Whistleblowers: we need the protection of public interest defence

Former employees of GCHQ, the NSA, FBI and US State Department told a briefing at the FPA that both the Blair government in the UK and Obama administration in the USA had talked about protection in law for whistleblowers, but nothing had yet been agreed. The whistleblowers were brought to London by ExposeFacts, a new Washington based campaign aimed at providing better protection for whistleblowers and to protect journalism from surveillance.Coleen Rowley, a former FBI lawyer, said the 9/11 attacks might well have been prevented had national agencies shared information with each other and - crucially - with the public. It was simply not true to think that secrecy provided protection; the exact opposite was true. Kirk Wiebe, who worked at the NSA for 36 years, said the NSA had been acting illegally for 60% of its existence; mass surveillance was the most insidious threat to global democracy. It was Goebbels who had said " If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear"; and we all know how that ended.

It's time to celebrate a great year! So come and join your colleagues for some Christmas cheer!

Wednesday December 10 at the O Bar in Soho

  Human Rights in Bahrain: “we must learn from our mistakes”

 The recently appointed Ombudsman for the Ministry of Interior in Bahrain told an FPA     briefing that his country had to be transparent, address the issue of human rights inside prisons, and learn from past mistakes. Nawaf Al Moawda said they were taking advice from, among others, the UK’s Independent Police Complaints Commission and Her Majesty’s Inspector of Prisons.  The main challenge they faced in Bahrain was to build public confidence; the number of complaints was rising, which he felt showed that such confidence was growing. Mr Al Moawda, who is also authorised to visit prisons “to ascertain the legality of procedures and that inmates, prisoners and detainees were not subjected to torture or inhuman or derogatory treatment”, said he had welcomed Amnesty International to Bahrain, and was now awaiting their report. A recent case of a prisoner being beaten to death had resulted in the arrest and charging of a police officer. He said his staff had now grown to a team of fifty, and he was not aware of any similar system being adopted in any other Arab country.