[HN Gopher] Whistleblowers are the conscience of society, yet su...
___________________________________________________________________
Whistleblowers are the conscience of society, yet suffer gravely
Author : onewheeltom
Score : 703 points
Date : 2023-04-30 14:17 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (covertactionmagazine.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (covertactionmagazine.com)
| photochemsyn wrote:
| > Despite the importance of their actions, named whistleblowers
| are often subjected to oppressive and stigmatized labels--like
| "snitch" or "leaker."
|
| Modern societies are predicated on the notion that laws apply
| equally to all members of the society and transgressions are
| identified by authorities (the executive) and punished in a
| transparent manner by courts (the judicial), acting under the
| rule of laws set in place by government bodies (the legislative)
| that are responsive to the general population's interests.
|
| There are those who are scoffing to themselves at this
| description, and their viewpoint has some historical merit. The
| "stationary bandit" theory of government is a common alternative
| view: criminal elements with no respect for the above concept of
| equal treatment under the law infiltrate and take over
| governments so that they can engage in criminal activity while
| being protected by the very powers of state authority that were
| intended to keep their activities in check.
|
| These organized crime cartels then have the legislators rewrite
| the laws so that their criminal behavior is protected and not
| prosecuted (witness the failure of the US government to prosecute
| any of the major fraudsters involved in the 2008 economic
| collapse, or to prosecute the members of government who lied
| about WMDs in Iraq in 2002-2003, or to prosecute those involved
| in the illegal domestic mass surveillance operation, or to
| prosecute those pushing opiates on the population, etc.).
|
| The more blatant organized crime cartels (mafia, drug cartels,
| etc.) are well-known for calling members of their organizations
| who testify against them in court names like 'rats', 'snitches',
| and so on. If this becomes widespread behavior (major US media
| figures calling Snowden a 'weasel' come to mind), then it becomes
| rather clear that the government and its major corporate
| affiliates have become a kleptocracy run by a group of stationary
| bandits. We could call this a 'public-private partnership', I
| suppose. For more:
|
| https://broadstreet.blog/2021/04/05/the-rise-of-the-stationa...
| [deleted]
| freetime2 wrote:
| It's a travesty that Edward Snowden is still a fugitive in the
| United States. James Clapper went in front of congress and lied
| about the scope of surveillance on US citizens. Snowden saw it as
| his moral obligation to expose those lies, and he did it in the
| least destructive way possible by leaking the evidence to
| qualified journalists.
| ngngngng wrote:
| Your usage of the word travesty is a tragedy (and ironically,
| also a travesty)
| freetime2 wrote:
| travesty:
|
| something that is shocking, upsetting, or ridiculous because
| it is not what it is supposed to be
|
| "It is a travesty and a tragedy that so many people would be
| denied the right to vote."
|
| "The investigation into the causes of the accident was a
| complete travesty. [=sham]"
|
| "The trial was a travesty of justice."
|
| https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/travesty
|
| On to the differences between tragedy and travesty:
|
| > A "tragedy" is of course a dreadful event or disaster that
| results in sadness, injury or destruction. While a "travesty"
| is more of a distorted or cheap imitation of something -
| often applied to the debasement of something held high, such
| as justice, rules, ideals and so on.
|
| https://www.writerscentre.com.au/blog/qa-tragedy-vs-
| travesty...
| jruohonen wrote:
| Snowden is perhaps not the best of examples because of all the
| controversy. If we change the subject a little, what is your
| stance on, say, the Panama Papers?
| photochemsyn wrote:
| 1) Criminals infiltrate government. 2) Government makes it
| legal to avoid taxation by placing funds in offshore
| accounts. 3) Large sums of money are hidden in Panamanian
| accounts via Mossack Fonseca. 4) Someone leaks documentation
| of these accounts to journalists. 5) Criminals say it's not
| whistleblowing because no laws were broken, it's just
| snooping into private affairs.
|
| Of course, ordinary citizens don't get such privileges. If
| they could, everyone could get out of student loan debt by
| setting up a Delaware shell corporation controlled by another
| family member or group of friends, transferring their loan
| debt to it, and then let the shell corporation go bankrupt.
| The only downside would be that nobody would be that likely
| to loan you more money, but you'd have no more debt to pay
| off.
| UIUC_06 wrote:
| James Clapper needs to be cuffed and perp-walked in front of
| the TV cameras, for so many things besides this.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Ugh. Snowden is a traitor. Whistleblowers don't run to Moscow.
|
| That guy has quite a body count behind him.
| realjohng wrote:
| Agreed. He worked with journalists to try the make the leak
| safe.
|
| Let's focus on impact- Now everyone is at least aware that
| digital activities are under surveillance including phone call
| metadata. We have made that trade off for some security. Thank
| you Snowden.
| drewcoo wrote:
| > Now everyone is at least aware that digital activities are
| under surveillance including phone call metadata. We have
| made that trade off for some security. Thank you Snowden.
|
| We've traded away privacy, but whether that increases
| security remains to be seen.
|
| It certainly increases the money we spend on alleged
| security. And "creates jobs" or whatever other euphemism we
| have for pork barrel decision-making today.
| 3pt14159 wrote:
| [flagged]
| kennend3 wrote:
| Let us guess, you are also fabulously wealthy? For some odd
| reason fictional spies seem to be very wealth as well.
|
| If you worked for CSIS it is unlikely you would be posting
| that you worked there, same for the CIA. Did you somehow
| just transfer to the CIA and as a "foreign national" all
| the confidential material marked "NOFORN" was suddenly
| available to you, a foreigner?
|
| Declaring yourself a "spy" in public.. Any chance you have
| yet to reach the age of majority?
| yarg wrote:
| You have not provided (and cannot provide) any proof to
| back those additional assertions, as such they do nothing
| to improve your argument.
|
| > What makes a journalist a better place to whistle to than
| an elected politician on the intelligence committee or any
| one of a number of other options?
|
| A history of actually doing their jobs in this regard.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Throat_(Watergate)
| imwillofficial wrote:
| - I worked for CSIS and currently work for the CIA as an
| NOC Agent. AKA a spy.
|
| Bro this is Reddit tier lying.
| bippihippi1 wrote:
| State employees are financially incentivized not to
| disobey, while journalists are, ideally.
| anonym29 wrote:
| Perhaps the most horrifying aspect of the whole Snowden
| ordeal was not discovering hard proof we've been living in a
| borderline-Orwellian surveillance state, but the utter
| indifference of the American people at this revelation.
| kornhole wrote:
| Ohwellian: When you know you are living in a dystopia but
| couldn't be bothered to change anything.
| heresie-dabord wrote:
| Egowellian: When multitudes of people around you are
| suffering but you are profiting so you ensure that they
| continue to suffer.
| bourbonorgin wrote:
| Fauxwellian: When multitudes of people around you are
| suffering and you fabricate evidence as proof of it and
| then no one believes you because of the fraud
| pif wrote:
| While foreign allies showed a lot of interest in his
| revelations. Notwithstanding his morally high intentions,
| it's debatable whether the USA as a whole got a positive
| outcome from his actions.
| SQueeeeeL wrote:
| What do you mean it's debatable? The govt was literally
| spying on the whole country without any disclosure. The
| actual people who live and were being spied on have at
| least an idea of their true circumstances now.
| anonym29 wrote:
| "it's debatable whether the USA as a whole got a positive
| outcome from his actions."
|
| I could make the case that while what Snowden did was
| heroic, and praiseworthy in a just and educated nation,
| the US is ultimately neither a just nor educated nation,
| and too little changed as a result of his whistleblowing.
| Go ask 100 truly random people what they think of
| Snowden's revelations and you may find yourself quite
| disappointed. John Oliver did an episode on this and it
| was more than a little depressing:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEVlyP4_11M
| pif wrote:
| At the same time, foreign allies had a formal proof they
| were being spied as well. Domestically, it was a win;
| internationally, it was a catastrophe.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Yeah, a "catastrophe" for innocent people everywhere.
| somenameforme wrote:
| Look at literally any poll on this issue. Here [1] is one
| from late 2019 from Pew. 66% of Americans think the risks
| of government data collection outweigh the benefits, fewer
| than 25% think they benefit from such behavior. And almost
| nobody knows what the government is doing with all of this
| information they're collecting.
|
| It's certainly not indifference, it's that our media and
| democracy aren't really functioning properly. I can go look
| at any news site and regardless of the site's political
| bias - there's a recurring theme. You'll see lots of pro
| war stuff and lots stuff on topics that makes people really
| dislike each other. But these sort of issues where people
| overwhelmingly feel one way, and the political
| establishment feels another? Yeah, those are all strangely
| absent.
|
| And come next year? These same topics will receive about as
| much coverage as COBOL at a hot trends in computing
| conference. Instead we'll get two people each telling you
| to vote for them because the other guy's awful. The one
| bright side is we can safely say that they're both right.
|
| [1] - https://www.pewresearch.org/short-
| reads/2019/11/15/key-takea...
| anonym29 wrote:
| How much of this do you think is media just not
| functioning properly as opposed to it deliberately being
| used as a tool to influence public opinion the way the
| intelligence community desires?
|
| We know the CIA has commandeered domestic media
| organizations for the purpose of influencing the opinions
| of the American public before -
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird
| mandmandam wrote:
| > these sort of issues where people overwhelmingly feel
| one way, and the political establishment feels another?
| Yeah, those are all strangely absent.
|
| I feel that Sanders' nomination campaigns epitomized this
| divide: He spoke for the people. Many more people donated
| for him than any other candidate, his supporters were
| diverse and enthusiastic. He was _the_ number one most
| popular politician in the entire country.
|
| Yet media - quite openly - gave him far less coverage,
| were 3x more negative in the coverage they did give,
| studiously ignored the attacks and cheating from the
| political establishment, systematically smeared his
| supporters, and then _blamed him_ when Hilary (number one
| _disliked_ Democrat in America) lost.
|
| And smart people, rational people with functioning
| memories, apparently, seemed to just... not want to talk
| about it.
|
| And then it happened again, with even more obvious
| collusion, four years later. And we talked about it even
| less, just relieved that we wouldn't have another 4 years
| of _that_.
|
| Bringing it all up now feels like you're reopening
| someone else's closed scab. People are auto-rewriting
| their own version history to help themselves feel less
| abused, it seems. They don't want to hear it. And this is
| (many of) the people who were even clued in to it all in
| the first place.
|
| Only Sanders wanted Snowden to be honored for his
| actions. Hilary wanted him to "face the music". It could
| all hardly be more obvious. And yet...
| brnaftr361 wrote:
| Much the same could be said about Ron Paul. I think
| that's worth a pitch because their policies are
| diametrically opposed, the results however were
| staggeringly similar.
| copper-float wrote:
| We need to shift the dynamic in America from relying on
| these media conglomerates, to individuals doing their own
| research on things. Everyone knows the news media is
| rigged beyond saving, we need to let them die out, it's
| what they all deserve for betraying the trust of the
| people.
| mandmandam wrote:
| Media megacorporations won't die on their own.
|
| As much money as they lose; they make enough returns for
| their owners in indirect ways to be worth the investment.
| Murdoch and Turner are many things, but poor isn't one of
| them.
|
| Btw, did anyone else find it disturbing how "do your own
| research" became a trigger phrase that allows a rather
| large group of people to discount anything and everything
| you said? And at the same time, for an opposite but
| similar group of people, "trust the science" did the same
| thing?
| giantrobot wrote:
| Oh man yeah. Individuals doing their own research.
| They'll just pour over minutes of committee meetings,
| develop contacts in government agencies, and explore a
| bunch of primary sources all in their spare time! It's so
| simple!
| [deleted]
| esafak wrote:
| You seem to want more democracy, but would you say that
| if Trumpers win again, become even stronger, and subvert
| democracy some more?
