Singing the Truth: Not Ready to Back Down

A few weeks ago, at an event hosted by Time magazine, I had the amazing good fortune to have a front-row seat to hear the Dixie Chicks belt out a couple of their new ballads. I was close enough to see and almost feel the lightning-like defiance flash in their eyes as Natalie Maines sang:

I'm not ready to make nice

I'm not ready to back down

I'm still mad as hell and

I don't have time to go round and round and round

Their song immediately reverberated with the audience, as nothing but a bold proclamation of truth can do. Time sent us all home with a sampler CD of the Chicks' new songs, which I've found myself popping into my karaoke machine from time to time on the campaign trail when the deceit and dishonesty of our current leaders gets me down. In 2002, Cynthia Cooper (Worldcom auditor), Sherron Watkins (Enron officer) and I (FBI legal counsel) were considered exceptional for speaking truth to power. It's amazing that simple insistence on the truth is considered extraordinary, but as George Orwell noted, "When deceit becomes universal, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."

Unfortunately over the past four years, speaking the truth has become even more revolutionary. Since the truth threatens those in power, the whistleblowers who have followed us have risked and suffered a great deal more. The administration has sought to silence potential whistleblowers, purged those they consider disloyal and aggressively retaliated against a host of government employees, even when those employees were required by law to expose corruption. For example we now know that the NSA is gathering phone data records on pretty much everyone, for the stated purpose of tracking down terrorists. But one underreported aspect of the story is that the government is also tracking news reporters' calls in an effort to identify possible whistleblowers.

These revelations follow close on the heels of an earlier story about warrantless NSA surveillance in violation of the FISA Act. Although members of Congress voiced bipartisan expressions of concern about the program, Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee have drafted "oversight" legislation which effectively writes the White House a blank check to eavesdrop on whomever they wish, while imposing harsh penalties on those who blow the whistle on such programs. The House has even passed a bill that could silence government retirees by threatening them with loss of their pension for "unauthorized disclosures" (It would also effectively bar federal retirees like myself from public office, as the required "pre-publication review" would make it impossible to engage in public debates or distribute campaign materials in a timely manner --- to say nothing of posting to blogs!). And just yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled that when federal employees follow the law and report wrongdoing in their office, the First Amendment does not protect them from retaliation.

With the government escalating efforts to consolidate power and silence those who speak up for what is right, the story of Captain Ian Fishback, whom Time named as one of the 100 most influential people of 2005, is all the more remarkable. A West Point graduate, Captain Fishback knew that the U.S. was systematically using abusive interrogation techniques on its prisoners, even as Donald Rumsfeld insisted that the U.S. was respecting the Geneva Convention. Captain Fishback's commitment to "Duty, Honor, Country" and his refusal to "make nice" drove him to single-handedly protest the abuse to his superiors up through his chain of command, all the way to the Secretary of the Army. After 17 months with no real answers, he finally took the issue outside the Army to Senator John McCain, who overcame significant opposition from Vice President Cheney in getting the "anti-torture amendment" passed last year.

However, despite Captain Fishback's noble actions and their noteworthy outcome, the administration has already put the machinery in place to blunt its effectiveness. While Ms. Cooper, Ms. Watkins and I have all seen criminal trials play out and vindicate our particular stances on behalf of the truth, Captain Fishback's brave efforts to expose an ugly truth may have been in vain. This administration has quietly exempted itself from more than 750 laws passed in the last five years, including legislation to protect whistleblowers, and the anti-torture ban Captain Fishback helped to create.

Had he known that his efforts to make things right would have ended in legislation which the public applauded but the President has apparently chosen to ignore, I have no doubt Captain Fishback would have fought for justice nevertheless, because fighting for ideals is the only way to preserve them. In his words, "If we abandon our ideals in the face of adversity and aggression, then those ideals were never really in our possession. I would rather die fighting than give up even the smallest part of the idea that is 'America.'" Fishback is certainly right. We must keep speaking (and singing) the truth, despite the costs and apparent setbacks. For in "I Hope," another of their new songs, the Dixie Chicks remind us that our children are watching us, they put our trust in us, and they're going to be like us. For that reason if for no other, we must be ready to never back down.

Coleen Rowley is a Democratic Candidate for Congress in Minnesota's Second District.