 We’re proud to announce the launch of The Project for Accountability -- to be coordinated by CIA whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling.
After prosecution that BBC News called “trial by metadata,” Jeffrey spent more than two and a half years in a federal prison. In recent months, he transitioned to a “halfway house” and then to home confinement, which ended early this summer.
Now, Jeffrey says, “I would like to address the need for accountability of power.” He adds: “I spent a few years working in and for what many may rightfully consider an unaccountable power in this country, the Central Intelligence Agency.”
At the RootsAction Education Fund, we’re thrilled that Jeffrey will serve as the coordinator of The Project for Accountability. You can help the project get off to a strong start if you make a tax-deductible donation in support of this exciting new venture.
The RootsAction Education Fund is sponsoring this project for the same reason that we’ve actively supported Jeffrey Sterling for the last several years, while he withstood the vengeful weight of the “national security” state.
Jeffrey infuriated powerful CIA officials when he sued the agency for racial discrimination, and later when he went through channels to tell Senate Intelligence Committee staffers about a botched and dangerous covert operation by the CIA.
The CIA unleashed its unaccountable power against Jeffrey. “When I tried to hold that power accountable for its discriminatory employment practices,” he recalls, “I encountered another element of unfettered and unaccountable governmental power -- the ability to claim ‘national security’ in order to quash any calls of accountability.
“In my case, it was not only the CIA which used the national security panacea to fight off accountability. It was bolstered by a presidential administration which was all too willing to come to the aid and defense of the CIA to hide its discrimination, and also the courts which too readily bow to the whims of government impropriety in the name of national security.”
The Project for Accountability is depending on solidarity and generosity. Please help it grow now by clicking here to make a tax-deductible contribution. Half of every dollar you donate will go directly to Jeffrey as he works to rebuild his life, while the other half will go to sustaining his project.
 If you don’t already know about Jeffrey’s long ordeal of harassment, legal threats and persecution by the CIA hierarchy and the Justice Department, please take a look at the Background information we link to at the bottom of this email.
We plan to keep you informed about Jeffrey’s future radio and TV interviews, speaking tours and articles. But for all of that to happen, we need to get The Project for Accountability underway. A tax-deductible donation of whatever you can afford would be greatly appreciated.
Jeffrey understands full well that telling the American people and the entire world about what happened to him can help strengthen a wide range of whistleblowers -- past, present and future.
“There was no accountability in my instance of fighting for my rights; the CIA and federal government was only accountable to itself and no one else. The danger of such unaccountability became sorely evident as the CIA continued its vendetta against me, a man who had the audacity to sue it for discrimination, as it mounted a campaign to prosecute me for allegedly leaking classified information.”
Jeffrey continues: “I will state again as I did during my trial via a ‘not guilty’ plea, that I at no time divulged classified information, to anyone. Despite a lack of evidence (in fact the Department of Justice during the trial seemed to go out of its way to demonstrate how as a CIA employee, I routinely followed the rules) I was indicted, arrested, put on trial, found guilty and imprisoned. During this horrible ordeal, the CIA was not held accountable for its actions, the Department of Justice was eager to have a show trial, the 4th Circuit was all too accommodating, and ultimately the press was also willing to just go along with the powers that be.”
Jeffrey sums up this way: “The only fact proven during the trial was that I was a black man and had the nerve to sue the CIA for discrimination. Being the only person investigated out of myriad individuals with motive and opportunity, it was an easy investigation and prosecution.”
The questions that Jeffrey Sterling raises transcend his individual experiences, going to key issues of civil liberties and democracy: “Who was the CIA accountable to in denying me my right as a citizen of this country to be free of discrimination at the workplace? Who was the Department of Justice accountable to as it provided the mechanism to persecute me? Who was the 4th Circuit accountable to as it conferred in denying the civil rights it claims to protect and uphold, yet allowed that denial to give unfettered opportunity to the CIA, Department of Justice and the federal government to make an example of me and send me to prison? Who was the press accountable to as it demonstrated more concern for one of its own over an innocent victim?”
The ordeal in a courtroom was followed by the ordeal in a federal prison: “As if those aspects of accountability were not enough for one to experience, I became aware of and exposed to another, less public unfettered governmental power seeming accountable to none, the Bureau of Prisons.
“My point is that power must be accountable. When I speak of accountability, I am not meaning a system by which government can merely state unproven claims of dangers to national security to quash being called into account for its actions. Power cannot be accountable only to itself; a system accountable only to itself is accountable to nothing. The accountability I feel is sorely lacking is accountability to the overall purpose and essence of a democratic government -- the people.
“It is the people who establish and form government; when that government is no longer answerable to the people through bureaucratic complexities, institutional acquiescence and judicial deferment, rights of citizenry become meaningless ripples of annoyance in an ever-growing power sea of government. With power being accountable, what usually starts off as a ripple can became a tempest of change and true representation. But if government is not held accountable, those ripples merely fade away to nothingness, swallowed up by a sea of unfettered power.”
Please do what you can to support Jeffrey’s new work as coordinator of The Project for Accountability.
Thank you!
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--- The RootsAction Education Fund team
Background:
>> BBC News: "Jeffrey Sterling's Trial by Metadata"
>> John Kiriakou: “CIA Whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling Placed in Solitary Confinement”
>> ExposeFacts: Special Coverage of the Jeffrey Sterling Trial
>> Marcy Wheeler, ExposeFacts: "Sterling Verdict Another Measure of Declining Government Credibility on Secrets"
>> Norman Solomon, The Nation: "CIA Officer Jeffrey Sterling Sentenced to Prison: The Latest Blow in the Government's War on Journalism"
>> Reporters Without Borders: "Jeffrey Sterling Latest Victim of the U.S.' War on Whistleblowers"
>> AFP: "Pardon Sought for Ex-CIA Officer in Leak Case"
>> Documentary film: "The Invisible Man: CIA Whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling"
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