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Unfortunately, regular folks have no idea how to do
| proper research. Not even academic level, but merely
| separating out low-quality obvious misinformation.
| kelipso wrote:
| It really shows how much effect the media and the social
| and political environment it creates influence the
| thoughts and feelings of people, however highly educated
| and intelligent they are. If you think you are not
| influenced by media and propaganda, consider yourself
| very wrong, the best propaganda is when you don't even
| consider it propaganda, and the US probably has the most
| effective propaganda machine in the entire world.
| jutrewag wrote:
| [flagged]
| yarg wrote:
| He didn't defect, he got stuck there.
|
| > Observing that his U.S. passport had been cancelled,
| Russian authorities restricted him to the airport terminal.
| On August 1, after 39 days in the transit section, Snowden
| left the airport. He was granted temporary asylum in Russia
| for one year.
|
| What would you do? Live in transit?
| jbluepolarbear wrote:
| [flagged]
| newZWhoDis wrote:
| The traitors are the ones who engaged in this
| unconstitutional spying in the first place.
|
| Anyone exposed by his leaks quite frankly deserved worse.
| runnerup wrote:
| He probably could have attempted to only leak the domestic
| surveillance, or at least screen out as much of the foreign
| intelligence methods as much as possible.
|
| Half of it was whistleblowing (domestic surveillance) but half
| of it was pseudo-treasonous (foreign surveillance).
| throw101010 wrote:
| You know the saying beggars can't be choosers? We are
| currently begging for transparency.
|
| The filtering process by independent journalists is the only
| actual recourse I can think of to solve this. Exfiltrating
| confidential documents is usually not a process that gives
| you a lot of time to sort out what is worth it or not,
| furthermore the volume of data might very well also be a
| problem to handle on your own.
|
| Consider the time it took a lot of journalists to find the
| pertinent documents in this specific case among about 200,000
| leaked documents (of various lengths), when Snowden is
| thought to have exfiltrated 1.7 millions documents.
| pif wrote:
| > We are currently begging for transparency.
|
| Beware, transparency is a double-edged sword!
|
| Modern nations are not small villages, where secrets can be
| shared within a community AND kept out of reach from
| foreign ears.
| throw101010 wrote:
| I am not advocating for total transparency, but exactions
| committed by the state cannot be classified as secrets.
|
| So if a leak leads to revealing such crimes, the whistle-
| blower should not be prosecuted, unless you can prove
| they deliberately leaked information to harm innocent
| civilians.
|
| I specifically say civilians because I consider that the
| military and officials who are part of the state know the
| responsibilities involved in their position... and if
| they do not generate any content worthy of leaking
| (crimes), they will not be exposed to this risk.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| I don't understand why people who make this argument think
| it's OK for the US government to spy on the private
| communications of all Chinese citizens but not for it to spy
| on those of American citizens. Is it OK for China to spy on
| American citizen's private communications, then?
|
| It becomes even more problematic within the Five Eyes
| cooperation context, because if the NSA is spying on British
| private citizen communications, and GCHQ is spying on
| American private citizen communications, and the NSA and GCHQ
| are exchanging data without any limits, well???
|
| Universal standards of human behavior and the right to
| personal privacy are hardly limited to some arbitrary nation-
| state boundary line, are they?
|
| As far as targeted spying on government authorities and
| military operations, well, that's justified. Indeed it's a
| good thing that different countries are paying attention to
| each other in this manner, it has a stabilizing influence and
| can help to avoid conflicts if everyone knows what everyone
| else is up to.
| [deleted]
| morkalork wrote:
| It gets a bit complicated with the whole 5-eyes mutual back
| scratching thing though.
| bombolo wrote:
| > I don't understand why people who make this argument
| think it's OK for the US government to spy on the private
| communications of all Chinese citizens but not for it to
| spy on those of American citizens. Is it OK for China to
| spy on American citizen's private communications, then?
|
| Because USA is good, so if they are the ones doing the
| spying, it's just for pretty legit reasons, while chinese
| people don't speak english so they clearly are up to no
| good /s
| newZWhoDis wrote:
| Exactly. The existence of, and participation in, FVEY is
| treason against the people of the United States.
|
| There is no such thing as an "allied intelligence agency",
| by their very nature all non-US intelligence agencies are
| hostile to American citizens.
|
| Thus, our domestic agencies conspiring with hostile foreign
| entities to defraud and undermine the citizens of the
| United States is treason.
| George83728 wrote:
| You're wrong, it's not treason. This is meant to be a
| legalistic society where crimes are defined by laws, not
| by how the word for the crime is popularly perceived by
| laypeople. The US Constitution defines treason. In
| America, treason is when an American levies war against
| the United States, or adhering to the Enemies of the US,
| giving them aid and comfort.
|
| To characterize the UK as an enemy of the US simply isn't
| true, the US and the UK are not at war; the UK government
| is not openly hostile to America. If an American gives
| classified information to the UK they _could_ be
| convicted of espionage, but _treason specifically_ would
| not stick. Not even close. Even attempting it would be a
| complete farce.
|
| Treason charges couldn't even stick during the Cold War,
| when America and the Soviet Union were engaged in
| numerous proxy wars but weren't officially at war with
| each other. Many Americans sold secrets to the Soviet
| Union, got caught, and were convicted of espionage. But
| not treason. The Rosenbergs, who gave American nuclear
| secrets to the Soviet Union? Convicted and executed for
| conspiracy to commit espionage, _not_ treason. John
| Walker and his son, US Navy officers who helped the
| Soviets decrypt millions of messages? Convicted of
| espionage, but not treason. Jerry Whitworth, Aldrich
| Ames, Robert Hanssen.. the list goes on. Convicted of
| espionage but not treason. The last treason convictions
| to ever happen in America were for acts committed during
| WW2.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| What mutual backscratching? No such program was in the
| Snowden leaks. If you're claiming that the US gets other
| countries to spy on its citizens, that would be utterly
| illegal.
| newZWhoDis wrote:
| You're correct, it would be utterly illegal and they are
| in fact doing it via the five eyes program (FVEY)
|
| Essentially what they've done is commit treason by
| colluding with hostile foreign powers to mutually spy on
| each others citizens, bypassing the pesky
| constitutional/charter limitations in the process.
|
| In the right political climate we could Nuremberg trial 5
| levels deep into the organizations responsible, I'm
| hopeful for that outcome.
|
| Reminder: "I was just following orders/policy" wasn't a
| defense then and it won't be this time either.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| > You're correct, it would be utterly illegal and they
| are in fact doing it via the five eyes program (FVEY)
|
| If they are doing it, where's your evidence? You don't
| have it because otherwise, Klayman would have filed a
| lawsuit.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| Go look into it. It's not that hard
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| I did. I read the actual documents Snowden leaked instead
| of relying on wild conspiracy theories people conjured up
| out of thin air at the time the documents leaked. If you
| have evidence, you can file a lawsuit. You don't. You're
| just repeating conspiracy theories that anybody who
| understands the law easily spots as nonsense.
| drewcoo wrote:
| > half of it was pseudo-treasonous (foreign surveillance)
|
| When Snowden was telling everyone we spy on our allies, that
| is absolutely not treason.
|
| From the Constitution, Article III, Section 3:
|
| Treason against the United States, shall consist only in
| levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies,
| giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of
| Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same
| overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
| b33j0r wrote:
| Do we think accepting Russian citizenship changes his story? I
| can't decide.
| MikusR wrote:
| Citizenship maybe not. But amplifying russian propaganda and
| lies changes it significantly.
| tacocataco wrote:
| I was under the impression Snowden happened to be in Russia
| on route to another country when he was stuck for some
| reason.
|
| IIRC his passport was revoked, but if I'm wrong I'd enjoy
| some readings that say otherwise. Its been a while since I
| followed the story.
| b33j0r wrote:
| He first went to Hong Kong, then like Korea (we're not
| sure), then Russia.
|
| It's a little suspicious eh? I thought the american people
| deserved to know the things he released...
|
| But it might have been less innocent than one guy being a
| whistleblower. Other peer powers accommodated him in their
| interests.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| What's he supposed to do? Deny it and be ejected, potentially
| to a country that will extradite him?
|
| He already released the documents; it's up to the American
| people to do something about it, and we (well, the
| government) haven't. Whether he's in Russia or federal prison
| changes nothing about the fact that he already did his
| "part".
| ohdannyboy wrote:
| Any port in a storm, as the saying goes. It's a US enemy or a
| US prison.
| misssocrates wrote:
| Why hasn't he been pardoned by either party?
| andrewmutz wrote:
| I disagree that he did it in the least destructive way
| possible. He revealed far more secrets than were necessary to
| blow the whistle.
|
| Just take a look at the list of secrets he revealed. Most of
| them are not about domestic spying at all:
|
| https://www.lawfareblog.com/snowden-revelations
|
| If he wanted to blow the whistle on domestic spying, he could
| have shared documents with journalists about domestic spying.
| Danjoe4 wrote:
| Exposing illegal government surveillance programs is far more
| important than "national security". His leak exposed US
| foreign operations; who cares? Maybe don't do stuff that is
| so illegal and immoral that your own citizens feel compelled
| to risk everything to expose it.
| esrauch wrote:
| The point of sharing it only with trusted established
| journalists was that their qualified to know what needs
| redacting.
|
| Surely even the documents that primarily concern specifically
| unconstitutional domestic spying would still have stuff in
| them that is material to national security and not
| unconstitutional.
| dingusdew wrote:
| [dead]
| drewcoo wrote:
| > he point of sharing it only with trusted established
| journalists was that their qualified to know what needs
| redacting
|
| Really? I assumed it had more to do with Constitutional
| protections for journalists, so whatever they did publish
| would stay published.
|
| IIRC, the US had already called Assange's journo creds into
| question by then, so Snowden sought out established
| outlets.
| notjulianjaynes wrote:
| There is no special credential that makes one a
| journalist in the eyes of the United States Constitution,
| nor does the first amendment grant any special
| protections to journalists that do not otherwise apply to
| the general population.
| f6v wrote:
| > Most of them are not about domestic spying at all:
|
| Then he owed it to humanity and acted on it. Kudos to him.
