head to the hedge in one of the west, which gives us as africans, as can african us. a space is to be who we are as africans, and to decide on our own. dest, abaca has made great strides since then, but the biggest milestone was yet to come. in 2018, 43 parties, and 11 signatories agreed to the formation of the african continental free trade area. it is the largest trading area by members speeds only 2nd to the world trade organization. the continent, both some 1300000000 people. and the world bank anticipated that by the year 2035, the income that will be able to be derived from africa. continental free trade area, could be as much as 450000000000 dollars each year. that would be able to lift pens of millions of africans out of poverty. and it

seems the story of africa rising, married to more substance than it does optics. cannibalism for oddity in johannesburg. that's all for now. be here to check out our t. v dot com for all the latest breaking news and updates. was he re back here at the top of the hour? ah hi, i'm rick sanchez. and i'm here to play with you. whatever you do, you do not watch my your show. certainly why watch something that so 5th, i little opinion that you won't get anywhere else work of it please. or do you have the state department, the c i a weapons makers, multi $1000000.00 corporations. choose your fax for you. go ahead. why change and whatever you don't watch my shop to stay mainstream because i'm probably going to

make you uncomfortable. my show is called direct impact. but again, you probably don't want to watch it because it might just changing the way. mm thing. 2 ah. 2 we've all seen the news since late 2022, that president donald trump had classified documents in his home in mara lago florida. and just as democrats began gloating and talking about whether or not the former president would be prosecuted, classified documents were found in president biden's home in delaware, and in the washington dc office that he used in the years between being vice president and being elected president. former vice president mike pence then admitted that he too had classified documents in his home. so what happens next? do they all get prosecuted? should they be prosecuted? i'm john kerry aka, welcome to the whistle blowers ah

. 2 it seems that all the talk in washington these days is about classified documents. who has them? why are they retained and what should be done about it? but those are the easy questions. the more difficult questions, concerns why the american government produces more than 100000000 classified documents every year. how many of those documents are properly and legitimately classified and why over the years has the mishandling of those documents, whether properly classified or not, ended up being equated with espionage. one of the greatest crimes with which an american can be charged will classified documents in the possession of former leaders. just lead to the next step in draconian national security punishments. or is this an opportunity to revamp the system and return some sanity to the classification process? we're happy to have with us jaslyn rate act. jacelyn is the executive director of the whistleblower and source protection program at expose facts in washington.

she's also a former justice department ethics attorney and a whistleblower in her own right. it's great to have you just thanks for joining us . thank you for having me. let's start with these classified documents that have been found in the homes and offices of donald trump. joe biden. and mike pence, do we even know what these documents are? are they highly classified national security secrets, or are they just routine diplomatic messages that are classified only out of force of habit? what do we know? we don't know. i mean it, the fact that they are classify it indicates that they are either secret, top, secret or top secret sensitive compartment and information that we have no idea what they, what they relate to, what the subject matter. isabelle. and given that we have a huge problem with over classification, in this country, it is entirely possible that they are very innocuous documents that were just

stamped classified as, as the matter of routine. just in the interest of transparency, i want to say that you and i are not only friends, but you are also one of my attorneys and my own national security case in 2012. in my case, my judge made a ruling that had a major impact on the way the courts look at cases like this. she said that the definition of espionage was very simply providing national defense information to any person, not entitled to receive it. with that definition, a person could accidentally commit espionage. for example, if a person leaves classified documents in a restaurant and somebody else in the restaurant sees them and reads them, the person who accidentally left the documents there has technically committed espionage. if a person has a conversation, let's say with a journalist and says something that could be construed as classified or as based on classified information, even if it's just analysis, that would be espionage. with that said,

we all know that washington runs on leaks. so what's the end game here? just lock everybody up for espionage? well, the people getting locked up for espionage are not the leak who hats political power . so in other words, joe biden and, and mike pence and donald trump are certainly not going to be locked up for revealing classified information. just like c i a director portray us was not locked up or, nor was c, i a director panetta. so the people with power and prestige are safe. it's the lower level employees who are going to get skewered under the espionage act. if they disclose classified information, even if there is a compelling public interest reason for doing so. when i was working at the cia and this was in the mid 1990 s, a woman i sat next to was having an affair with

