NWV News - Lawyers slam Obama administration's treatment of Fast and Furious whistleblower

LAWYERS SLAM OBAMA ADMINISTRATION'S TREATMENT OF FAST & FURIOUS WHISTLEBLOWER

By NWV News Writer Jim Kouri
Posted 1:00 AM Eastern
October 9, 2013
© 2013 NewsWithViews.com

A leading government watchdog on Monday jumped into the Operation Fast and Furious controversy by taking up the cause of a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) special agent who penned an expose` of the ATF's "gun-walking" strategy also known as Operation Fast and Furious.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union, the group's officials sent a biting letter defending Special Agent John Dodson, whom they claim is a whistleblower whose book will blow the lid off the alleged ATF and White House coverup of a flawed, perhaps illegal, government program. www.aclu.org/

There are millions of Americans who believe that ATF gun-smuggling operation resulted in at least two American law enforcement officials being killed -- Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and Immigration and Customs Enforcement Special Agent Jaime Zapata -- as well as hundreds of Mexican citizens.

“This case is proof positive of the extreme lengths the Washington elite will go to disarm American citizens,” said Mike Baker, a political strategist.

“President Barack Obama wanted to show that U.S. gun owners and gun sellers are responsible for the murder rate in Mexico. So in order to prove it, his underlings came up with the gun-smuggling scheme known as Fast and Furious,” said Baker.

Dodson's book is expected to give an insider's view of the actual Operation Fast and Furious fiasco as well as the intense coverup in the aftermath of the ATF's snafu.

Special Agent Dodson is credited with revealing to CBS News in 2011 that the ATF ran an operation allowing more than 2,000 firearms to go across the U.S.-Mexican border and into the hands of narco-terrorists who then used the guns in a number of homicides and shootings, including the Dec. 14, 2010 murder of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

Since Terry killing, GOP lawmakers in congress led by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., begged and threatened the Obama Administration over the scandal, demanding documents and conducting hearings.

Now Dodson is seeking the publication of his tell-all book, to be titled “The Unarmed Truth.” However, the ATF told Dodson that he cannot publish anything about Operation Fast and Furious.

Most federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies demand that employees must first submit manuscripts to their superiors for review in order to protect government secrets that if leaked out may place other agents in danger or reveal classified operations.

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According to Dodson, he received a memorandum from an ATF official stating that the book “would have a negative impact on morale in the Phoenix Field Division.”

The ACLU in its letter to the ATF asserts that the agency's attempt to block the publication of Dodson's book was an infringement of his First Amendment rights.

According to the ACLU letter, the ATF denied the author's request to try to publish a book about his personal experiences in Operation Fast and Furious based on the prediction that the book's publication would have "a negative impact on morale in the Phoenix (Field Division) and would have a detrimental" impact on ATF relationships with other federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies such as the FBI and the Central Intelligence Agency.