| lettergram wrote:
| In a democracy almost everything should be public. Our
| weapons for sure, perhaps not where they are located, but
| what we pay for yes.
| barney54 wrote:
| I don't know why some people are downvoting this comment.
| What is wrong with transparency?
| pastacacioepepe wrote:
| Exactly right, you can't have democracy without information
| being available to everyone. But we all know this is just
| an illusion, all democratic states hide a great deal from
| their citizens.
| HeWhoLurksLate wrote:
| I want to add- there is _significant value_ at the world
| level, of keeping secrets.
|
| Eveybody wants warfare to be asymmetric and biased
| towards them- why would we want to give a potential
| adversary perfect information about what weaponry we have
| as well as its exact capabilities? Unfortunately, when
| you want to keep a secret, you can't tell all of your
| citizens and trust that they won't tell anybody...
| drewcoo wrote:
| I'd hope for more than just transparency.
|
| Even public information about our military is not commonly
| known, so we don't have a well-informed citizenry.
|
| How many Americans are aware of this, clearly public info
| because Al Jazeera has it?
|
| https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/10/infographic-us-
| mili...
| colordrops wrote:
| He had to take a quick dump of whatever he could and filter
| through it later. It's not like he could leisurely spend
| weeks vetting the docs.
| andrewmutz wrote:
| I don't really buy this. He couldn't search through the
| dump for the names of the projects that he was blowing the
| whistle on? Can't use grep?
|
| Handling over a mountain of secrets to journalists and let
| them sort out the illegal from the rest of it, (and
| trusting them not to publish things that are
| newsworthy/salacious but legal) is completely irresponsible
| imwillofficial wrote:
| That's not how it works. Some random contractor doesn't
| know all the code names to all relevant projects.
|
| You should ask yourself more often "is there a reason
| they did it they way they did" before offering smug
| suggestions.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| The program he was most interested in leaking (PRISM)
| wasn't illegal at all. He had plenty of time to figure that
| out, but he didn't. In order to leak this perfectly legal
| program, he tried to get asylum in Hong Kong by leaking
| Chinese systems the NSA had compromised.
| devmor wrote:
| Everything they're doing is "legal" because they get to
| decide what is and isn't legal.
|
| That doesn't mean it's ethical or should be hidden from
| the American public.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| > Everything they're doing is "legal" because they get to
| decide what is and isn't legal
|
| No, phone metadata collection was ruled illegal.
| Ingesting court ordered FBI wiretaps on foreigners living
| outside the US who are of interest to national security
| has never been illegal in the US or in any other country.
|
| > That doesn't mean it's ethical or should be hidden from
| the American public.
|
| It isn't hidden from the American public. The documents
| describing the data ingested into PRISM have been
| declassified.
| colordrops wrote:
| The USG can't put cameras in my house and promise not to
| look at the video unless I'm a foreigner. That's what
| this amounts to. Why anyone would defend this is beyond
| me.
| anonym29 wrote:
| Regardless of PRISM's legality, it's deeply unethical and
| immoral for a government to spy on their own citizens
| with nothing more than a permission slip stamped by a
| stamping body that approves 99.97% of the requests that
| cross their desk, which is exactly what the FISA court
| is.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| PRISM doesn't involve data from US citizens' accounts.
| Please review what PRISM is before claiming it is illegal
| or unethical. It is neither.
|
| If you are incapable of reading the documents yourself:
| if the company receiving the wiretap order has any reason
| to believe that an account belongs to a US citizen or a
| non-US citizen living in the US, they challenge the
| order. No warrant is needed in the US legal system or
| that of any other country in the world to wiretap a
| foreigner who is outside of the country requesting the
| data. The fact that the US requires a court order is
| rare, and by all accounts, including Snowden's documents,
| that procedure is followed.
| dmbche wrote:
| I'm sorry, but you understand that if a tool necessitates
| a warrant to be used, it does not ensures that people can
| use the tool without a warrant?
|
| "We've conducted an internal investigation proving no
| malfeaseance took place. We will not be releasing any
| data on our usage of the tool. Trust us."
| cronix wrote:
| That's the problem. They were bulk collecting all data
| going in/out of data centers, not specific named
| accounts. No way for a company to say "Hey, that account
| is an American citizen" when they are collecting all data
| indiscriminately.
|
| > The leaked information came after the revelation that
| the FISA Court had been ordering a subsidiary of
| telecommunications company Verizon Communications to turn
| over logs tracking all of its customers' telephone calls
| to the NSA.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| > That's the problem. They were bulk collecting all data
| going in/out of data centers, not specific named accounts
|
| That's not what PRISM was. As Snowden's slides clearly
| explain, PRISM was a data integration project to ingest
| wiretap data from the FBI. That wiretap data came from
| court orders for specific accounts belonging to non-US
| citizens living outside the US.
| anonym29 wrote:
| How can you verify whether an account belongs to a US
| citizen without possessing a single bit of data about it?
|
| >if the company receiving the wiretap order has any
| reason to believe that an account belongs to a US citizen
| or a non-US citizen living in the US, they challenge the
| order
|
| Correction: the company _can_ challenge the order. In
| case you 've been living under a rock / off the grid and
| haven't seen the Twitter files recently, private
| companies not only aren't fighting back against
| government spying, censorship, etc - they're openly
| cooperating, going so far as to set up task forces to
| facilitate open cooperation. Why do you think Microsoft
| was feeding PRISM 5 years earlier than Apple? It's not
| like one organization had vastly more technical
| capability than the other - some private organizations
| are just openly complicit with the government regardless
| of the morality. IBM produced many of the systems used by
| the Germans to facilitate the holocaust - something being
| legal and profitable doesn't inherently make it morally
| acceptable.
|
| >by all accounts, including Snowden's documents, that
| procedure is followed.
|
| It is followed in the letter of the law, not the spirit
| of the law, by a court that rubber stamps 99.97% of
| requests. Besides, as I've argued above, immoral actions
| should not be tolerated simply because they are allowed
| by law. See also: slavery, usury, civil asset forfeiture,
| murder of unarmed civilian by cop ft. qualified immunity,
| drone bombing weddings overseas, overthrowing
| democratically elected leaders in other countries,
| plotting fake terror attacks against US citizens to
| justify foreign wars (operation Northwoods).
|
| Evil is evil regardless of whether or not it's been "made
| legal" by a corrupt government with an extensive track
| record of violating international sovereignty, human
| rights, the geneva convention, and arms control charters,
| not to mention the only country to ever commit genocide
| of civilians with an atomic weapon. The US has zero moral
| authority.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| > In case you've been living under a rock / off the grid
| and haven't seen the Twitter files recently, private
| companies not only aren't fighting back against
| government spying, censorship, etc - they're openly
| cooperating, going so far as to set up task forces to
| facilitate open cooperation. Why do you think Microsoft
| was feeding PRISM 5 years earlier than Apple?
|
| There is so much you got wrong here, that it's hard to
| figure out where to begin.
|
| 1. Apple did not have any data to wiretap until people
| started using iCloud mail. Microsoft ran Hotmail since
| time immemorial. That's why they prioritized the
| integration of wiretap data from Microsoft first.
|
| 2. There are plenty of examples of companies challenging
| government orders that came from the Snowden leaks
| themselves. The Twitter thing is just that the government
| reported TOU violations to Twitter, and Twitter decided
| if they were violations and took action if so. The
| government did not have unilateral control over Twitter.
|
| > It is followed in the letter of the law, not the spirit
| of the law, by a court that rubber stamps 99.97% of
| requests
|
| What percent of warrants do you think are approved? You
| clearly have no idea how the world works. The government
| wouldn't waste its time asking for a court order unless
| it thinks the court order will be granted. If it wastes
| the judge's time by filing lots of requests that are
| illegal, the judge will punish the government for doing
| so.
| kennend3 wrote:
| I'm sorry but reading your posts here is just comical.
|
| Can you explain why there are countless stories such as
| this:
|
| NSA staff used spy tools on spouses, ex-lovers: watchdog
| https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-surveillance-
| watchdog...
|
| You keep writing they were not spying on US citizens, but
| clearly they were or NSA employees would not be using it
| to spy on friends/family would they?
|
| Did they coin the term "LOVEINT" because this was a one-
| off situation?
| stale2002 wrote:
| The fact that PRISM was legal is exactly the problem, and
| why leaking it was needed.
|
| It wasn't illegal, therefore going through the proper
| channels wouldn't have exposed it.
|
| It is only by going through alternative/leaking means
| that the program could have gotten exposed to the public.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| The government spies on foreigners who are suspected to
| be of national security interest. News at 11.
|
| This is the government's job. Why do you feel it needed
| to be exposed?
| newZWhoDis wrote:
| PRISM was both illegal and unconstitutional.
|
| The leadership of these agencies and the congressmen that
| enabled them on the intel committee are traitors to the
| republic, plain and simple.
|
| Note to mods: I understand HN isn't for "waging
| ideological debate", but this is an inherently political
| topic and the discussion is on-topic
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| [flagged]
| newZWhoDis wrote:
| That's a failure of the courts to apply standing.
|
| You can't sue because you have no standing, because you
| can't prove _you_ were spied on, and proving it would be
| illegal so... checkmate. :)
|
| PRISM is a clear violation of the 4th, and if we had
| supremes that were worth a damn all bulk collection
| programs would be prohibited.
| penneallagricia wrote:
| As a non-USAer I'm so glad he went beyond domestic spying. He
| showed the world how the USA spied on many of its supposed
| allies. The scope of the system of espionage they built is
| orwellian and just astonishing.
|
| If there is one evil force conspiring for global domination
| that is the NSA and whichever institution they take order
| from. Thanks again, Snowden.
|
| What I don't understand is the complete lack of response from
| countries like Italy and Germany once they found out being
| spied by an ally. Imagine what the USA would have done if the
| roles were reversed.
| killjoywashere wrote:
| Meh, countries know they spy on each other. Sometimes they
| even use those processes to move information, just a
| different version of Nixon's "For god's sake, would someone
| leak this already?"
| penneallagricia wrote:
| Ok, then why punish whistleblowers so harshly? Countries
| should consider it a useful public service.
| handedness wrote:
| Leaking sources and/or methods gets people killed. Good
| people often living in terrible places and circumstances,
| many of them. Maybe most. It also makes good information
| more difficult to come by for a long time.
|
| Nations spying on nations (even allies) feels terrible
| but in practice is probably a net good for all. It
| reduces uncertainty, and uncertainty has historically
| been a major trigger for armed conflict as one side
| feared the other side was preparing to strike, so struck
| first to gain the initiative in case their fears were
| well-founded. History has shown that judgment to be
| inaccurate in some significant cases. Wars have also been
| avoided by good intel.
|
| On the non-kinetic side, espionage better informs
| policymakers as international agreements are forged and
| followed. Uncertainty between nations is generally a bad
| thing for both nations.
|
| We badly need to address nations spying on their own
| citizens, especially reciprocity arrangements to
| circumvent restrictions on such. But pending an unlikely
| utopia of humans all learning how to cooperate at scale
| for the first time in human history, nations spying on
| nations is probably a good thing for the planet.