a journalist. in the course of that affair, she told him something that was classified, and he repeated it on the air on cnn. a cia investigation led directly back to her and she admitted that she had revealed the information. she was suspended without pay for $4.00 weeks and was not allowed to be promoted for one year. that was it. to day she would face at least 10 years in prison for doing the same thing. how did we get to this point? and why do you think that happened? you? i think we got to this point in part because again, there's a huge problem after 911 with rampant over classification, which makes it much easier to accidentally leak something classified, especially when things are not routinely classified at all. or sometimes unclassified in one in one agency, but classified in another. and then i also think we got here because brock obama

thought for some reason it was a good idea to dust off the espionage act of 1917 and use it on whistleblowers. and, and that was very disappointing from someone who supposed to be the transparency president and, and supporting federal workers and that kind of thing. but it unleashed what is now a normalization of going after sources and whistleblowers criminally. and there are a number of criminal laws that could be applied, but the espionage act is by far the most brutal, near the end of 2020, to representative ill on omar sponsored a bill in the house of representatives that would have completely revamped and rewritten the espionage act, so that we wouldn't have cases like mine or like jeffrey sterling's or reality winners. that bill went nowhere. it didn't even make it out of subcommittee. do you think that there is any mood on capitol hill to rewrite the espionage act?

and i should point out that the espionage act was written in 1917, to combat german saboteurs during world war one. it has never been meaningfully updated. what do you think is changed possible? i wish i could say yes, but i am not holding my breath. i, you know, i think i think a lot of people in positions of power in and jo, including legislators feel that this is good for plugging weeks. and again, they don't have to worry about it being deployed against them or any of their high level cronies. because it's only used against, against low level government officials, specifically ones who have revealed information that evidence is illegality or things that are embarrassing to the gover. government, like torture, secrets, surveillance, war crimes. those are the kinds of leaks, they got prosecuted. and they are also some of the darkest most controversial

programs in u. s. modern history. one of the most important sticking points when thinking about the espionage act is the absence of something called an affirmative defense. whistleblowers are not legally allowed to either use as a defense or to stand up in court and say that what they did, they did in the public interest. i blew the whistle on the c, i go program. the judge didn't care at snowden told us that the u. s. government was spying on american citizens, which was illegal. it didn't matter. the heroic whistleblower daniel hale told us that the u. s. military's drone program was illegally killing scores of innocent people including children. he's now in a maximum security prison. why are the government and the courts so afraid of an affirmative defense? the ill hon. omar bill would have allowed for one, but it died without ever coming up for a vote. i think the government loves strict liability law that renders any

defendant without a defense because they don't have to even try to make the case. all they have to show is that a disclosure did or did not happen. and unlike every other law in the criminal system where your intent would be relevant, oh, you know, the government said we, you know, we'd never tortured anyone, but i hope torture. someone or we did torture people. i mean, that's why they don't want there to be any kind of intent and miserable by. they don't want to have any kind of public interest defense because you would actually understand why people are being charged with the very draconian espionage act you know, and it, having a strict liability law just makes it easy. it means slam dunk cases, virtually impossible to defend one of these cases because they take place largely in secret. and again,

you don't have any kind of meaningful defense. you can raise an impact. your intent only becomes relevant at sentencing. meaning after you've been convicted, we're speaking with attorney activist and whistleblower jaslyn rate act about classified documents and the espionage act. we're going to take a short break and come right back. stay with us. ah, in hungary has been a member of the european union and nato since 1999 during the 1st post soviet wave of nato's eastwood expansion. a silica love, just the way logan thanks is jillian mom brought the of a c. like by

a conscience. so e, so me that me it, if so with actual zap either luma, it what the brochure green, we are still modular beach, grassy, but i see also marsh roy, a ma gucci, strongly in the early ninety's hungry was a country with the worst view of russia due to a storage disagreement left over from the soviet union. and you someone like yours or what i see if you brought a political more than as what i see is great. and i did it at the political a

