Wikileaks-style blogger under investigation for leaking classified material says he will turn himself in
An anonymous blogger and whistleblower who is reportedly under
investigation in Israel for publishing classified military information
has volunteered to turn himself in if the Israeli Defense Forces will publish information it has withheld about the deaths of 126 soldiers.
The blogger is "Eishton,"
an activist citizen journalist who made the news earlier this year when
he challenged the official account regarding the soldiers' deaths,
claiming that suicide was the leading cause. Eishton relied on public
documents as well as leaked documents from inside the army. A journalist
for Israeli newspaper Haaretz, which also publishes in English online,
defended Eishton's work as "serious and professional" although he is an amateur.
Two weeks ago, Eishton announced via his Facebook page
that he was under official investigation by the Military Investigative
Police and the Israel Police. Reactions mirrored the response to
Wikileaks in the US, with some defending the freedom of information and
others calling Eishton a threat to state security. Although the military
knows Eishton's identity, it has not been revealed publicly yet.
Eishton says he will confess to any charges and serve any punishment
if the IDF publishes the names, causes of death, dates of the incidents,
and promises to release all future lists, within 24 hours. "My word is
my oath," he writes. The offer is mostly bluster, however. The IDF is
unlikely to comply with the demands of an anonymous blogger, and Eishton
hasn't even been charged with anything yet.
The whole saga started when the IDF announced in April that 126 soldiers had died
in the previous year, implying that they had died in terrorist attacks
or in service to the country. Eishton claims that most of the deaths
were actually illnesses, suicides, or older deaths that had been
retroactively added to the official tolls.
The IDF became fluent with social media earlier this year during its morbid blog fight with Hamas. But while the IDF was happy to tweet about rocket attacks in Gaza, its attitude toward transparency seems to stop at the battlefield.
Correction: An earlier version of this post referred to Haaretz as an
English news source; in fact it is published in Hebrew and English.
http://www.theverge.com/2012/12/25/3802808/anonymous-whistleblower-fights-to-reveal-true-cause-of-israeli-military-deaths
Wednesday 26 December 2012
Anonymous whistleblower fights to reveal the true cause of Israeli military deaths
Posted @ 07:50
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