| infamouscow wrote:
| > Leaking sources and/or methods gets people killed.
|
| Is there any evidence of this being true or speculation?
| bhawks wrote:
| See the successes of spycraft in South America. It has
| been truly a blessing to all people living there.
| low_tech_love wrote:
| As a non-USAer, I strongly disagree. There are probably a
| handful of other countries watching you right now (in a
| broad, abstract sense) and the USA is the least of our
| concerns. There is a reason why nothing significant came
| out of it: every other country knows that this is happening
| (not exactly but roughly) and they know there are much
| worse problems to worry about, given other strong
| international players such as Russia and China. There is no
| "surveillance free world" alternative. The USA is a very
| strong and stable democracy (maybe even the strongest) so I
| think it's naive to think that removing them from the board
| would be a good thing.
| penneallagricia wrote:
| This isn't about removing the USA from the board, this is
| about letting the truth out. That thing we claim to base
| our democracies upon.
|
| Your argument boils down to giving up our supposedly
| better values in order to defeat the "evil guys".
|
| I also refuse to accept that our future is under the
| hegemony of any single nation. So far the only country we
| have proof of going for hegemony is the USA. Russia and
| China are concerned with their borders and it's trivial
| to verify my assessment Is correct. Just compare military
| expenses and amount of military bases owned across the
| world.
| amrocha wrote:
| Let me guess, you're not from South America or Africa or
| the middle east or southeast Asia?
|
| The US government is the most destructive force in
| history
| bombolo wrote:
| As a person living in Sweden, it seems that my most
| immediate concern is USA. They are the ones that can ask
| the swedish government to make up some BS accusations to
| arrest me and eventually ship me to USA where I will be
| tortured.
| ineedasername wrote:
| Seems like your most immediate concern should be the
| Swedish government. They're the ones required to actually
| agree & implement actions based on the BS accusation.
| bombolo wrote:
| So we should focus on the goons and ignore the boss
| sending them? Makes total sense.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| You make the big assumption that countries are surprised to
| be spied on. Granted, the head of French military
| intelligence was absurdly inadequate, but are generations
| of spies in those countries clueless? Probably not.
| ako wrote:
| Maybe there was no response because it was expected.
| Probably all countries spy on all other countries.
| Especially during the Trump era, it wasn't clear that USA
| was still an ally, so I hope other countries prepared for
| that by increasing their intelligence on the USA, just to
| avoid inconvenient surprises.
| penneallagricia wrote:
| This has nothing to do with Trump per se, it's really a
| bipartisan issue, as the new pentagon leaks just
| confirmed.
|
| I also doubt European countries have the capacity to
| intercept private calls between top level USA govt
| officials.
| nullityrofl wrote:
| It's already well known that many EU nations have
| capabilities like this.
|
| The French:
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/04/france-
| electro... The Germans:
| https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/germany-arrests-
| foreign...
|
| Lets not forget that most of the EU is wrapped up in the
| Pegasus spy scandal: https://www.dw.com/en/eu-watergate-
| the-pegasus-spyware-scand...
|
| Playing holier than thou with intelligence services is a
| losing game. There is no holy intelligence service and
| there is no nation without an intelligence function.
| pastacacioepepe wrote:
| These are all examples of EU countries doing domestic,
| not foreign espionage (which is also despicable, by the
| way).
|
| You can search all you want but there is no evidence or
| proof whatsoever of EU countries spying USA top
| government officials.
|
| The question here is how can you call yourself an ally in
| good faith when you spy on your allies?
| stevenhuang wrote:
| > The question here is how can you call yourself an ally
| in good faith when you spy on your allies?
|
| Familiarize yourself with this concept
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realpolitik
| nullityrofl wrote:
| The fact that it has not been leaked is not proof of the
| negative. The US had been spying on Europe for 50+ years
| before Snowden and the US continues to spy on Europe
| right now without any further leaks -- by your logic that
| must mean that the US isn't currently spying on the EU,
| right, or there would be leaks?
|
| There's plenty of evidence of the EU spying on allies. I
| can't tell if your implication is "Europe can't maintain
| smart enough computer scientists and engineers capable of
| spying on the US" or "Europe has the moral high ground
| and doesn't spy on allies".
|
| Both are naive.
| throwrqX wrote:
| > You can search all you want but there is no evidence or
| proof whatsoever of EU countries spying USA top
| government officials.
|
| Nonsense. https://www.france24.com/en/20131024-nsa-
| france-spying-squar... https://www.dw.com/en/german-
| intelligence-spied-on-white-hou...
| penneallagricia wrote:
| The first article is just a claim with no evidence
| provided.
|
| The second is based on some yet unreleased documents that
| Der Spiegel claims to have reviewed years ago.
|
| Still no evidence to be found, only claims.
| nullityrofl wrote:
| It's a claim made by the head of the agency that did it.
| If you're not willing to take their word, I think you're
| being stubborn and obtuse and this will never be a
| productive discussion.
|
| If you're willing to believe a US whistleblower -- whose
| evidence you can't personally verify -- you have to be
| open to believing the _former head of the agency_.
| zirgs wrote:
| What makes you think that they don't?
|
| They surely would keep that capability secret.
| penneallagricia wrote:
| > They surely would keep that capability secret.
|
| Like the USA itself couldn't? Strongly doubt, the amount
| of recent leaks we're just discussing proves me right. No
| nation could have such an espionage system in place
| without it ever leaking out in some way.
| kelipso wrote:
| The US has been the sole superpower for more than 3 decades
| now. Its relationship to its allies are more like
| relationships with vassals, see geopolitical interactions
| with European countries, Japan, South Korea.
| vasco wrote:
| I'd say at least since WWII. Admittedly we wouldn't be
| here without the US coming in and saving us from Germany.
| nullityrofl wrote:
| > What I don't understand is the complete lack of response
| from countries like Italy and Germany once they found out
| being spied by an ally.
|
| Because they're all doing it too. Any attempts at
| retaliation what have been hypocritical and met with
| callouts.
|
| EDIT: Since this is news to some people who seem to think
| that the entirety of Europe is on a moral high horse,
| here's some references. There's little morality in
| intelligence.
|
| Europe spies on its own citizens:
| https://slate.com/technology/2022/11/europe-spyware-
| scandal-...
|
| Germany helped the US spy on EU allies:
| https://www.dw.com/en/parliamentary-report-finds-spying-
| by-b...
|
| France admits they spied on the US:
| https://www.france24.com/en/20131024-nsa-france-spying-
| squar...
|
| Germany was found to be spying on the US:
| https://www.dw.com/en/german-intelligence-spied-on-white-
| hou...
|
| The Dutch helped the US spy on the EU:
| https://www.dw.com/en/danish-secret-service-helped-us-spy-
| on...
| pastacacioepepe wrote:
| There was in fact a small reaction[0][1] and it's naive
| to think that the espionage systems and efforts USA and
| European countries have are in any way comparable.
|
| > Because they're all doing it too. Any attempts at
| retaliation what have been hypocritical and met with
| callouts.
|
| Source? I can tell you already there is none. We have
| plenty of evidence that the USA is spying Europe and
| other allies, none of the opposite.
|
| .0: https://www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/osw-
| commentary/2014-01-...
|
| .1:
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/09/germany-
| arrest...
| judge2020 wrote:
| > Source? I can tell you already there is none. We have
| plenty of evidence that the USA is spying Europe and
| other allies, none of the opposite.
|
| geopolitics 101? why would any country not have spies and
| passive surveillance of both enemies and allies that
| could one day threaten their power/economy?
| nullityrofl wrote:
| You mean like Europe's use of Pegasus?
|
| https://slate.com/technology/2022/11/europe-spyware-
| scandal-...
| pastacacioepepe wrote:
| > Multiple European governments are using advanced
| surveillance tools to spy on their own people
|
| As I've already answered you on another comment and as
| the very first line of the article you shared points out,
| Pegasus has been used for domestic espionage. The issue
| at hand is foreign espionage.
| nullityrofl wrote:
| Ah, you think that the EU spies on their own citizens but
| is above spying on allies? Allies not OK, citizens OK?
|
| Like how Denmark helped the US spy on the EU?
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/31/denmark-
| helped...
|
| Yes, EU nations are somehow totally incapable of a thing
| every country is doing. That is naive.
| pastacacioepepe wrote:
| > Ah, you think that the EU spies on their own citizens
| but is above spying on allies?
|
| Provide evidence please, but we both know there is none.
|
| > Like how Denmark helped the US spy on the EU?
|
| Yet another case of the US spying on its allies.
|
| Edit: You keep editing your comment so it's hard to
| properly answer.
|
| > Allies not OK, citizens OK?
|
| I've already wrote you here[0] that I find both cases
| despicable, but we're simply talking about US foreign
| espionage here.
|
| .0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35765353
| nullityrofl wrote:
| > Yet another case of the US spying on its allies.
|
| I'm not sure if you're being obtuse or just didn't bother
| reading.
|
| Denmark was complicit in the US spying on Germany, Sweden
| and Norway.
|
| https://www.dw.com/en/danish-secret-service-helped-us-
| spy-on...
|
| France and Germany both have admitted they have spied on
| the White House.
|
| https://www.france24.com/en/20131024-nsa-france-spying-
| squar...
|
| https://www.dw.com/en/german-intelligence-spied-on-white-
| hou...
|
| Germany has been found to helping the US spy on EU
| allies:
|
| https://www.dw.com/en/parliamentary-report-finds-spying-
| by-b...
|
| This is a childish and naive stance.
|
| Also, I'm not American. You can stop referring to me in
| the second person.
| penneallagricia wrote:
| You keep providing more and more evidence that the US is
| involved in spying most of its allies. Notice how almost
| all of these cases are about some 3rd country assisting
| the US in spying someone else?
|
| You are just proving that the US is not behaving like a
| positive force for the world, which was entirely my
| point. I never said that European countries are saints. I
| just fear with good reason a US hegemony given their
| behavior.
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| [flagged]
| shkkmo wrote:
| > Notice how almost all of these cases are about some 3rd
| country assisting the US in spying someone else?
|
| How is 2/5 "almost all"?
|
| The US hegemony is rightfully feared, but only because on
| their relatively unchecked power, not because of any
| inherent ethical superiority.
| nullityrofl wrote:
| You mean 2 of 5 and those 2 still involve the EU spying
| on it's allies, right? So all 5 examples of the EU spying
| on its allies a thing that you said there was "no proof
| whatsoever" of?
|
| I never said that the US is or isn't a positive net on
| the world: I said that spying isn't evidence of your
| point. Because by your definition no country is positive
| net on the world.
| simonh wrote:
| The point is everybody is spying on everybody else. Every
| nation has spy agencies, and what they do is spying, it's
| right there in the name. It's just that the US operation
| is bigger and better funded, and has the biggest network
| of allies. This is not a shocking surprise to anyone in
| government anywhere, or anyone who knows almost anything
| at all about the history of intelligence work and
| espionage. The UK spied on the US throughout WW2. It's
| how the world has always worked.
|
| As for being a positive force in the world, that depends
| what they do with the information. It's a different
| concern.
