"Then They Pulled the Plug" – Hillary Clinton

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Coleen Rowley

Former FBI agent Coleen Rowley was one of three whistleblowers chosen as persons of the year by TIME magazine in 2002

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February 17th, 2011 8:06 AM

"Then They Pulled the Plug" – Hillary Clinton

Unbelievable! Someone just sent me this article below which describes how retired CIA analyst and Veteran for Peace Ray McGovern was drug out of Hillary Clinton's press conference yesterday:

At Clinton Speech: Veteran Bloodied, Bruised and Arrested for Standing Silently

As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave her speech at George Washington University yesterday condemning governments that arrest protesters and do not allow free expression, 71-year-old Ray McGovern was grabbed from the audience in plain view of her by police and an unidentified official in plain clothes, brutalized and left bleeding in jail. She never paused speaking. When Secretary Clinton began her speech, Mr. McGovern remained standing silently in the audience and turned his back. Mr. McGovern, a veteran Army officer who also worked as a C.I.A. analyst for 27 years, was wearing a Veterans for Peace t-shirt.

Blind-sided by security officers who pounced upon him, Mr. McGovern remarked, as he was hauled out the door, "So this is America?" Mr. McGovern is covered with bruises, lacerations and contusions inflicted in the assault.

Mr. McGovern is being represented by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF). "It is the ultimate definition of lip service that Secretary of State Clinton would be trumpeting the U.S. government's supposed concerns for free speech rights and this man would be simultaneously brutalized and arrested for engaging in a peaceful act of dissent at her speech," stated attorney Mara Verheyden-Hilliard of the PCJF. Mr. McGovern now works for Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, D.C.

It's clear from the video that Mr. McGovern did not "heckle". He only shouted, "So this is America?!" after he was tackled and being dragged out.

At the same moment, ironically, that Hillary Clinton was deriding Egypt for having "pulled the plug" on First Amendment rights, she presides over the very same thing!

Besides the brutal treatment of Ray McGovern's silent protest right in front of her eyes, there are other significant signs the U.S. is seriously clamping down on free speech. DOJ Eric Holder has allowed government informants to infiltrate numerous advocacy groups across the country, everything from environmental and anti-war to Quaker and Catholic groups. Anti-war activists in the Mid-west were raided and almost two dozen are now being threatened under the Patriot Act with being prosecuted for "terrorism" because of their advocacy for human rights and peace. Spying on first amendment activity has occurred in 33 states. New legislation is proposed in both the House and the Senate to criminalize WikiLeaks and other news outlets. (Incidentally, WikiLeaks disclosures embarrassed Hillary and other government officials.) Private security firms working for a law firm representing the Chamber of Commerce and Bank of America produce a detailed Cointelpro-like list of dirty tricks to attack and discredit journalist Glen Greenwald, blogger Brad Friedman and others. And the Wisconsin Governor has threatened to call out the National Guard to help break the state's public employees union if they protest the Governor's proposal to strip them of their collective bargaining rights.

Someone better tell Hillary that Egypt and other dictatorships are not the only countries attempting to pull the plug.