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Biography of Director and Producer Robert Greenwald

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Biography of Director and Producer Robert Greenwald War on Whistleblowers: Free Press and the National Security State A New Film by Robert Greenwald and Brave New Foundation Synopsis: War on Whistleblowers: Free Press and the National Security State, the seventh full-length documentary from Robert Greenwald for Brave New Foundation, follows the stories of four courageous men compelled to expose acts of illegality and violations to the U.S. constitution during the explosion of the national security state under recent Presidential Administrations. Whistleblowers, Michael DeKort, Thomas Drake, Franz Gayl and Thomas Tamm share their stories of sacrifice and prosecution by the brought on by the very government they swore to protect. The film also showcases journalists David Carr, Lucy Dalglish, Glenn Greenwald, Seymour Hersh, Michael Issikoff, Bill Keller, Eric Lipton, Jane Mayer, Dana Priest, Tom Vander Brook, and Sharon Weinberger who uncovered these stories, exposed the truth, and stood to defend the freedom of the press. Trailer for film: Waronwhilstleblowers.com Biography of Director and Producer Robert Greenwald: Robert Greenwald, founder and president of Brave New Films (BNF), is an award- winning television, feature film and documentary filmmaker. Notable credits include Steal This Movie, Breaking Up, Uncovered: The War on Iraq, Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers, Rethink Afghanistan, and Koch Brothers Exposed. His films have garnered 25 Emmy nominations. He has produced and/or directed more than 50 TV movies and miniseries. He turned to documentary filmmaking in 2002, inspired by pervasive voter rights abuses in the 2000 presidential election. He found audiences eager for substantive investigations of social issues and chose to bypass the usual gatekeepers by devising creative means of distribution, first through house parties, and ultimately through the internet and social media. Brave New Films documentaries have been viewed over 70 million times and have streamed in every continent. Greenwald is the recipient of a Maggie Award from the Planned Parenthood Federation, the Peacemaker Award from Physicians for Social Responsibility, the City of Justice award from LAANE, the Norman Felton and Denise Aubuchon Humanitarian Award, and Liberty Hill Foundation’s Upton Sinclair Award. He was honored by the ACLU Foundation of Southern California for his activism and also received the 2001 Peabody Award and the 2002 American Film Institute Producer of the Year award. www.bravenewfoundation.org Follow Robert Greenwald on Twitter: @robertgreenwald Biographies of those featured in the film: Whistleblowers: Michael DeKort: Senior Project Manager Michael DeKort was a Lockheed Martin project manager who posted a whistleblowing video on Youtube.com after he objected to what he felt were failures to meet contractual requirements of C4ISR systems onboard United States Coast Guard’s 123 Coast Guard Cutter retrofitted and updated under the Deepwater program. The boats retrofitted by the contractors failed to meet performance requirements and were deemed dangerous to operate by the United States Coast Guard. Before speaking publicly through his YouTube video, DeKort brought these issues to the attention of his immediate management and then up his chain of command to the highest executives in the company, including the CEO of Lockheed Martin and the Board of Directors. He went public with his YouTube account in 2006. His video gained a wide amount of exposure and it eventually led to a congressional hearing on the entire Deepwater project. As a result, the United States Coast Guard rejected the boats and demanded a refund of $96 million. The boats were decommissioned, taken out of service and engineer changes were made throughout the project. On the eve of trial, a settlement was reached regarding the “topside” electronic equipment defects. The U.S. Coast Guard took the program management away from the contractors, subsequently initiated their own suit and has pursued some of the contractors responsible for the buckled hulls. In 2008, DeKort received the Carl Barus Award for Outstanding Service in the Public Interest at the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, D.C. Thomas Drake: Former Senior Executive of the National Security Agency A former Senior Executive at the National Security Agency, Thomas Drake faced the gravest charges brought against an American citizen: prosecution under the Espionage Act of 1917 which targeted him for exposing waste, fraud and abuse and illegality within the government as a whistleblower. He faced upwards of 35 years in prison. He was a key material witness for two 9/11 Congressional investigations and a Department of Defense Inspector General audit