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| [flagged]
| jackmott wrote:
| [dead]
| nmqsxc wrote:
| According to Greenwald there were millions of pages, largely
| because everything from parking spaces to nuclear weapons
| were frivolously marked "top secret" in order to increase the
| perceived importance of bureaucrats.
|
| Snowden gave the pile to the Guardian (Greenwald and another
| journalist), who decided what to publish, which was a major
| task because of all the unimportant stuff.
|
| How could Snowden have gone through that pile in a couple of
| days while on the run and possibly afraid for his life?
| jhauris wrote:
| > frivolously marked "top secret" in order to increase the
| perceived importance of bureaucrats.
|
| This is a real problem, but I suspect the reason is more
| laziness than increasing power. That's no score card on
| number of classified documents one has access to.
|
| Rather, it is time consuming and risky to determine
| classification level. No one is going to get in trouble for
| mistakenly over classifying something, but theoretically
| risks jail and fines for under classifying a document, not
| to mention the real harm that could arise from such an
| error.
| breck wrote:
| > it is time consuming and risky to determine
| classification level
|
| This!
|
| I once had the opportunity to work on a project with DoD
| folks to help them write software to speed up the
| declassification process.
|
| I was astonished by the current manual process. Imagine a
| decision tree 50 pages long that you have to apply by
| hand to each sentence of a document to determine what can
| be unclassified or not.
|
| These were such nice people and overwhelmed by the work
| and genuinely trying to make it better so more
| information could be declassified, faster.
|
| I realized it was a hopeless task. The only real solution
| is to move toward a world where next to nothing needs to
| be classified. To do more in the open. That needs to be
| the vision. Laws need to be adjusted so that these crazy
| complicated rubrics don't need to be created at all.
|
| [The end of the story is I opted not to join that
| project. LLMs provide at least some hope that they can
| make it somewhat better, lacking the changes at the legal
| and organizational level that I mentioned]
| jstarfish wrote:
| [flagged]
| xtian wrote:
| The government is not a person so your rhetorical device
| is as nonsensical and irrelevant as your unsubstantiated
| character assassination. Moreover, a criminal
| organization can make no claims to 'fairness'. Criminal
| governments are no different.
| evantbyrne wrote:
| That's one way to look at it. Another interpretation
| would be that he knew about specific things, assumed
| there were other bad things he hadn't learned about yet,
| and couldn't filter through it himself.
| fallingknife wrote:
| And you actually believe those stories? They also tried
| to claim that Assange was a rapist.
| jstarfish wrote:
| At face value, no-- my source _is_ government personnel.
| But it 's possible there's more to the story than we've
| heard from the "victim."
|
| For the same reason, I don't believe Assange was a
| rapist.
| HeckFeck wrote:
| Not all of us can grep as well as we'd like.
|
| Besides, swiping only the most telling and highligy
| classified documents would've aroused suspicion. He might
| have been including some line noise to distract a system
| looking for patterns. Also, including unrelated but
| genuine documents would make his leak easier to verify
| because it proves he has access to the source.
| namdnay wrote:
| He sent the documents to be filtered by trusted
| journalists working for one of the worlds number one
| investigative newspapers. It's not like he sold them to
| the Daily Mail
|
| There's a slight irony in your comment about his
| performance reviews - how did that get out? Apparently
| leaking isn't always a problem :)
| Loquebantur wrote:
| Why do the agencies not bother to filter out unrelated
| material? According to you, the responsible course of
| action would have to be to record only what is related to
| illegal activity in the first place.
|
| Your talking about _legality_ is a straw-man anyway: the
| point is mass surveillance being highly _unethical_. Not
| even the law reflecting that fact makes the reality of it
| only worse.
| dmbche wrote:
| Just to be clear - if you are trying to amass enough
| proof to bring to the media, but expect to be fired any
| day now, the logical thing to do is to exfiltrate as much
| of what could be relevant and sort out the rest after.
|
| Say you exfiltrate not enough and are fired. You're shit
| out of luck, and there is no way to infiltrate someone
| else to your position to get the rest out.
|
| I doubt you can honestly see his actions as reckless or
| revengeful.
| msm_ wrote:
| >I hear stories of him being a poor performer about to be
| fired from his job at the time, hence the urgency to mass
| exfiltrate. If true that makes this a revenge play, not
| an act of heroism.
|
| Nice comment under an article that specifically calls out
| state gaslighting (false claims that portray the
| whistleblower as a bad/immature/insane person, or
| discredit them in another way).
| ted_bunny wrote:
| To play devil's advocate: things that sound minor like
| parking spaces are regularly the grist of intelligence
| operations. And the targets are rarely heads of state or
| other bigwigs -- less-prominent people are easier to
| recruit, kill, harass, etc.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| Yeah, even if just to know which car to break into.
| psychlops wrote:
| Perhaps if they weren't trampling on the law they wouldn't
| run the risk of legitimate secrets being let out from
| numerous malcontents.
| dmbche wrote:
| I'm about 3/4 through the page and it's all related to spying
| to me.. are you specifically referring to something?
| andrewmutz wrote:
| Spying is what the NSA is supposed to do
|
| _Domestic_ spying is the controversial /illegal activity
| he was blowing the whistle on.
|
| Dumping info on legal NSA activities (like foreign
| surveillance), while fascinating to read, is not
| whistleblowing.
| drewcoo wrote:
| > the controversial/illegal activity
|
| I wasn't aware that it was only one controversial
| activity.
|
| And I wasn't aware that one could only blow the whistle
| on illegal activity.
| dmbche wrote:
| I think it's fair to say that the extent of the spying on
| global citizens being so absurdly extreme was also worth
| whistleblowing - it's not location of hidden bases and
| spies, it's that General Dynamics " collect the contents
| or metadata of all cell phone calls in the Bahamas,
| Mexico, the Philippines, and Kenya. The Australian
| Signals Directorate has cooperated with NSA on the
| collection in the Philippines" and so on.
|
| Being Canadian, I see him as a whistleblower as well,
| since the extent of canadian surveillance was also
| revealed.
|
| I'd argue it's even better that he did the jobs of
| multiple whistleblowers by sharing the extent of domestic
| spying in other countries. No need to wait years for
| other people to put their lives in jeopardy.
| pnt12 wrote:
| Weren't there millions of pages or documents to review?
|
| But even so, those demand him to be 100% ethical, why don't
| they also demand that from the NSA and the rest of the state?
|
| He did it in a responsible way. Perhaps if there was better
| support for whistle-blower he could have done it even better.
| 0xDEF wrote:
| As a European I actually think Snowden's primary motivation
| was opposition to US foreign policy and control of the world.
| There is no other reason to contact Glenn Greenwald in late
| 2012. In 2008-2012 Glenn Greenwald was primarily known as one
| of the harshest opponents of US foreign policy and someone
| who didn't shy away from defending Russia, Iran and other
| geopolitical adversaries of the US.
|
| If it was about anti-surveillance/pro-privacy activism there
| are so many other ways Snowden could have leaked it and so
| many other people and organizations he could have leaked to.
| Snowden would probably be living in Vienna by now and not in
| Moscow if he was just an anti-surveillance activist. However
| his primary motivation for the leaks was to lower US
| influence and control of the rest of the world.
|
| Obviously for the rest of the world Snowden is a net positive
| that raised awareness about mass surveillance by US Big Tech.
| But I cringe whenever Americans declare him "an American
| hero". I am sure Snowden cringe even more at that term to be
| honest.
| nagkl wrote:
| Snowden contacted Laura Poitras first, with this famous
| mail:
|
| https://www.wired.com/2014/10/snowdens-first-emails-to-
| poitr...
|
| "You ask why I picked you. I didn't. You did. The
| surveillance you've experienced means you've been selected,
| a term which will mean more to you as you learn about how
| the modern sigint system works."
|
| I wish everyone here would watch the movie Citizen Four to
| learn more about the backgrounds and the actual events. He
| was an anti-surveillance activist. Is it because of the
| Ukraine conflict that people are now trying to link him to
| anti-US foreign policy sentiments? Why wasn't this the
| topic in 2012?
| 0xDEF wrote:
| >trying to link him to anti-US foreign policy sentiments
|
| Being anti-US foreign policy is generally a good thing
| and the only reason you are going to leak to Glenn
| Greenwald of all people in late 2012.
|
| Snowden also exposed that it was not Bashar al-Assad's
| legitimate democratically elected government that turned
| off the Internet in Syria in 2012. It was actually the
| NSA:
|
| https://time.com/3107684/snowden-nsa-syria-cybersecurity/
|
| No other "anti-surveillance activist" would have stood up
| Assad in 2012. Only Snowden dared to do that because he
| is a heroic world citizen opposed to US influence and
| control of the world.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| What a bizarre tangent, with nothing to back it up
| besides "2012."
|
| Nothing wrong with Greenwald besides being a well-written
| PITA. He also saw the story though, at substantial risk
| to himself. A great choice to be included, even from
| hindsight.
|
| I read GGs pieces on Salon about the Bush Admin in the
| early 00s and was impressed enough to remember his name
| later. At no time do I remember him being an "axis of
| evil" apologist.
| oceanplexian wrote:
| > As a European I actually think Snowden's primary
| motivation was opposition to US foreign policy and control
| of the world. There is no other reason to contact Glenn
| Greenwald in late 2012. In 2008-2012 Glenn Greenwald was
| primarily known as one of the harshest opponents of US
| foreign policy and someone who didn't shy away from
| defending Russia, Iran and other geopolitical adversaries
| of the US.
|
| This isn't why he went to Greenwald, he did so to avoid
| American outlets like the New York Times, since before the
| leak they censored the illegal wiretapping story (Room
| 641A) at the request of the Bush Administration.
|
| Snowden found himself in a situation where both the
| Government and the Media were in cahoots to cover up
| criminal behavior. At that point I don't blame him, going
| to Glenn and then fleeing to Russia was _exactly_ the right
| thing to do. If he didn 't the story would have been
| covered up and he'd be sitting in a dark cell right now,
| with none of us none the wiser.
| shrubble wrote:
| It's even worse than it appears...
| https://www.zerohedge.com/political/over-10000-fbi-agents-ca...
|
| Over 25 per cent (at the least) of FBI employees can access
| secret databases on people.
|
| 'In his investigation, Horowitz found that none of the 29
| randomly chosen queries had been carried out properly or
| legally. Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) said from an earlier
| conversation with Horowitz that in 25 of the cases, "there was
| unsupported, uncorroborated, or inconsistent information." The
| FBI couldn't even produce the relevant investigative files in
| the other four.'
