Sam Adams Award Explained

The Sam Adams Award is given annually since 2002 to an intelligence professional who has taken a stand for integrity and ethics. The award is granted by the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence, a group of retired CIA officers. It is named after Samuel A. Adams, a CIA whistleblower during the Vietnam War, and takes the physical form of a "corner-brightener candlestick".

Ray McGovern established the Sam Adams Associates "to reward intelligence officials who demonstrated a commitment to truth and integrity, no matter the consequences."

The 2012, 2013, and 2014 awards were presented at the Oxford Union.

Recipients

• 2002: FBI agent and whistleblower Coleen Rowley
• 2003: Katharine Gun, former British intelligence (GCHQ) translator; leaked top-secret information showing illegal US activities during the push for war in Iraq.
• 2004: Sibel Edmonds, former FBI translator; fired after accusing FBI officials of ignoring intelligence pointing to al-Qaeda attacks against the US.^[1]
• 2005: Craig Murray, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan who blew the whistle on UK complicity in the Uzbek government's use of torture and involvement in extraordinary rendition.
• 2006: Samuel Provance, former U.S. Army military intelligence sergeant; spoke out about abuses at the Abu Ghraib Prison.
• 2007: Andrew Wilkie, retired Australian intelligence official; claimed intelligence was being exaggerated to justify Australian support for the US invasion of Iraq.
• 2008: Frank Grevil, Danish whistleblower; leaked classified information showing no clear evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
• 2009: Larry Wilkerson, former chief of staff to United States Secretary of State Colin Powell and Iraq War critic.
• 2010: Julian Assange, editor-in-chief and founder of WikiLeaks.
• 2011: Thomas Andrews Drake, former senior executive of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA); Jesselyn Radack, former ethics adviser to the U.S. Department of Justice.
• 2012: Thomas Fingar, former chairman of the National Intelligence Council.
• 2013: Edward Snowden, leaked NSA material showing mass surveillance by the agency, sparking heated debate.
• 2014: Chelsea Manning, U.S. Army soldier convicted in July 2013 of violations of the Espionage Act and other offenses.
• 2015: William Binney, former highly placed intelligence official with the NSA turned whistleblower.^[2]
• 2016: John Kiriakou, former CIA analyst and case officer who publicly confirmed the employment of waterboarding against detainees and characterized the practice as torture.
• 2017: Seymour Hersh, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist who reported on the My Lai massacre, the Abu Ghraib scandal, and alleged misrepresentations of the 2013 Ghouta attack and the 2017 Khan Shaykhun attack.
• 2018: Karen Kwiatkowski, U.S. Air Force officer who became a whistleblower, leaking material behind the film Shock and Awe.
• 2019: Jeffrey Sterling, CIA whistleblower.
• 2020: Annie Machon, MI5 whistleblower.^[3]
• 2021: Daniel Hale, U.S. Air Force enlisted airman who became an intelligence analyst for the NSA in Afghanistan and later exposed the consequences of drone strikes.^[4]
• 2022: Daniel Ellsberg, former U.S. military analyst who released the Pentagon Papers, showing that the public had been misled about the Vietnam War, to a number of newspapers in 1971.^[5]
• 2024: Aaron Bushnell, senior airman in the United States Air Force who engaged in a fatal act of self-immolation in protest against United States support for Israel in the Israel–Hamas war on February 25, 2024 (posthumously awarded).^[6]

Sources

• News: Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden Criticize the "Decline" of US Democracy. Carlo . Silkie. Motherboard. February 20, 2014 . February 21, 2014.
• News: Former National Security Whistleblowers Meet in Moscow and Award Sam Adams Prize to Snowden. Government Accountability Project. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20131114230812/http://www.whistleblower.org/blog/44-2013/3012-former-national-security-whistleblowers-meet-in-moscow-and-award-sam-adams-prize-to-snowden-. October 10, 2013 . November 14, 2013. . ] -->
• News: Former U.S. officials give NSA whistleblower Snowden award in Russia. Haaretz. Associated Press. October 10, 2013. .
• News: Frank Grevil får whistleblower-pris. da. DR. January 26, 2009 . February 5, 2009. .
• News: Sam Adams Award to Sam Provance. Horton . Scott. Harper's Magazine. September 21, 2007.
• News: Karen Kwiatkowski Receives 17th Sam Adams Award 2018. The Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence. December 8, 2018. .
• Web site: Sam Adams Award. McGovern . Ray. Ray McGovern. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20140116210330/http://raymcgovern.com/sam-adams-award.html. January 16, 2014. .
• News: Snowden Congratulates Chelsea Manning. Nicks . Denver. Time. February 19, 2014 . February 20, 2014.
• News: Colonel Larry Wilkerson to Receive 2009 Sam Adams Truthtelling Award. Rowley . Coleen. Coleen Rowley. HuffPost. October 19, 2009.
• News: Sam Adams Awards including videolink with Julian Assange. Oxford Union. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20140421171948/https://www.oxford-union.org/term_events/julian_assange2. January 23, 2013 . April 21, 2014. . ] -->

Notes and References

1. Web site: May 14, 2018. Sibel Edmonds: National Security Whistleblower. September 21, 2024. National Whistleblower Center.
2. Web site: Hannah Borno. NSA whistleblower William Binney wins 2015 Sam Adams award. International Business Times. August 31, 2015. January 23, 2015.
3. Web site: March 16, 2021. MI-5 Whistleblower Annie Machon Wins 2021 Sam Adams Award; Prof. Stephen Cohen to be Honored. March 16, 2021. Consortiumnews. en-US.
4. News: Drone Warfare Whistleblower Daniel Hale Honored with Sam Adams Award for Integrity in Intelligence . August 23, 2021 . Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence . August 23, 2021.
5. Web site: Daniel Ellsberg . Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence . April 11, 2023 . May 1, 2023.
6. Web site: September 19, 2024. US Soldier Who Burned Himself to Death Over Gaza Wins Sam Adams Associates Award for Integrity in Intelligence. September 21, 2024. Consortiumnews.