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ah ah ah, ah welcome back to the whistle blowers, i'm john carrie aka. were speaking with attorney activist and whistleblower jeslane rate act. she's the executive director of the whistleblower and source protection organization at exposed facts in washington. d. c. great to have you back, jess. much of this discussion will inevitably come back to julian assange. you've

been intimately involved in supporting assange and the work that he's done with wiki leaks. assange released evidence of american war crimes committed in iraq as well as lots and lots of diplomatic cables that arguably should not have been classified in the 1st place. yet, the u. s government has pursued him now for well over a decade. walk us through the slippery slope. that is the ongoing prosecution of julian assange. many of us maintained that if assange is prosecuted, every national security journalist in america will be open for prosecution. i think it's even broader than not to the extent that a sons is being prosecuted. it makes our own journalists who were dealing, practicing journalism and branding stories in countries that have really authoritarian secrecy rules. subject to those secrecy rules. i mean, can you see, i mean turkey imprisoning one of our journalists because we violated one of their

secrecy rules for iran. i'm poor iraq. i mean it's, it's frightening it, and it's just such a dangerous precedent that actually ends up apparently, any kind of person in including foreign correspondent for violating other countries . secrecy laws. so and, and i think it also creates a very chilling precedent because people are already very skittish about reporting on classified information. the national security beat is a treacherous one. and i think people will be even more reluctant on both the journal aside and the source side to, to talk about the stuff in the government once it that way. better to have people shaking in their boots and airing on the side of not reporting something than bringing out any of the us as dirty laundry or even worse, it's illegal. conduct. just one of the things that disturbs me is the fact that

julian assigns has not had the support of most of the major news outlets here in the united states. there was a, an open letter that the new york times signed along with the guardian and old police and the lamond, and a couple of other papers. but after that, we didn't see similar announcements from the washington post and the wall street journal. and cnn. why is it that these outlets are not jumping to julian sanchez? defense when, if julian is, is convicted, they'll certainly be the next to be targeted. yeah, i think the statement that came out yet with the very newspapers was a little too little a lot too late. and the, it disappointed me the unwillingness to coalesce around sancha in the mainstream media and even the alternative media. but i think that's because he has been so vilified over the last number of years that it's hard for people, you know,

whatever you think of a font as a person. people, people are care concerning him and basing their lack of support on that rather than on the larger ramifications that this decision will have in terms of affecting all journalists and the u. s. has done such a great job smearing him in every possible way, including with allegations about russia, stuff that's not in the indictment bio, by the way, all the stuff in the indictment dates back to 2010 era. but i, you know, i wish, i think these people like to say, oh, he's not a publisher. he's not a journalist, but you know, again, creating that kind of litmus death. he, he's, he is a publisher. he is a journalist, as a blocker, technically could be prosecuted under the espionage act. any joe schmo who shares

a new newspaper article with someone else that happens to can in classified is technically in violation of this law. you know, i think they are trying to authorize him and paint him as not a real journalist and a renegade. and oh, he was playing footsie with the russians and stuff happened in sweden and, and everything that has to do with his person and not his profession. and it's really slimy, i think people are sophisticated enough to know better the ones who are doing that . but even this, oh, he's not a real journalist. that's neither here nor there when it comes to the espionage act . so i, you know, i, i wish more people would see the just disastrous preston that this is going to create that really is gonna imperil all investigative journalism in the national security arena. just do you believe that julian assange can get

a fair trial in the eastern district of virginia, where his jury would be made up of people who work for, or people who have relatives or friends who work for the cia, the f. b. i the pentagon, the department of homeland security or intelligence community contractors. i think it's impossible for him to get a fair trial no matter where he is, because he's being charged under the espionage act. but you bring up a good point that he has been indicted in the most conservative court in the entire country. that is the bashed in the center of the cia, the an essay, the f, b i all these intelligence agencies. so it would hardly be a friendly jury pool, and again, it's known as a rocket docket because it just jams cases through and it is a known as a brute old the most conservative court in the country, which is saying

a lot the case. ok, so i eat the fact that they strategically decided to do that shows, you know, it just goes politicization of those. and how much it's about politics and out about any personal mosquito. because we see classification classified information every single day. every time we pick up the washington post the new york times, you know, classified information is published every day, but clearly r u. s. has had it sites on getting a funds for a very long time. that i think has been very short sighted in terms of the deleterious consequences. this was going to have on all journalists, you work closely with myriad national security whistleblowers. the cost of was blowing, continue to increase, but people continue also to come forward. whistle blowers know the cost that they'll likely pay, but they continue to come forward and to call out evidence of waste, fraud, abuse, illegality,

