President Obama, please come back to your highest self. Stop being a puppet of the national security state and become a champion of our privacy, our human rights, and human decency. If you want to look “tough” on crime, prosecute those who tortured detainees at Guantanamo and other US prisons, those bankers and investment firms who caused millions to lose their homes and their jobs in the continuing Great Recession, those who run corporations that are destroying the earth’s environment for future generations, and those who exploit the poor and the powerless.
If, instead, your legacy is to prosecute the whistle blowers who call attention to the misdeeds of government, the military, the national security apparatus and the corporate elites, you will rightly be scorned by future generations of Americans.
ACTION: Would you join as a signer of the call to President Obama to stop prosecuting whistle-blowers? If so, please sign the letter at:
http://org.salsalabs.com/o/525/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=13856
