(Top: left to right) Jesselyn Radack, Thomas Drake, Robert Boyle (Bottom: left to right) Ben Norton, Randy Credico

Listen to the latest episode of Randy Credico’s acclaimed radio show Live on the Fly. This series entitled “Julian Assange: Countdown to Freedom” is an ongoing exploration of the prosecution and persecution of the imprisoned WikiLeaks founder.

Who’s Who on Episode 10 of Live on the Fly

Jesselyn Radack

Jesselyn Radack heads the Whistleblower and Source Protection Program (WHISPeR) at ExposeFacts. She focuses on issues of secrecy, surveillance, torture, and drones – which puts her in constant conflict with the U.S. government’s escalating war on whistleblowers. It is a war that our government and growing numbers of oppressive regimes around the world want to keep secret. But jessica Radack won’t let them.

Her clients include current and former employees of the national security and intelligence community who have been investigated, harassed, fired, indicted or prosecuted under the Espionage Act of 1917 for allegedly mishandling classified information. This is the same statute under which the U.S. government is attempting to lock up Julian Assange for 175 years in a maximum security prison. Radack’s client roster includes drone whistleblowers Brandon Bryant and Daniel Hale; CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou; and NSA whistleblowers Edward Snowden and Thomas Drake.

She previously headed the National Security and Human Rights program at the Government Accountability Project; served on the DC Bar Legal Ethics Committee; and worked at the Justice Department both as a trial attorney and legal ethics advisor. She has also testified before the U.S. Congress, European Parliament, Council of Europe and Germany’s Bundestag. She is the author of TRAITOR: The Whistleblower & the “American Taliban” and has written provocative opinion pieces that have appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, L.A. Times, Washington Post, Guardian, and numerous academic law journals. She is also a recipient of the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence Award in 2009, the Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award in 2011, and was named one of Foreign Policy magazine’s Leading Global Thinkers of 2013. She served as a Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow for 2014-2016.

Thomas Drake

Thomas Drake is a former senior executive at the National Security Agency, where he blew the whistle on massive multi-billion dollar fraud; widespread violations of the rights of citizens through secret mass surveillance programs after 9/11; and critical intelligence failures before and after 9/11. In 2010, he was charged under the draconian Espionage Act because he chose to honor his oath to support and defend the US Constitution rather than support and defend corrupt NSA officials and contractors. In 2011, the government’s case against him collapsed and he went free in a plea deal that required no fines, no penalties and no jail time. He is featured in the “Silenced” documentary as well as the US PBS Frontline special “The United States of Secrets”.

In 2017, Drake received a PhD in public policy and administration. His dissertation, “Eyewitness to History in Devolution of Democracy and Constitutional Rights Following 9/11,” focused on the centrality of the post-9/11 security-driven world and the price paid by those who dare to speak truth and expose the abuse of power and the erosion of our rights and freedoms. He speaks widely on privacy and security issues and the critical need to protect our inalienable human rights. His varied career background includes teaching, information technology, systems and software engineering, code analysis and military and intelligence experience.

Ben Norton

Ben Norton is a journalist, writer, musician and filmmaker. He is also assistant editor of the independent investigative journalism website The Grayzone, founded by editor-in-chief Max Blumenthal. Norton and Blumenthal also host the political podcast Moderate Rebels. Norton focuses primarily on U.S. foreign policy and the Middle East. In addition to The Grayzone, Norton has written for AlterNet, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), Mondoweiss, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, Truthout, Middle East Monitor, The Real News and Salon, where he reported extensively on the 2016 US presidential campaign, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and U.S. support for the 2015 war in Yemen. Norton also published a report with Intercept founder Glenn Greenwald exposing PropOrNot, a group of anonymous people with no publicly disclosed credentials who compiled a blacklist of left-wing and libertarian websites and news outlets that they falsely claimed were conduits for Russian propaganda.

Norton has appeared as an analyst and commentator on numerous broadcast outlets, including Al Jazeera, Democracy Now! and The Real News, as well as on programs like On Contact with Chris Hedges and Redacted Tonight with Lee Camp. He blogs at his personal website, www.BenNorton.com.