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Any query made by the FBI of this sort of data would at
| minimum be CJI exempt from most disclosure. For FISA stuff,
| even more controls would be in place
| cde-v wrote:
| Any better sources than Zerohedge/Epoch Times?
| vinyl7 wrote:
| I'm not sure I believe much about what Snowden released. I see
| him as more of a psyop agent than a whistleblower. The govt
| could have orchestrated that whole ordeal to instill a chilling
| effect on the population, none of it had to be true for the
| population to react and self censor
| wnevets wrote:
| [flagged]
| saurik wrote:
| I might be missing something, but it seems the only reason
| that Russia has much of any leverage on him now is
| specifically because we are persecuting him in the first
| place?
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/ex-kgb-spy-the-russians-
| tric...
|
| Like, to the extent to which an early plan to target him was
| a success, it involved a critical later step where the United
| States goes on a hunt for Snowden, allowing Russia the
| ability to later get him stuck there and under their
| control... delete that part and I am unsure what the plan
| would have been.
|
| I'd claim the reality of the morality here is that we should
| not have to rely on the awkward motives of some enemy
| intelligence agency to target people and maneuver them into
| doing _something good_ because, in our zeal to _prevent
| something good_ , we do bad things that allow them to get an
| indirect benefit that results in something bad.
| wnevets wrote:
| He fled to the country with directions from russia _before_
| releasing the classified Intel.
| ztrfy wrote:
| Nonsense. He gave the material to Greenwald and a
| Guardian journalist in Hong Kong. He stayed in Hong Kong
| for a while, and when it became apparent that _he could
| not go to other countries_ he went to Russia.
|
| Whether the Guardian published the info after that is
| irrelevant. Also note that Greenwald asked him to publish
| anonymously, which Snowden declined.
|
| Anyway, the U.S. could pardon him and he would go back.
|
| All these armchair whistleblowers here are mindblowing.
| wnevets wrote:
| > Nonsense. He gave the material to Greenwald and a
| Guardian journalist in Hong Kong. He stayed in Hong Kong
| for a while, and when it became apparent that he could
| not go to other countries he went to Russia.
|
| Is that just another way of saying he fled the country
| before releasing the stolen intelligence?
| noman-land wrote:
| Sometimes you live in Russia if you have no other options.
| wnevets wrote:
| Vindman didn't flee to Russia, he also didn't get tricked
| by a foreign nation. He's a real whistleblower.
| Amezarak wrote:
| Vindman lied to advance the interests of the security
| state, which attempted for more than four years to get
| rid of an elected official. The only difference is unlike
| all the endless parade of false "anonymous official says
| this", Vindman was exposed, and his report was not just
| false but widely reported to be so, unlike many of the
| others.
|
| That's not whistleblowing. It's a (high ranking)
| government agent attempting to use his power to
| manipulate the public for the security state (literally
| one of the elite as a member of the National Security
| Council) and in opposition to democratic processes. Once
| again: a government agent "whistleblew" a lie in an
| attempt to bring down an elected official.
|
| NB: this comment is not an endorsement of the elected
| official.
|
| Edit: I just learned today that Vindman was born in
| Ukraine, which also rather changes the color of his
| "whistleblowing."
| wnevets wrote:
| Was this before or after working with pizzagate?
| pyuser583 wrote:
| "Conscience does make cowards of us all" - Shakespeare
| pnt12 wrote:
| In general, people with a conscience and acting accordingly
| suffer more or less gravely. Perhaps this is to be expected,
| unfortunately.
|
| We should support whistle-blowers much more, but this feels like
| a problem very hard to solve. How can we trust the state to
| protect those denouncing the state? Or corporations protecting
| those denouncing the corporation?
|
| Seems like it's inevitable that the person will be at odds
| against the organization.
| tycho-newman wrote:
| Karl Jung wrote about the social purpose of scapegoats years ago.
| Feels apropos.
| [deleted]
| bourbonorgin wrote:
| Parts of this blog post read like they are nearly plagiarized
| right out of Whistleblowers: Broken Lives and Organizational
| Power by C. Fred Alford
|
| good post otherwise
| gerikson wrote:
| This outlet seems pretty Putin-friendly:
| https://covertactionmagazine.com/category/ukraine/
| 0xDEF wrote:
| Why is it a problem to be Putin-friendly? I don't understand
| how you can praise Snowden and completely ignore what he has
| been telling us about the Ukraine and Russia and why we can't
| trust what US media and politicians are telling us.
| throwawaaarrgh wrote:
| I've thought about blowing the whistle but I'm honestly too
| afraid. Even if I do, nothing changes. Companies get tiny fines
| and executives keep their bonuses, yet the whistle-blower's life
| is ruined.
| bowsamic wrote:
| I know a lot of people who take a seriously negative view against
| whistleblowers, which I find very strange. Do you not want to
| know the messed up shit that the companies and government are
| doing? I think people just see it as being a traitor.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| Because there is a thin line between a whistleblower and a
| traitor. A whistleblower releases information about "messed up
| shit", a traitor releases legitimate secret information, how do
| you call someone who releases both?
| MattGaiser wrote:
| Depends. Many people also have things they wish to hide, from
| affairs to drug use to embezzlement to their politics to just
| their sexual orientation. So they have to balance preferring to
| know about the wrongdoing of others (in the opinion of the
| whistleblower) vs having their own secrets revealed by someone
| close to them with a similar mindset, who may view their
| activities as wrong.
| bourbonorgin wrote:
| isn't that the premise of this blog post
| bowsamic wrote:
| I didn't read it
| ITB wrote:
| On the other hand, there are people that look at whistleblowing
| as a way to propel into fame. They call themselves and
| whistleblowers when in reality they are just publicly critiquing
| their company over known facts. They give whistleblowing a bad
| reputation.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| I often wonder if such people are being encourage by those who
| seek to undermine the concept of whistleblowing as a whole.
| Like encouraging the appending of 'gate' to every scandal name,
| even trivial ones, to minimize the seriousness of Watergate.
|
| EDIT: I should point out that an effective strategy to
| undermine opposition is to encourage the worst in them by
| secretly supporting those who embody the worst. When doing this
| it helps to have contacts in the media on your payroll.
| whitemary wrote:
| Whistleblowers don't do that. The media does. Do you know
| what whistleblowing is?
| [deleted]
| throwaway27391 wrote:
| [flagged]
| throwaway426079 wrote:
| Is the motivation to minimize the seriousness of Watergate? I
| just take it as a lazy way of tagging a story and I suspect
| many headline writers couldn't even summarise what the
| original Watergate scandal involved.
| whitemary wrote:
| That's not whistleblowing, so no, it does not give
| whistleblowing a bad name. This is actually very simple.
| throwaway27391 wrote:
| the media labels them whistleblowers though so doesn't it?
| klyrs wrote:
| Do you have examples of people who have been enriched by so-
| called whistleblowing?
| throwaway27391 wrote:
| Frances Haugen did it pretty successfully and all turned out
| to be nothing
|
| Ashley Gjovik's motive is $$, but so far nothing but the
| email from the CEO from months after she was fired [https://w
| ww.theregister.com/2023/02/01/nlrb_apple_labor_laws...]
|
| [https://github.com/justiceatapple/Apple-
| Retaliation/blob/mai...] "my price is enough money to launch
| my human rights firm next to a beach house in Kona"
|
| huge net with a disappointing catch, hopefully consulting is
| going well for her [https://github.com/justiceatapple/Apple-
| Retaliation/blob/mai...]
| [https://github.com/justiceatapple/Apple-
| Retaliation/blob/mai...]
|
| _EDIT_
| [https://twitter.com/ashleygjovik/status/1652765868927877121]
| Apparently visiting Ashley's website and clicking on a link
| directly to a folder called Apple-Retaliation is stalking?
| [https://github.com/justiceatapple/Apple-Retaliation]
| hundreds of files? more like 30? why do you post this stuff
| if you don't want people to read it...?
| ITB wrote:
| I think Frances Haugen just wanted to be famous. She didn't
| whistleblow anything really and yet called herself a
| whistleblower.
| bourbonorgin wrote:
| [flagged]
| jruohonen wrote:
| Sure; all kinds of motives may be involved. It would be
| interesting to read a study on how these laws and their
| practices have worked in practice and what kind of issues have
| been reported. From the article's references I found this:
|
| https://www.alumni.hbs.edu/stories/Pages/story-bulletin.aspx...
|
| I suppose much of the reports have been about financial
| mishandling, work safety, and such things, maybe things like
| environment protection violations thrown in.
| efitz wrote:
| Aside from power dynamics, one of the challenges with being a
| whistleblower is that you are making a moral transgression with
| respect to your organization. One of the commonly accepted
| foundations of most peoples' morality is loyalty [1]. So you are
| not only exposing people to legal risk and to risk of losing
| power and/or standing, but you are quite literally a traitor from
| the point of view of the organization you blew the whistle in.
|
| Like much of the rest of the culture war US people find ourselves
| in, I am fearful of the disparate treatment given whistleblowers
| nowadays. The whistleblower divulging Trump's call with Zelenskyy
| was protected by the media so much that media organizations and
| social media wouldn't even allow disclosure of the name of the
| whistleblower (which is odd because the act itself is about
| transparency). The media has been in favor of leaks forever
| because it allows holding the powerful accountable. But the leaks
| by the young man on Discord are not even being examined for
| content (such as the revelation that US troops are on the ground
| in Ukraine); the US press is decrying the leaker and demanding
| harsh punishment for revealing secrets. I literally have never
| seen the media act like that before in my life.
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_foundations_theory
| cs137 wrote:
| [dead]
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| but - it should be noted that a suffering conscience is a well-
| known cliche.
| evolve2k wrote:
| Anyone have a good example of a good "whistle blowers policy"
| from a private organisation or non-profit? Im interested to roll
| out a local policy in some of the non-profits I'm connected with.
| dmbche wrote:
| I think a good first step would be reaching out to Snowden to
| have a quick zoom call on what he has to say - I've seen him do
| quite a few zoom conferences, I can't imagine he would'nt be
| interested in chatting with you if you are serious.
| kodah wrote:
| The article only mentions her as a picture (on purpose, I'm
| sure), but I'd like to take a second to address this:
|
| Chelsea Manning is a very bad example of a whistleblower. First,
| she didn't reveal anything _new_. All the information that was
| produced was previously known. Second, she was releasing
| documents because she was angry that she was deployed. Third, she
| didn 't even _attempt_ to use the whistle blowing process in the
| military that is _quite_ in tact (it was called request mast when
| I was in but goes by different names depending on the branch).
| How she was treated afterward was terrible, but to continue
| validating her story by labeling her a whistleblower is harmful
| imo. It 's okay to say not all whistleblowers are cut from the
| same cloth while simultaneously promoting the system of request
| mast/whistleblowing in the government.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| >First, she didn't reveal anything new. All the information
| that was produced was previously known
|
| Just as a start, the Iraq War logs detailed fifteen thousand
| previously unknown civilian deaths.
|
| While you can argue we knew our military was doing terrible
| stuff, without her leaks it wouldn't have been clear what
| terrible stuff they were doing.
|
| >Second, she was releasing documents because she was angry that
| she was deployed
|
| Source? While I'm not 100% clear what her motivations were,
| I've never heard that claim.
|
| As for the third, it was clear what she released was being
| hidden. I can't imagine what the proper channel would be for
| something like the "collateral murder" video. "Hey you know
| that time you killed journalists and lied about it? Well
| there's evidence you lied about it."
| kodah wrote:
| > While you can argue we knew our military was doing terrible
| stuff, without her leaks it wouldn't have been clear what
| terrible stuff they were doing.
|
| The Iraq war logs weren't even mostly about _us_. They were
| mostly about our partners. Her testimony aligns to what those
| databases were for. [1]
|
| > Source? While I'm not 100% clear what her motivations were,
| I've never heard that claim.
|
| I was trying to find the chat logs from IRC that make that
| situation a lot more emblematic. She was having relationship
| issues at the time and was demurred by long deployment
| times/work. (To her credit, I did a similar deployment for
| roughly a year and they _are_ exhausting) In her testimony
| she glosses over much of what was in the chat logs, instead
| trying to explain her actions from a place of promoting
| "national discourse".
|
| The helicopter gunship situation is accurate. If there's
| anything she released that was useful it was that.
|
| 1: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/mar/01/bradley-
| mannin...
