Protesters Blow Whistles Over Wikileaks Subpoenas

People near Boston’s City Hall Plaza were hit with the determined sound of nearly 100 whistles, blowing to the beat of two base drums on June 15 after some 150 activists gathered to protest the government’s grand jury investigation of Wikileaks and Bradley Manning.

The protest, organized by the newly formed Civic Counsel—an organization advocating government transparency and awareness of the Wikileaks trial—as organized as a demonstration of solidarity with recently subpoenaed Wikileaks supporters and activists.

Several activists, including David House, the founder of the Bradley Manning Support Network, who is Manning’s close friend and a free press advocate, have been called to give testimony before the grand jury on the Wikileaks case.

The testimonies, if given, would be used to prosecute Wikileaks founder Julian Assange over a link with Manning, the Army private detained for allegedly having leaked thousands of classified Iraq war documents to Wikileaks.

The court faces the possibility of many of those it has subpoenaed refusing to offer their testimony by pleading the Fifth Amendment, which gives people the right to refuse to answer questions that could incriminate themselves.

That is what House did when he was called before the court on Wednesday.

At about half way through Wendesday’s protest, Valerie Young, 21, House’s partner and one of Civic Counsel’s organizers, received a phone call that House had refused to give testimony.

“The show trial that is now underway in Alexandria, Va., has the potential to set a dangerous precedent for regulating the media. Using Nixonian fear tactics that were honed during the Pentagon Papers investigation, the DOJ is attempting to dismantle a major media organization—WikiLeaks—and indict its editor, Julian Assange,” said House in a statement he delivered outside of the United States District Court at 401 Courthouse in Alexandria Va., at 5 p.m. on June 15.

Now, House must wait to see if the court will offer him immunity, which if given, would mean that anything he says in court would not be used to prosecute him. In such a case, House will then be forced to give his testimony or face jail time for contempt of court.

For those present at Wednesday’s protest and other Wikileaks supporters such as Salon.com’s Glenn Greenwald, the endeavor to prosecute Wikileaks and Bradley Manning is an “odious and dangerous war on whiste-blowers.”

As activists continue to blow their whistles in protests, chant for “Free Press,” and refuse to cooperate, controversy over the administration’s handling of people like Bradley Manning and Julian Assange continues to broil.

An open letter signed by Daniel Ellsberg, discloser of the Pentagon Papers and several organizations, urged the rescinding of a “transparency award” that was given, in a private meeting at the White House, to President Obama at the end of March.

The letter, published by the Guardian, notes that the Obama administration has instated policies that significantly increase government secrecy and taken on one of the harshest prosecutions of whisteblowing in U.S. history.

Others argue that revealing secrets in a way that undermines U.S. military personel’s safety deserves harsh punishment.