of NSA. Drake was one of several sources for articles written by Siobhan Gorman of the Baltimore Sun, which detailed a $1.2 billion boondoggle program called Trailblazer that the NSA wanted to create as a means of sifting through the vast electronic communications of the Digital Age for national security threats and an alternative program called Thinthread that not only provided superior intelligence, but also designed to fundamentally protect the 4th Amendment rights of US Persons under the Constitution. Drake said the Trailblazer program was inefficient, wasted billions in taxpayer dollars, was full of contractor pork and simply fraudulent compared to the highly innovative and ingenious Thinthread program that only cost $3 million to develop and was ready for use before 9/11. In addition, www.bravenewfoundation.org Drake also exposed the Stellar Wind program, a super-secret warrantless surveillance program approved by the White House that violated Americans’ privacy rights. Drake was never accused of spying but was accused of having allegedly classified documents in his basement for the purpose of disclosure. In a major embarrassment for the Department of Justice, the criminal case against him collapsed in June of 2011 on the eve of his public trial in a minor misdemeanor plea deal, where the government dropped all 10 felony counts against him. Drake was awarded the Ridenhour Truth-Telling Prize in 2011 and the 2012 Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award with Jesselyn Radack from the Government Accountability Project. Daniel Ellsberg Former Official of the State and Defense Departments Daniel Ellsberg worked as a United States military analyst and is most widely recognized for his role of releasing “The Pentagon Papers”, a highly confidential study of decisions made and carried out during the Vietnam War. Ellsberg began work on the Pentagon papers in 1967, aided by his open access from a high security clearance he gained after serving in Vietnam and having been employed by the RAND Corporation. The Pentagon Papers contained documents, including secretly photocopied items, which were strictly classified. These documents revealed that the Johnson Administration deceived the general public by grossly underestimating the ability to win the Vietnam War and the vast casualties that would result from it. In 1971, the New York Times began publishing the papers and even when he was restricted by the government, Ellsberg leaked the papers to other newspapers and media. Ellsberg remains politically active and stands by the notion that the President, and more largely the government, lies to the public on a daily basis. Today he is a member of the Campaign for Peace and Democracy and appears regularly in the media public political forums. Franz Gayl Deputy Branch Head for the Space and Information Operations Integration Branch While working at the Pentagon as a science advisor for the Marine Corps, Gayl - himself a Marine - volunteered to deploy to Iraq. Upon his return he alerted the office of the Secretary of Defense, and later the Congress and the media, to critical equipment shortages. These included Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles (MRAPs), ground and air battlefield surveillance systems, and 'directed energy' non-lethal weapons. Gayl’s public outcry exposed the fact that the Corps had failed to provide Marines in Iraq with live saving technologies. Most notable was the Corps' failure to fulfill a request for the mass fielding of MRAPs, that effectively protect troops against the improvised explosive devices that caused over 60% of causalities in Iraq. Gayl maintained that had MRAPs been available to troops when they were requested countless deaths and casualties could have prevented. In fact former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates accredited MRAPs with saving "thousands of lives," and VP Biden has acknowledged Gayl’s central role in raising the visibility of their need through his whistleblowing. Yet, Gayl has been the target of years of retaliatory investigations and workplace harassment, including the elimination of meaningful duties and the extended suspension of his security clearances. www.bravenewfoundation.org Thomas Tamm Criminal Defense Litigation Attorney A former attorney to the United States Department of Justice, Tamm has been classified as a whistleblower when he uncovered warrantless wiretapping by the National Security Agency (NSA) under the Bush Administration. He was one of the anonymous sources for The New York Times reporters, James Risen and Eric Lichtblau in their 2005 article, “Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts,” which gained attention by the Bush administration and led to a criminal investigation. Tamm eventually told his full story to Newsweek’s, Michael Isikoff in 2008. For his whistleblowing,
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