The Truth-Telling Project

[CHIMO]

About the Truth-Telling Project

The Truth-Telling Project encourages whistleblowing in the national interest. It urges current and recently retired government officials to reveal the truth to Congress and the public about governmental wrongdoing, lies and cover-up. It aims to change the norms and practices that sustain the cult of secrecy, and to de-legitimize silence that costs lives.

It is becoming increasingly clear that a dominant practice of the Bush administration is cover-up, on urgent matters of life and death. Cover-up of the real motives for the war and of the foreseeable costs and problems of the occupation. Cover-up of Presidential inattention before 9-11 to warnings of imminent attacks by Al Qaeda. Above all, concealment of the judgment of the Administration’s own counter-terrorism chiefs that war in Iraq is a disaster for the war on terrorism. The latest dramatic example is the classification of investigative reports and photographs on torture at Abu Ghraib, which would still be unknown were it not for their unauthorized disclosure.

There are surely hundreds if not thousands of officials within the Bush administration who know about these and other cover-ups and the dangers they conceal, but who have not spoken out. I am now leading an effort, called the Truth-Telling Project, to encourage such insiders to go to Congress and the press and tell the truth, with documents.

I believe we are in a national crisis, which justifies and requires acts of unauthorized truth-telling. I am calling for such patriotic whistle-blowing to take place right now, before the election, while such revelations can help voters make informed decisions.

Daniel Ellsberg, August 2004

http://www.ellsberg.net/truthtellingproject.html