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| On 1, she says
|
| >The CIDNE-I and CIDNE-A databases contain reporting and
| analysis fields for multiple disciplines including Human
| Intelligence or HUMINT reports, Psychological Operations or
| PSYOP reports, Engagement reports, Counter Improvised
| Explosive Device or CIED reports, SigAct reports, Targeting
| reports, Social and Cultural reports, Civil Affairs
| reports, and Human Terrain reporting.
|
| They're the reports we made and the actions we took. How is
| that not about us?
|
| She seemed to be genuinely unhappy with life when she
| whistleblew, but to me it seemed more like "I'm unhappy so
| let's make a grand move" than "let's get revenge on the
| military for my unhappiness."
| kodah wrote:
| She says elsewhere in that testimony that the reports in
| which civilians were killed, raped, and sexual assaults
| mostly had to do with the police and military of the host
| countries (Iraq and Afghanistan). This lines up with my
| experience as well; we were repeatedly advised to stay
| out of the locals business, or how they run their
| judicial system is up to them. This same judicial system
| is how you have multi-time trigger men and bomb makers
| that somehow left Kabul unphased after leaving their
| courts.
|
| > "I'm unhappy so let's make a grand move" than "let's
| get revenge on the military for my unhappiness."
|
| I don't really see a difference between the two besides
| intent. Intent isn't really something that matters in
| today's world.
|
| What I would've liked to have seen is if she joined the
| service members trying to whistleblow on ineffective and
| dangerous ROEs, the lies told by the Obama administration
| about the success of the Iraqi and Afghani police and
| military, etc... Instead, she released just enough vague
| and sensational stuff to spur conspiracy theories.
|
| To be clear, I understand the frustration that inspired
| Chelsea to do what she did, but I think how you do these
| things both affords (or removes) protections, and matters
| a great deal more if you're actually trying to make a
| difference. That along side the content of what's
| released; in the case of Snowden there absolutely wasn't
| anyone to appeal to. In Chelsea's case there certainly
| was.
| ok_dad wrote:
| > whistle blowing process in the military
|
| I was also in the military, and can tell you if she had
| complained no one would have cared and probably would have just
| gotten her into more trouble. Whistleblowing to the military
| chain of command is just for stuff like if your CO is stealing
| money or your LT is coercing a sailor into a sexual
| relationship, not for stuff that makes the military look bad.
| The stuff Manning released was definitely not stuff you would
| take to 'mast'.
| kodah wrote:
| That's not really true, when I was in I was cognizant of a
| group of Marines that were being charged due to a request
| mast. They did have to request past their local unit
| leadership, which the process allowed for.
| kingcharles wrote:
| If you discover law enforcement or prosecutors committing crimes,
| who do you report it to?
|
| This is a serious question.
|
| You can only report it to their peers, and I promise you, from
| personal experience, that you will get absolutely nowhere except,
| like Snowden, have an entire world of hurt come down on you
| instead.
|
| I can not recommend whistleblowing to anyone. If you see the
| government going wrong, ignore it. Walk away. You only have one
| life. How many years of it do you want to write off?
|
| What we actually need is better and better procedures for
| anonymously reporting misconduct to a body that will actually
| hold people accountable. Many investigative bodies end up being
| staffed by those somewhat related or associated with the persons
| under investigation and therefore guaranteed to produce no
| meaningful results.
|
| I don't know how to construct a body that actually works
| effectively, but I would love links to any good studies or
| articles on this.
| lost_tourist wrote:
| If it's local, report it to the state, if it's the state report
| it to the feds, if it's the feds your only real option is to do
| it and run to another country, or keep your mouth shut and just
| find a new job. This process has repeated itself many times in
| the news if you research it.
| dmbche wrote:
| I've been thinking about some kind of "regular human inspector"
| where companies have to pay a government inspector to just ask
| common sense questions and be a place to bring issues that
| can't be dealt with internally.
|
| Since they change regularily, bribing becomes unrealistic, we
| don't need high salaries or expertise. It's a very coarse idea
| still.
|
| I'm just rambling here!
| penguin_booze wrote:
| Whistle blowing policies are not worth the paper on which it's
| written. Equally worth are HR grievance policies (of all kinds).
| The sure outcome of invoking either is that (1) you'll lose your
| job (2) you'll never find a job again.
|
| One difference with blowing the whistle, though, is that it'll
| lead to your death: you'll be killed if you're lucky. If not,
| you'll lead a painful life of professional and social
| ostracization, which will eventually lead to suicide. So, choose
| your poison.
| neilv wrote:
| I think there's some degree of truth to this, but that you're
| overstating it.
|
| A realistic takehome message is that sometimes it's best to
| just walk away.
|
| Sometimes you can even ask for help with the walking away
| gracefully.
|
| (When asking for help leaving, from within the organization...
| I suspect you'll need either trustworthy institutional
| mechanisms for that, or to find one or more individuals who are
| smart, of good character, and who have the ability to help.
| Don't ask the wrong person for help.)
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| Just look at this thread of "hackers" saying "well the law is the
| law."
|
| It's an embarrassment the degree to which smart educated leading
| edge communities have totally and utterly forfeited their own
| power for the security blanket of these domination based systems.
|
| Actually it's worse, the official ethos of success in America is
| now some cynical mix of "If you're not scamming someone you're
| not trying" and "Altruism is for suckers"
|
| It's like we've gotten to the point where even the people who
| disagree with Ayn Rand Objectvism have given up and just decided
| to play the same game just with different set of moral criteria
|
| Or maybe this is a venture capitalist forum and of course it's
| going to be overrun by people who believe in some version of
| domination as the right moral philosophy.
| Convolutional wrote:
| Slashdot was a hacker forum, initially (prior to 1999). This
| has been a forum seen as an adjacency to a seed/VC incubator
| from the get-go.
|
| People keeping to their roots and not going for the money like
| Richard Stallman are mocked. Steven Levy glorifies him in
| Hackers, then takes a break from books glorifying the Google
| corporation, and when Stallman is down delivers a coup de grace
| to Stallman in Wired, for soi disant very progressive reasons.
|
| Of course Wired was founded by Rossetto as a continuation of
| the "New Right" project he was talking about in the New York
| Times in 1971.
|
| I myself am not surprised that people wander out of their prep
| schools and universities into these corporations and hold these
| views. People's hegemonic ideas are borne from the material
| conditions and class relations they are in.
| southernplaces7 wrote:
| >Actually it's worse, the official ethos of success in America
| is now some cynical mix of "If you're not scamming someone
| you're not trying" and "Altruism is for suckers"
|
| And you're so certain that all of these people on this site
| saying "well the law is the law" are Americans? No perfectly
| obedient, money-loving Europeans among them? Absurd.
| colordrops wrote:
| I was prepping to reply and you hit my point in your last
| paragraph. Through my youth I always assumed that people either
| saw through the corruption or had the wool pulled over their
| eyes, but the after working at a couple companies with several
| ex military contractor types and some some new inlaws, I've
| realized that for some people, tribe is above all. They are
| patriotic and loyal to the US system, which can do no wrong,
| and any perceived security or survival needs will always trump
| law and morals. These are the same thought processes that fuel
| the rise of fascism.
| NHQ wrote:
| Conscience is rarely a good thing.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| Explain.
| [deleted]
| yarg wrote:
| I continue to maintain that Snowden was one of the greatest
| American patriots in decades.
|
| There are many leakers that deliberately act with the intention
| to harm the state; That wasn't Snowden - he threw away his life
| to stage an intervention.
|
| Why has he been left to rot in a dictatorship?
|
| I'd say sign a pardon for the man, but unless he can get out of
| Russia there's a damned good chance that things would only get
| worse for him.
| 0xDEF wrote:
| I am 99% sure Snowden is cringing at the term "American
| patriots".
|
| Snowden's primary motivation was most likely opposition to US
| foreign policy and control of the world. There is no other
| reason to contact Glenn Greenwald in late 2012. In 2008-2012
| Glenn Greenwald was primarily known as one of the harshest
| opponents of US foreign policy and someone who didn't shy away
| from defending Russia, Iran and other geopolitical adversaries
| of the US.
|
| If it was about anti-surveillance/pro-privacy activism there
| are so many other ways Snowden could have leaked it and so many
| other people and organizations he could have leaked to. Snowden
| would probably be living in Vienna by now and not in Moscow if
| he was just an anti-surveillance activist. However his primary
| motivation for the leaks was to lower US influence and control
| of the rest of the world.
|
| Snowden is a world citizen who opposed what "American patriots"
| were doing to the rest of the world.
| lost_tourist wrote:
| He has stated his primary reason was that he was pro-privacy
| and anti-surveillance. There is no reason to doubt this. He
| had a huge trove of info he could have sold to China or
| Russia and he didn't. He has given us no reason to not
| believe him, and if you're paying attention to Washington
| you'll see why he didn't go through those channels,
| especially in the era of shipping off people to be tortured
| in other countries and "water boarding" is just "coercive
| means".
| ITB wrote:
| They would need a secret pardon agreement so he leaves at the
| same time he's pardoned
| eunos wrote:
| Because there's asymmetric of impact and incentive. If I leak
| some politicians' corrupt dealing, practically no much impact to
| general folks (because direct impact is divided to millions of
| people), but for those politicians directly impacted, absolute
| negative and they have all the incentive including power to do so
| to silence the whistle-blower.
| HSNomad wrote:
| There is a saying goes like this,
|
| "85% of people on earth are followers, 10% are leaders or
| creators, or manipulators and 5% are observers. The followers
| need something to follow or believe so the creators capitalize on
| that and take advantage of their desire to be lead. The observers
| see everything that's going on and can ruin everything for the
| 10% but, the 85% label the 5% crazy or plan to get rid of them
| because the 10% have control."
| jutrewag wrote:
| [dead]
| lionkor wrote:
| 800 million leaders in the world, and 400 million
| whisleblowers?
