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Following another whistleblower story, we talk to Robert MacLean and his attorney, Tom Devine, and they address critics of MacLean and Devine; one of those critics, Joe Carson, joins us in segment 2 with attorney David Pardo, and we relay written comments from Julia Davis.As PBC explains in the podcast introduction, this episode took some unexpected turns.

It started with this article about MacLean and retroactive classification by the government, written by State Dept. whistleblower Peter van Buren.  That story is recounted by MacLean and Devine in the first part of the podcast, and raises important issues about retroactive classification and retaliation against whistleblowers.

After inviting MacLean to be interviewed, PBC sent the van Buren article to whistleblowers Joe Carson (Energy Dept.) and Julia Davis (Homeland Security).  Carson responded with critical comments of Tom Devine and his organization, the Government Accountability Project.  Davis responded with a link to this article she wrote in 2011, which is quite critical of MacLean.

In segment 1, you will hear the unedited interview with MacLean and Devine, who both respond to the comments of Carson and Davis near the end.

In fairness, PBC invited Davis and Carson to respond.  Davis sent a written statement, which is read at the start of segment 2, which begins at 48:30    Carson agreed to be interviewed, and asked that David Pardo be on with him.  Pardo is an attorney who was fired from the Federal Aviation Administration, and operates a whistleblower website.  To enable them to react to the comments of MacLean and Devine, PBC sent the audio file of their interview to Carson, Davis, and Pardo.  Without PBC’s knowledge, Pardo posted quotes from the MacLean/Devine conversation, which prompted MacLean to cry “foul” and produced a flurry of emails, tweets and blog posts about an incomplete, unpublished interview package.

We proceeded to the interview with Carson and Pardo, in which they express concerns about GAP and Devine, and suggest that Devine is too powerful in the lobbying for better laws to protect whistleblowers, and that GAP benefits from the broken system of the Merit Systems Protection Board and the Office of Special Counsel.

While it was not the intention to focus on divisions in the whistleblower community, we do not duck controversy, or try to protect our listeners from conflicts and disagreement.  We seek to present the issues in a fair and honest way.  You are invited to listen, follow the links here to the source materials, and draw your own conclusions.  Please share your comments:  peter@peterbcollins.com

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Prof. Robert W. McChesney, media reform activist and author, talks about his new book, Digital Disconnect, offering a critical analysis of the commercialized internet and today’s media.McChesney is the Gutsgell Endowed Professor in the Department of Communications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a co-founder of the media reform group, Free Press.  The full title of his new book is Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism is Turning the Internet Against Democracy.

McChesney offers a critical view of internet “celebrants” who preach an outdated vision of the web, and notes that the web is controlled by a handful of monopolists and duopolists and that corporations and the government are able to monitor all of our communications to collect data and enable the expanded police state and creeping fascism.

We open with a discussion about President Obama’s nomination of Tom wheeler to chair the Federal Communications Commission.  We refer to an excellent analysis of Wheeler by B. Blake Levitt at Counterpunch, which lists 12 reasons why the Senate should reject Wheeler.  McChesney refers to Obama’s nomination as “an extended middle finger” to the media reform movement that largely supported him in 2008.  McChesney talks about the recent Free Press conference in Denver, and the need to re-tool reform strategies.

He defines his concept of Political Economy of Communication (PEC), and how it applies to the expanded corporate control of the internet, including the “walled garden” that is Facebook.  We talk about “cookies” and the detailed data collected on our web usage that is used to target ads and content at us.

There is much more in the interview, including Dean Baker’s idea for public subsidy of journalism through the “citizenship news voucher”.

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Investigative reporter Jason Leopold shares his latest scoop, disclosing the SOP manual for force feeding hunger striking prisoners at Guantanamo…Leopold, reporting for al-Jazeera America, shares his exclusive report on the Pentagon’s standard operating procedures (SOP) for the force feeding of prisoners at Guantanamo, who started a hunger strike on February 5 that now includes as many as 130 of the 166 prisoners.

We talk about Obama’s recent comments about Guantanamo and hunger strikers at a news conference; while it’s true that Congress his unwisely limited the options of the administration, it did provide a waiver process to release cleared prisoners, and the Obama team has not used it even once.