Rebecca Vincent

Rebecca Vincent is the London Bureau Director for Reporters Without Borders, known internationally as Reporters sans frontières (RSF), which works to promote and defend press freedom around the world. She is an American-British human rights activist, writer and former diplomat who held the position of human rights officer at the US embassy in Azerbaijan. She lost this post in 2012, when the Azerbaijani Government banned her from the country for what it labeled “interference in the internal affairs of the country” after she attended an Azerbaijani art exhibition called “Sing for Democracy.”

Robert Boyle

Robert Boyle is a prominent civil rights and criminal defense attorney specializing in criminal appeals, post-conviction, habeas corpus and civil rights litigation. He is a member of the Executive Committee of the National Lawyers Guild (New York City Chapter) and has defended numerous high-profile activists and political prisoners. Among them was former Black Panther member Dhoruba Bin Wahad, whose freedom he secured after 19 years of imprisonment, forcing New York City and the federal government to pay him $890,000 compensation for wrongful imprisonment. He also overturned the conviction and secured the freedom of Mohammed Al-Moayad, who was repatriated to his home country, and the freedom of Robert Calvin Boyette after 16 years imprisonment, and the freedom of Jeremiah Brinson after 11 years imprisonment. Boyle served as former staff attorney at the Grand Jury Project, Inc., authored the third edition of the legal treatise Representation of Witnesses Before Federal Grand Juries, and more recently prepared a provocative report on US grand jury abuse for use by the Julian Assange legal defense team.

Randy Credico

Randy Credico, host of Live on the Fly, is a political satirist, civil rights activist and former director of The William Mosea Kunstler Fund For Racial Justice. Randy has an uncanny knack for circumventing mainstream media disinformation and official stonewalling to bring you live-audio debriefings and analysis from lawyers, journalists, whistle blowers, organizers and activists who are fighting to protect Assange from a lifetime sentence behind the bars of a U.S. maximum security penitentiary.

Randy visited Julian at the Ecuadoran embassy in London and is actively coordinating public support for him in the U.S. and abroad. Because Randy is adept at evading news blackouts and cutting through official stonewalling, Live on the Fly delivers gripping live-audio debriefings and analyses from the defense attorneys, witnesses, journalists, activists and many more.

Prior and returning guests to Live on the Fly include renowned investigative journalist and documentarian John Pilger; investigative journalists Stefania Maurizi and Max Blumenthal; animal rights activist and environmentalist Pamela Anderson; whistle blowers Thomas Drake, John Kiriakou, Coleen Rowley and ex NYPD Detective Frank Serpico; whistle blower, human rights activist and former United Kingdom Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray and many more.

CovertAction Magazine is made possible by subscriptions, orders and donations from readers like you.

When you donate to CovertAction, you are supporting investigative journalism. Your contributions go directly to supporting the development, production, editing, and dissemination of the Magazine.



CovertAction Magazine does not receive corporate or government sponsorship and does not sell advertisements. Yet, we hold a steadfast commitment to providing compensation for writers, editorial and technical support. Your support helps facilitate this compensation as well as increase the caliber of this work.



Please make a donation by clicking on the donate logo above and typing in the amount and your credit or debit card information.



CovertAction Magazine, CovertAction Quarterly and CovertAction Information Bulletin are projects of Covert Action Publications, Inc., a not-for-profit organization incorporated in the State of New York.

We sincerely thank you for your support.

Disclaimer: The contents of this article are the sole responsibility of the author(s). Covert Action Publications, Inc. (CAP), including its Board of Directors (BD), Editorial Board (EB), Advisory Board (AB), staff, volunteers and its projects (including CoverAction Magazine) are not responsible for any inaccurate or incorrect statement in this article. This article also does not necessarily represent the views the BD, the EB, the AB, staff, volunteers, or any members of its projects.



Republishing: CovertAction Magazine (CAM) grants permission to cross-post CAM articles on not-for-profit community internet sites as long as the source is acknowledged together with a hyperlink to the original CoverAction Magazine article. Also, kindly let us know at info@CovertActionMagazine.com. For publication of CAM articles in print or other forms including commercial internet sites, contact: info@CovertActionMagazine.com.



By using this site, you agree to these terms above.