Tag Archives: Prison sentences

For Every Whistleblower They Make An Example Of, They Prevent A Thousand More, by Caitlin Johnstone

The way those who tell the truth about the government are treated by the government, you’re not going to have a long line of people signing up for whistleblower positions. From Caitlin Johnstone at caitlinjohnstone.com:

Whistleblower Daniel Hale has been sentenced to nearly four years in prison after pleading guilty to leaking secret government information about America’s psychopathic civilian-slaughtering drone assassination program.

The sentence was much harsher than Hale’s defense requested but not nearly as harsh as US prosecutors pushed for, arguing that longer prison sentences are necessary for deterring whistleblowing in the US intelligence cartel.

The Dissenter’s Kevin Gosztola reports:

Despite the fact that Hale pled guilty on March 31 to one of the five Espionage Act offenses he faced, prosecutors remained spiteful and unwilling to support anything less than a “significant sentence” to “deter” government employees or contractors from “using positions in the intelligence community for self-aggrandizement.”

In other words, if you tell the public the truth about your government’s crimes, you will be made an example of so nobody else tries to do that. And then for that brave and selfless act, you’ll be smeared as doing it for “self-aggrandizement”.

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Military Police Deployed As 500,000 Catalan Independence Protesters Shut Down Barcelona, by Tyler Durden

The Spanish government, by levying heavy sentences against organizers of a Catalonian independence referendum, has made its bed. Now it will have to lie in it. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

Central Barcelona has reportedly been paralyzed as mass protests which international reports estimate to number over a half-million people are driven by outrage at harsh prison sentences for pro-independence leaders handed down by the top Spanish court.

Protest leaders are vowing “the streets will be ours” as they push for Catalan independence, and as riot police have begun clashing with stone-throwing activists, who are also in some places of the city setting makeshift roadblocks ablaze.

Pro-Catalan independence protesters near the police headquarters in Barcelona on Friday, via the AFP.

With night fall, reporters on the ground are describing what’s beginning to resemble a war zone, with increasing violence against police, as also both far-left and far-right agitators are said to be infiltrating the crowd and engaged in increasing violence and vandalism.

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