Leopold describes the treaty and ethical standards related to force feeding and the role of medical professionals in administering feeding, and the conflicts when doctors are under military command.  He details some of the gruesome process, and PBC shares his own experience with a feeding tube up the nose.

Leopold is returning to Guantanamo the week of May 13, and we will debrief him afterward.

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Col. Ann Wright, activist on many fronts, returns to talk about recent developments in the military sex crime crisis;  Kevin Gozstola from Firedoglake returns with detailed report on Bradley Manning trial.Col. Wright served 28 years in the military, then worked at the State Department.  Active in Code Pink and many other efforts, today we focus on the scandal of sex crimes in the US military.  This week, we saw the top officer in the Air Force sexual assault and prevention program arrested and charged with sexual battery near the Pentagon.  Wright recaps other recent cases and reports that Congress is paying more attention to the issue.  We talk about a possible “stand down” to underscore the urgency of the problem, and the need for prosecutors who are independent of the chain of command.  Wright also calls for dishonorable discharge for sex crimes, a national sex offender registry for ex-military and supports Sen. McCaskill’s hold on the confirmation of a female Air Force general, because she overruled a jury verdict in a rape case.

At 28:30, Gozstola joins us with a great report on the maneuvers in the court martial proceedings against Bradley Manning, which formally begin on June 3.  We talk about this week’s hearings regarding secret witnesses and secret testimony, and the absurd effort of the government to declare that information that’s now very public is somehow officially “secret”.  There was a “dry run” for an anonymous witness, expected to be a member of Seal Team 6 who will offer a link between Manning’s leaks and bin Laden–without any independent validation.  We also talk about Gozstola’s coverage of the dispute between members of the organizing committee for the San Francisco LGBT Pride events–some had proposed naming Bradley Manning as honorary Grand Marshall of the parade, but they have been blocked by the group’s leader.

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In this Boiling Frogs special, Sibel Edmonds and Pepe Escobar offer their perspectives on the Boston Marathon bombing and links to Chechnya, the CIA and possibly the international jockeying over the war in Syria.As most of our listeners know, Sibel Edmonds is the author of Classified Woman and founder of BoilingFrogsPost; Pepe Escobar is the globetrotting journalist who writes for Asia Times.

Edmonds has been closely following events in Chechnya and the Caucuses since her work at the FBI starting in 2001, and recently detailed some of the rich history of covert operations by the US and others (notably Turkey and Russia) in that region in a series of interviews titled “Gladio” with our colleague James Corbett.  She has also exposed a billionaire imam named Fetullah Gulen, a Turk exiled in Pennsylvania, whose network of madrasas includes the Caucuses.  With the quick targeting of the Tsarnaev brothers and the appearance of Uncle Ruslan–who was married to the daughter of CIA bigwig Graham Fuller and reportedly had a USAID contract himself–Edmonds is analyzing the information offers some compelling scenarios.

Escobar joins us from London, and comments on a recent trip to Spain as he offers an informed view from outside the US.  His sources seem to share Sibel’s take on the international implications that are much larger than the events in Boston.

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Former FCC Commissioner Nicholas Johnson criticizes Obama’s choice of lobbyist Tom Wheeler to chair FCC;  film reviewer Gary Chew tells us about the new Bill Moyers documentary about ALEC;  Will Durst has a very funny commentary about the wonderful world of drones.Johnson was appointed to the Federal Communications Commission by LBJ in 1966 and served until 1973.  He has written many books, and teaches law at the Iowa School of Law.  His blog is here.  He offers blistering criticism of Tom Wheeler, nominated to chair the FCC.  Wheeler has been a lobbyist for the cable TV industry and headed a trade group for the wireless phone industry, both of which are regulated by the FCC.  He was a “bundler” of contributions to Obama’s campaigns.

We also talk about the need for media reform and the failures of the FCC to require broadcasters to offer diverse viewpoints, the Fairness Doctrine that was repealed in 1987, and a number of other issues.

At  41:41,   Gary Chew reviews the new documentary about the American Legislative Executive Council (ALEC), produced by Bill Moyers and Common Cause.

