National
Security Whistleblowers Coalition
NSWBC ADVISORY- September 18, 2006
Contact: Sibel Edmonds, National Security Whistleblowers Coalition, sedmonds@nswbc.org
KILL THE MESSENGER
A Documentary on State
Secrets Privilege & U.S. Whistleblowers
Alexandria,
VA--- “Kill
the Messenger,” a documentary
produced by Zadig Productions, directed by French filmmakers Mathieu Verboud
and Jean Robert Viallet, is scheduled to air on Canal + in France on September
19, 2006. The film will also be aired in Belgium, on BeTV, and Australia, on
SBS, this fall. The documentary explores the abuses behind the State Secrets
Privilege as invoked in FBI Whistleblower Sibel Edmonds’ case as well as
highlighting the travails and persecution of US national security
whistleblowers.
The filmmakers, Verboud and Viallet, spent
nearly two years interviewing witnesses and researching the invocation and
implementation of the state secrets privilege in Edmonds’ case. Based on their
documented findings and interviews with experts such as David Albright, Philip
Giraldi, John Cole, Joseph Trento, Glenn Fine, David Rose, and others familiar with Edmonds’
case, the film presents a terrifying picture of Turkish networks’ activities in
global nuclear black-market, narcotics and illegal arms trafficking activities
in the United States, and examines the extraordinary efforts of officials
within the US Government to insure that the secrecy surrounding Edmonds’ case
be maintained at any cost – from Edmonds’ termination from the FBI, to invoking
the State Secrets Privilege, to gagging the US Congress.
The film
documents the formation of the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition and
the collective struggle of its members to bring legislative and media attention
to retaliation by national security agencies against whistleblowers, and the
resulting danger such suppression of the truth causes the United States. The entrenched bureaucratic power of the
United States government would rather sacrifice those who would reveal the
truth than face the changes necessary to protect the nation. The filmmakers interviewed many high-profile
national security whistleblowers, including Daniel Ellsberg, Coleen Rowley
(FBI), Russell Tice (NSA), Bogdan Dzakovic (DHS), John Vincent (FBI), Steve
Elson (FAA), John M. Cole (FBI), and Matthew Fogg, among others.
Bill Weaver
commented: “H.L. Mencken once said that ‘every normal man must be tempted at
times to spit on his hands, hoist
the black flag, and begin to slit throats’.
This film makes me want to do just that. The incompetence, maliciousness, corruption, inefficacy,
impudence, arrogance, and plain stupidity of the government’s criminal
activities toward Sibel Edmonds are a national shame. Having lived under tyranny in Iran and elsewhere, Edmonds knows
what it looks like. In her case, and in
many other recent cases, tyranny comes in the form of the state secrets
privilege, a foolproof mechanism of the federal government to hide executive
branch corruption, incompetence, and illegal activity. This is a practice more at home with Czars
and nabobs, and should have no place in the United States. But Edmonds gave the government something it
never expected – a no holds barred battle.
She hoisted the black flag and went on the attack by forming the
National Security Whistleblowers Coalition, an organization dedicated to
changing the law, exposing government misdeeds, and giving hell to those who
richly deserve it. This film will
forever change the way you view the United States government and will give you
an insight into what true patriotism, not Wal-Mart patriotism, looks
like.”
"Sibel
Edmonds lives in a great democracy but at the wrong time. Making a film on a
woman who is gagged by the Bush administration, one of the most secretive in
U.S history, was almost a civic duty. We hope this film will be a wake up call
for all of us;” stated Mathieu Verboud, the co-director of “Kill the Messenger.”
To
view the trailer, an exclusive interview with the directors, background
information, and more Click Here or go directly to: http://justacitizen.com/KillTheMessenger.html
National
Security Whistleblowers Coalition, founded in August 2004, is an independent
and nonpartisan alliance of whistleblowers who have come forward to address our
nation’s security weaknesses; to inform authorities of security vulnerabilities
in our intelligence agencies, at nuclear power plants and weapon facilities, in
airports, and at our nation’s borders and ports; to uncover government waste,
fraud, abuse, and in some cases criminal conduct. The NSWBC is dedicated
to aiding national security whistleblowers through a variety of methods,
including advocacy of governmental and legal reform, educating the public
concerning whistleblowing activity, provision of comfort and fellowship to
national security whistleblowers suffering retaliation and other harms, and
working with other public interest organizations to affect goals defined in the
NSWBC mission statement. For more on NSWBC visit www.nswbc.org
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© Copyright 2006, National Security
Whistleblowers Coalition. Information
in this release may be freely distributed and published provided that all such
distributions make appropriate attribution to the National Security
Whistleblowers Coalition.