and threats to the public health and public safety. why do you think that is? why do they continue to speak out in the face of potentially life changing retaliation? i think a lot of them don't think that they're going to be retaliated against because in their minds they're doing the right thing. they're telling the truth, i mean, look at reality, she told me it made, you know, a truthful, factual, accurate representation that russia was trying to interfere in the elections. people think they're not going to be punished for telling the truth. why would you be punished for revealing torture, which is illegal, unconstitutional an unethical? so that's part of it, but the other part is also that courage is contagious, and most people do have a conscience. and the people going after the whistleblowers are the moral invertebrates in this country who are self serving and don't really care about the head with interest. so i think people, by and large,

they want to be able to sleep at night. they want to believe their country will do the right thing or correct the wrong thing. finally, just tell us how drone whistleblower daniel hale is doing. you're one of his attorneys. we were both in the courtroom during his sentencing. when a relatively enlightened judge gave him a sentence that was significantly shorter than what the justice department was asking for. the judge also recommended the daniel be sent to a low security prison, where he could also receive treatment for a medical condition. but the bureau of prisons sent him instead to a maximum security penitentiary. and even then they put him in a restrictive communications management unit. is that justice department policy? how is he doing? despite all of that horrible stuff, he's just laid out and he is very resilient, grounded, thought whole young man, and he's doing as well as can be expected. ah, the judge actually yes. was very sensitive to the fact that daniel was struggling

with p t a. he anxiety and depression and wanted him as a medical facility where he could get some therapeutic intervention. and unfortunately, that doesn't happen. i mean they're only to see amuse country and they were built to house terror. ok. so again, most people in there are in there for life. so he has a lot of restrictions that even death row inmates don't have restrictions on his communications that even people in the super mac don't have, they can communicate, they can write letters back and forth with people with him. every single letter that comes in is xeroxed and he only gets a copy of it if he gets that at all, it's very hard to schedule a phone call even as his lawyer. so it has been very frustrating and overly punitive. but unfortunately, you know, the judge had made

a recommendation that he be placed at a medical facility, but it was not an order. and so of course, the bureau of prisons took advantage of that and put him in this c, m. u. and i said, why on earth is he in a c, m u. and he said because his crime involved a communications based offense. and i said his crime was communicating with a journalist. so think deeply about that, that that's the reason the communications, the offense was that he communicated with the journalist not with the spy, not with a hostile foreign agency, nothing like that. but with a regular journalist, i'd like to thank our guest attorney activist and whistleblower jaslyn radar for joining us. and thanks to our viewers. former us president theodore roosevelt once said that quote, patriotism means to stand by the country. it does not mean to stand by the

president or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he, himself stands by the country. and it is unpatriotic. not to tell the truth whether about the president or about anyone else on quote. let's hope that more and more people are able to come forward and do exactly that. i'm john kerry aku and you've been watching the whistleblowers until next time. oh. 2 2 2 ah, a request to be titled, i mean our how to mitchell was how you all ship with a hair dresser, a bus driver, sales person, anyone could become a victim who that's how private negotiators 1st appeared

with. we would have to speak with a, a september, and then you'll be up, but i am on that on the global lending issue. won't be feasible mentioned on from the yet yet. studies forced to cover this every me go put of business. yeah. disney has, with some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities. in other countries, the united states of america is different. wherever people long to be free. they will find a friend in the united states. ah,

with a little bit about it all to anybody basie since only city in fiji. you look at the incentives of each cigarette. a few color revolutions is one among several meetings to reach the goal conquering foreign lands and bringing them onto the help of u. s. weston, it could all make interest to pop inside it. i did that he did to everybody did them during the training course. so no, we just say a little bit of our america. and the final goal of these thing revolutions is to ensure that there are no independent players in the world anymore. ah,

with there is really a special kind of cynicism in this incident. because this is affecting a school, it's affecting children, crashes. the master to poland condemns a raid by local authority that saw them seizing a building, being used as a school by the russian embassy around president brands u. s. military interventions in the middle east. as detrimental to the region, that is the whole, the historic summit with the leader of iraq, a huge inferno. a loyal depot in crimea or local authority is blaming a drone attack on the facility. and at north korea says washington plans to dock a nuclear arm submarine and.