And at 45:40, Will Durst offers a side-splitting pitch for the wonderful world of drones.

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Investigative reporter Dave Lindorff has important questions about role of security contractor at Boston bombing, gets the runaround;  Robert Greenwald returns to talk about his new film, War on Whistleblowers.Lindorff has reported for over 40 years, and has published books, including The Case for Impeachment, co-authored with Barbara Olshansky.  In this interview, Lindorff recounts his effort to perform basic journalism on the events in Boston on April 15.  Almost immediately, photos surfaced of uniformed security personnel in a large black SUV at the bombing site;  Lindorff identifies them as employees of Craft International, a military security firm.  As he details in this article, he made phone calls like a beat reporter to all of the contacts who might know basic facts, like who hired Craft, what their purpose was, and how they participated in the investigation.  Nobody gives him a straight answer, including Craft headquarters in Dallas.

We discuss the corporate media’s poor performance in covering this event and the manhunt that ensued, including John King of CNN’s big blunder, and how reporters today generally fail to apply basic skepticism to the information delivered or leaked by official sources.  While we draw no conclusions from the information currently available, the stonewalling of Lindorff’s inquiries and the failure of mainstream media to even note the presence of Craft at the crime scene raise important questions that deserve credible answers.

At the 42-minute mark, we’re joined by the brilliant documentary filmmaker, Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films.  His latest is War on Whistleblowers: Free Press and the National Security State.  The film profiles 4 recent whistleblowers in the national security arena: Thomas Drake of NSA, Michael DeKort–who worked for Lockheed Martin on a Coast Guard boondoggle, Pentagon consultant Franz Gayl–who fought for MRAPs to protect our troops in Iraq, and former Justice Dept. lawyer Thomas Tamm–who tipped the NY Times to the illegal wiretapping program.  Greenwald offers a free DVD to any listener who will hold a screening for friends.

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Garth Lenz, a Canadian environmental photographer, shares his knowledge of the devastation of Alberta by tar sands extraction, and the risks of the Keystone XL pipeline.Lenz has published a book of his photos of the Boreal forests, wetlands and river delta in Alberta that are being damaged by tar sands extraction, and he hosted a Ted talk that’s been widely viewed on YouTube that offers many important warnings to Americans about tar sands oil and its transport via pipelines, including the Keystone XL.

Lenz also helps us understand Canadian politics, which veered from their support of the Kyoto accords to aggressive tar sands development, as well as the economic factors.

You can see some of his impressive photos and link to the Ted video here.

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Experience many facets of my friend, Rev. Billy of the Church of Stop Shopping.  In this expansive interview, Bill Talen gets laughs and shares sorrow over rampant consumerism and threats to the planet.Rev. Billy has evolved from a satirical preacher into a populist leader, still fronting his Stop Shopping gospel choir and staging interventions at banks and other sources of the scourges of our times.  He describes the new messages targeting JP Morgan Chase and other enablers of the corporate agenda, and presents some new songs by the choir.  Invoking his 3-year-old daughter Lena, he says the “gradualist” approach of Bill McKibben and others to climate change must be amped up.  He talks about his part of Occupy NY and its impact, and discusses his run for mayor of NYC.  Get all the scoop on Rev. Billy here.

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Prof.  Gar Alperovitz on his new book: What Then Must We Do?  Straight Talk About the Next American Revolution.  Film reviewer Gary Chew on Robert Redford’s The Company You Keep, and Will Durst slams the Senate for killing new gun regulations.Alperovitz is a bright, well-rounded public intellectual who teaches Political Economy at University of Maryland, and is cofounder of The Democracy Collaborative.  He also held key staff positions for the US House and Senate and the State Department.  He outlines his vision in the context of current issues like Obama’s “chained CPI” proposal to cut Social Security benefits, and the tax avoidance schemes used by highly profitable US corporations, notably Apple.  He talks about new paradigms of employee ownership, and the challenges faced by Detroit and other cities.  And he talks about the need for a soft revolution to drive the sweeping changes he hopes for.

At 46:24, Gary Chew checks in with his movie review, and about 5 minutes later, Will Durst locks and unloads on the Senate.