Kucinich, 4 Other Members Of Congress, Send Letter In Support Of Katherine Gun
Members Send Letter To Prime Minister Blair Calling Gun’s Action:“Significant Public Service”
Washington,
Feb 12, 2004 -
Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH), joined by Representatives John Conyers, Jan Schakowsky, Lynn Woolsey, and Raul Grijalva, sent British Prime Minister Tony Blair a letter today in support of Katherine Gun.
Katherine Gun is a translator at the British Government Communications Headquarters, who is being prosecuted for leaking a U.S. National Security Agency memo to the Observer, a British newspaper. The memo detailed plans for the U.S. government to wiretap telephones and track emails of “swing vote” countries on the U. N. Security Council.
In the letter, the lawmakers state:
“In our opinion, the actions of Ms. Gun qualify her as a whistleblower—an employee who, on the basis of principle, exposes a malpractice or a miscarriage of justice that deserves public attention. Some may make the claim that Ms. Gun’s action compromised national security. We do not agree. Indeed, we cannot conceive of a scenario in which Ms. Gun’s actions would present a national security threat to the United States. Rather, the acts of espionage detailed in the memo she disclosed may have undermined the international stature of the U.S., and in that sense are possible threats to national security. Moreover, it was Ms. Gun’s moral duty to expose the details surrounding the government’s ill-conceived subterfuges to gain support for the war. The British and American public deserved to know all the elements involved in the buildup to the war. As thousands of British and American soldiers were to be committed to fight in the war, Ms. Gun served the public by informing them about how the governments were working to send them.
“We believe that Ms. Gun performed a significant public service by disclosing the memo, and we hope that she receives all the protections that the British democracy accords whistleblowers.”
