virek213 As has been known for decades, going back to the immediate start of the Cold War in the wake of the end of World War II, nothing ever grows in dark, secret places other than perhaps mushrooms. And yet our own United States government, which three hundred twenty million of us place our trust in, is a rat's nest of secrecy beyond anything that we could ever imagine in an old-school Communist state like Stalinist Russia or the Red China of Mao Tse-Tung. This has been especially true since September 11, 2001, where our national security state has not only kept as much highly sensitive information from the public as it possibly can, but has also severely punished anybody who blows the whistle on incompetence and criminal venality inside the national security state, and what President Eisenhower most famously referred to as the Military/Industrial Complex. This is the subject of director Robert Greenwald's 2013 documentary WAR ON WHISTLEBLOWERS.As shown in this 67 minute-long film, blowing the whistle on government dissembling has troubling consequences for the people who do it, whether they are inside the government itself, or inside the news media, which is supposed to be that mythical Fourth Estate, keeping the government honest. The most famous whistleblower in U.S. history, at least up until Edward Snowden, was Daniel Ellsberg, the former Pentagon employee who, in 1971, leaked the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times and the Washington Post, and so inflamed the Nixon Administration that, in the words of Henry Kissinger, he became "the most dangerous man in the world." Both Ellsberg and journalist Seymour Hersh, the man who broke the horrible 1968 My Lai massacre in Vietnam to the world at large in late 1969, are interviewed by Greenwald here. But the main focus of WAR ON WHISTLEBLOWERS is on four specific whistleblowers who uncovered specific acts of malfeasance: Franz Gayl; Thomas Drake; Michael DeKort; and Thomas Tamm. Each of them uncovered things that the public would otherwise never have known about, and in each case they personally suffered for their efforts Gayl, bought to the attention of those in high places in the Pentagon about the vulnerability of Humvees to IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) in Iraq, which led to new and far better-armored MRAP vehicles being developed and deployed. Gayl, however, suffered a great deal for his trouble.Drake uncovered the fact that the NSA's claims of not spying on Americans without a warrant was, to put it quite mildly, not exactly true. Not surprisingly, the FBI and the national security apparatus gave him an enormous amount of grief.DeKort uncovered information about the Coast Guard's fleet of ships and boats having radios that were susceptible to catastrophic water damage and hulls that were vulnerable to fatal damage. He bought what he knew first to YouTube and then to "60 Minutes", and managed to survive the scrutiny.Tamm worked in the Justice Department for victims of the 9/11 attacks and developed protocols of "probable cause" to conduct wiretaps against suspected terrorist agents, only to find out that his superiors were going well beyond what was allowed under due process.As WAR ON WHISTLEBLOWERS shows, the idea that such activity is tantamount to treason is just a ploy by the national security state to cover up activities that at the very least acts of incompetence, and at their most extreme can create blowback years later. These people are oftentimes necessary for our own personal protection specifically, and the protection of our way of life and our freedoms in general. Greenwald admonishes us to never forget their intentions, and to question government authority without exception.

suite92 This documentary follows a small but interesting set of case studies of real whistleblowers who have been punished by the system in recent years.Daniel Ellsberg was a whistle blower from the 1970s who provides perspective throughout the film.In Iraq in 2006, our soldiers were dying due to the lack of armour on Humvees. An IED could take one out, and the military inside often died or were badly injured. Franz Gayl, Science and Technology Adviser to the Marine Corps in the Pentagon, became aware of this and brought it to the attention of his superiors. He championed the replacement of the Humvee by the safer MRAP, but was greeted with roadblocks. He went to USA Today to get leverage on the problem. He faced reprisals at work; his journalist contacts were threatened with lack of access. The Humvees were replaced, but Gayl was put on administrative leave for quite some time.Thomas Drake: (former) Senior Executive at the (US) National Security Agency was the second whistle blower profiled. 'We do not spy on Americans,' was a phrase Drake heard at work. However, he started his job on 2001/09/11; thereafter, however, he noted huge breaches of this key charter element of the NSA. Massive amounts of information were being collected on US citizens living inside the USA. Drake exposed portions of this process. His life was massively invaded in response by the FBI. The Justice Department threatened him with the Espionage Act, and specific charges that could potentially land him in jail for the rest of his life.Michael DeKort: (former) Lead Systems Engineer: The Deepwater Program, for the US Coast Guard was the third to be profiled. DeKort brought to the light of day two major problems with the Coast Guard fleet's upgrade: radios with non-waterproof circuitry, and hulls that were overly susceptible to buckling. DeKort used YouTube to spread the story, and it eventually found its way to 60 Minutes. DeKort stayed out of jail.Thomas Tamm: (former) Attorney in the Justice Department was the fourth to be profiled. He was in the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review within Justice. He talked to victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. His group applied for judicial warrants to listen in on persons in the United States who were thought to be connected to terrorists. His group worked with the FBI which had developed the 'probable cause' for these warrants. Some cases were treated differently, however.All of these whistle blowers suffered in their professional lives. All of them tried to go through official channels, where they were largely blocked. I specifically liked the point made that the recent administrations leak secret information as a matter of policy, and none of those leakers go to jail.How did these stories pan out? What are the implications for other potential whistle blowers? ------Scores------Cinematography: 8/10 Fine for a documentary.Sound: 8/10 Voices and words were clear enough. Incidental music was not overbearing.Acting: z/10 Not applicable.Screenplay: 8/10 The telling of the four stories were well packaged.

gavin6942 War on Whistleblowers: Free Press and the National Security State highlights four cases where whistleblowers noticed government wrong-doing and took to the media to expose the fraud and abuse.While it was great to get interviews with folks like Seymour Hersh, this had the feel of a promotional film that encouraged more folks to come forward. Because of this I have given it 6 rather than 7 or 8, because I felt like it had only one side and one motivation.Granted, I am on the same side and any push for transparency is a good thing. But there is a difference between a political ad and a documentary, and I am not sure if this film is aware of that.

luciusdark I love documentaries on whistle blowers like Julian Assange (Wikileaks), Edward Snowden, and the group Anonymous. I also love docs on corruption - corporate and government. While there was some criticism of the Bush administration, this movie mainly criticized Obama.While they did cover the MRAP delay, they didn't go into the government contractors like Blackwater (gun running, murder, and prostitution), Haliburton, KBR, Daimler AG, Seimens, etc..They did a good job on the delaying of MRAP because of the money behind the Hummer, but they didn't follow the money - they just blamed the administration. In my humble but biased opinion, it was more right wing politics than investigative journalism. Just my opinion.