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01/18/2004 Archived Entry: "This one may be hard to spin away."
This one may be hard to spin away.
Let's see if the vaunted control of Karl Rove is able to reach across the ocean. Somehow, I have my doubts.
She was an anonymous junior official toiling away with 4,500 other mathematicians, code-breakers and linguists at the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in Cheltenham.But now Katharine Gun, an unassuming 29-year-old translator, is set to become a transatlantic cause célèbre as the focus of a star-studded solidarity drive that brings together Hollywood actor-director Sean Penn and senior figures from the US media and civil rights movement, including the Reverend Jesse Jackson.
Gun appears in court tomorrow accused of breaching the Official Secrets Act by allegedly leaking details of a secret US 'dirty tricks' operation to spy on UN Security Council members in the run-up to war in Iraq last year. If found guilty, she faces two years in prison. She is an unlikely heroine and those who have met her say she would have been happy to remain in the shadows, had she not seen evidence in black and white that her Government was being asked to co-operate in an illegal operation.
The leak has been described as 'more timely and potentially more important than The Pentagon Papers by Daniel Ellsberg, the celebrated whistleblower who leaked papers containing devastating details of the US involvement in Vietnam, in 1971. Ellsberg has been vocal in support of Gun. She was arrested last March, days after The Observer first published evidence of an intelligence 'surge' on UN delegations, ordered by the GCHQ's partner organization, the National Security Agency.
Replies: 5 people speak up
I only hope that she doesn't wind up dead by suicide. You know the drill: she was really, really depressed and shot herself in the back 23 times. Funny how those things happen.
Posted by Metropolitan99 @ 01/18/2004 07:28 PM NY
If she suddenly "changes" her account of what was going on, then we'll know that the pnac cosa nostra is truly "global". I just hope she avoids small planes for a while.
Posted by skywalker77 @ 01/19/2004 12:06 AM NY
Holy Shit, Batman!
Posted by Stentor @ 01/19/2004 03:25 AM NY
Bob Herbert broke this story today in the NY Times op-ed page. You can now contact your local paper and ask them to pick it up. Well-written piece and some good quotes from Daniel Ellsburg.
The only other US source I found with this was DissidentVoice.com (and blah3 of course!)
The Herbert column can be found at: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/19/opinion/19HERB.html
You may have to register to read this but you can fib about everything but your email. Use a hotmail or other disposable addy if this bothers you.
Posted by Xan @ 01/19/2004 07:46 PM NY
Bob Hebert is a godsend. While he's writing about, y'know, SHIT THAT MATTERS, Maureen Dowd is blabbering on about Wesley Clark turtlenecks and the fact that Dean doesn't call anymore.
Posted by Tom Dissento @ 01/20/2004 04:55 PM NY