| kwere wrote:
| "team leaders", self-employed and small informal business
| owner could easily fill that number. One just need to be a
| self-starter, sociable and have an organization to manage
| whatshisface wrote:
| It sounds plausible that one in ten people are leaders,
| although I don't know how you could measure how many people
| would report a crime if they saw it occur.
| umvi wrote:
| Some whistleblowers are just disgruntled and are not acting out
| of a sense of moral obligation but are rather whistleblowing as a
| form of vengeance
| tmp20230324 wrote:
| I'm sure there is some truth to your statement. I don't think
| it negates the need for society to protect whistleblowers who
| do so under a sense of moral obligation though (which is what
| the article is about).
| lost_tourist wrote:
| Does that matter if what they are whisteblowing about is
| corrupt and it's true?
| tootie wrote:
| John Kiriakou springs to mind a guy who leaked classified info
| mixed with a bit of incorrect hearsay to push an agenda.
|
| Julian Assange leaked the DNC emails on behalf of Russian
| intelligence.
|
| And even the guy who turned out to be Deep Throat admitted he
| did what he did out of pure spite over failure to earn
| recognition for his role in the crime.
| [deleted]
| etiam wrote:
| With regard to the whistle, Ed Snowden described in his memoirs
| an old naval system of communication with whistles, and in
| particular how they could be used to signal that there were
| things wrong with the ship which put it in danger and warranted
| it promptly being taken to port for rectification.
|
| I don't really have any independent information as to whether
| that or this present post's reference to Victorian policemen
| giving chase is more true for the origins of the whistleblower
| expression, but Snowden's certainly seems more apt for the act.
| euroderf wrote:
| Aren't weaknesses in current whistleblower laws pretty well
| understood ? By the bureaucrats that exploit them, and by the
| journos that report on them ?
|
| So have rewrites been proposed in Congress ? Or by any of Biden's
| people ?
|
| Or are they ALL in on the whistleblower "protection" scam ?
| WeylandYutani wrote:
| At least one day people will appreciate you see Emily Bronte.
| paulmd wrote:
| Whistleblowers act against power structures and that's the
| ultimate transgression as far as the power structure is
| concerned.
|
| Transgressions in favor of the state are one thing, you'll get a
| slap on the wrist at most, even personal benefit and promotion in
| some cases, but transgressions _against the state_ are what will
| provoke a real response. See, for example, the incredible vigor
| pursued against the people who released the collateral murder
| videos, and not the people in the video who violated the geneva
| conventions by murdering surrendering combatants. One
| transgressed in favor of the state, and one against. That 's all
| that matters.
|
| And of course the power structure has investigated itself and
| found no wrong-doing, something something "you can't surrender to
| a helicopter therefore we were fine to shoot them", or whatever.
| You can't get a hmmwv out to a site during a decade-long
| occupation to take them in, better shoot them I guess.
|
| It is the same thing in corporations too: you can be incompetent
| or your project can fail, and that's fine as long as you don't
| _rock the boat_. It 's actually probably worse to rock the boat
| and try to save a failing project, not only do you take it on
| yourself if it fails (which it likely will anyway, because they
| won't listen/the project is too far gone) but even if it succeeds
| you've stuck your head up and shown yourself to not be a yes-man.
| We want team players here, not someone who's going to kick up a
| fuss and argue with the boss or jump them on the ladder. Doesn't
| matter if what you said was true or not, you don't transgress the
| power structures.
| jiggywiggy wrote:
| What makes it worse is, whistleblowers are trouble makers
| often. They are difficult people, at best like Snowden, they
| lay low. It makes it easier to dismiss them. Why? Because
| people who are good and social with the group do not have a
| contrarian character. To whistleblow against a very powerful
| organisation, like the NSA, you have to be a pain in the ass. I
| don't mean that in a bad way. Normal sociable people just don't
| do that.
|
| So when a whistleblower breaks out, and they get chastised
| there almost is never support from within the organization for
| them.
| nullc wrote:
| "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the
| unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to
| himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable
| man."
| southernplaces7 wrote:
| >Because people who are good and social with the group do not
| have a contrarian character. To whistleblow against a very
| powerful organisation, like the NSA, you have to be a pain in
| the ass. I don't mean that in a bad way. Normal sociable
| people just don't do that.
|
| You're making way too simplistic a generalization here. Some
| sociable people can be sociable and friendly with a group
| until that group changes and they decide that it no longer
| fits their morality. They can still be contrarians, and then
| make waves anyhow. You absolutely don't have to be an
| introverted, hard nosed loner to end up being a whistleblower
| or contrarian troublemaker. This sounds a bit more like
| wishful fantasy for people who are socially inept trying to
| paint it as more noble.
|
| If anything, a sociable, open person is more likely to have
| the kind of self assured personality that makes them decide
| it's not a problem to disagree among their peer group
| whenever it becomes necessary. Read more history, it's full
| of troublemakers who were also sociable.
| jvm_fan wrote:
| [flagged]
| hourago wrote:
| > whistleblowers are trouble makers often ... Why? Because
| people who are good and social with the group do not have a
| contrarian character.
|
| Most "troublemakers", as you call them, that I have known are
| people deeply moral and worried about their peers and
| society. I have seen two types, thou. Some have such a strong
| moral compass that will fight for what is right even knowing
| that it will have consequences. And the naive ones that think
| that, as they are morally right, the structures of power will
| recognize their sins and correct the situation. None of them
| were anti-social.
|
| But that is just my personal experience.
| watwut wrote:
| Are they really? And frankly, I have seen enough amoral
| contrarians, contrarians just for the sake of having fun to
| understand why they are dismissed.
|
| And actual real world lite "whistle-blower" I have Deen was
| not like that.
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| [flagged]
| GalenErso wrote:
| I disagree with the idea that we are run by psychopaths.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Don't know where you live, but check what it takes to end
| up nominated as a candidate in one of the top parties in
| your country. It's either the wealthy and well connected
| elites or the unscrupulous psychos that end up lying,
| cheating and backstabbing their way to the top.
|
| The sane, honest people either get filtered out or end up
| converted by the toxic corrupt system. It's similar in
| other government or private organizations where power is
| at stake.
| nostrademons wrote:
| You must be one of those agreeable people.
| GalenErso wrote:
| Yes.
| HeckFeck wrote:
| That's exactly the problem. You know they are speaking an
| essential truth when you look at the feathers ruffled by
| Snowden, Assange and those who follow in their path.
|
| They will get their due acclaim if we're lucky to have a more
| moral and free society in the future.
| phailhaus wrote:
| I am not a fan of the idea that "oh, the right people are
| mad, therefore it must have been a Good thing to do!" The
| same feathers would have been ruffled if Snowden had leaked
| our nuclear codes. The point is that he exposed wrongdoing,
| and _the public agreed_.
|
| There are plenty of people who are punished by the state that
| the majority does _not_ believe are "speaking an essential
| truth". For example: domestic terrorists.
| myshpa wrote:
| > leaked our nuclear codes
|
| You mean 00000000 ?
|
| https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/12/launch-code-
| for-...
| suzzer99 wrote:
| There's a difference between releasing everything, and only
| releasing stuff Russia wants you to release, like Assange was
| doing.
| eastbound wrote:
| The proof that this argument is not the true reason why he
| was targeted, is that he was targeted for rape. When there
| is such a great discrepancy between means and meaning, it's
| when motives are dishonest, couldn't be admitted in public,
| and wouldn't pass a common man's test.
| killjoywashere wrote:
| [flagged]
| throwaway27391 wrote:
| I don't think handmaiden's tale was a moral society.
| Hanging women on walls and raping them doesn't seem very
| moral. Oppression through purity propaganda more
| descriptive. A moral society wouldn't be oppressive and
| murderous.
| dmbche wrote:
| Hey, I'm a little baffled by your mention of
| Mogadishu...what are you refering?
|
| - for reference, the battle of mogadishu is the Black hawk
| down incident, and Mogadishu is the capital of Somalia.
| confoundcofound wrote:
| This is a false dichotomy. The very concept of freedom is
| based on a moral philosophy.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| There is a materialist sense of it too
| bastawhiz wrote:
| The two are not mutually exclusive or opposites on a
| spectrum. You can have a society which is neither moral nor
| free. It is possible to have a society which is both more
| moral and more free than the one we have.
| agumonkey wrote:
| Supporting whistleblower is very expensive too. Since big
| structures have means beyond any small group.. every attempt is
| paid in full by the source.
|
| We tried once on a subreddit, but even after 2 rounds of
| donation, this poor guy's life was burned to the ground 90%.
| (joblesness, lawyer fees, potential lawsuits, social anger from
| people supporting big corps, wife leaving him, no roof at
| time.. brutal)
|
| If they are to be helped, it has to be done with fine
| strategies and not a full frontal fight.
| colonwqbang wrote:
| > It is the same thing in corporations too [...]
|
| We have to be really careful with this sort of relativisation.
| Killing people in a foreign country is not the same thing as
| selling bad products or dealing with information in an
| inappropriate way, at home.
| Loquebantur wrote:
| The narrative weirdly lacks, _why_ his leak was "against power
| structures".
|
| The spin of the story has it, it was all about "spying against
| illegal activity". While really all that spying is just part of
| the objective _to actively influence states_. Not only
| passively observing your neighbors under the shower.
| Particularly civil societies. Of "allies" at first, but
| conveniently, you have five eyes, looking at each other.
|
| You don't in all seriousness spy on foreign leaders to "uncover
| child trafficking" or manipulate YT to "counter terrorism".
| Foiled plots are few and far between. Mass media manipulation
| and economic exploitation persist and are commonplace.
|
| A democratic society not subject to tight control seemingly is
| a very scary thing. Even more so when it is your own.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> The spin of the story has it, it was all about "spying
| against illegal activity". _
|
| Doing anything against the current government is illegal in
| every country and always has been. The US rebelling against
| British rule was also illegal at the time.
|
| _> A democratic society not subject to tight control
| seemingly is a very scary thing. Even more so when it is your
| own._
|
| Again, the "who watches the watchmen" question. Most of our
| western democracies are lacking checks and bounds. We can
| only vote who represents us, but we can't vote for what they
| do when in power. If we disagree with them we have to wait ~4
| more years before we can vote them out. In that time they can
| do an insane amount of irreversible damage and there's no
| consequences for them.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _If we disagree with them we have to wait ~4 more years
| before we can vote them out_
|
| Presidential elections are one among many elections. And
| elections are one component of democracy. The NRA is a
| potent example of grassroots power enforcing its policy
| views effectively and continuously.
|
| If there is an issue you care about, find like-minded
| people and see how they organise. If they don't, organise
| them.
| dsfyu404ed wrote:
| [dead]
| jvm_fan wrote:
| > It's actually probably worse to rock the boat and try to save
| a failing project, not only do you take it on yourself if it
| fails (which it likely will anyway, because they won't
| listen/the project is too far gone) but even if it succeeds
| you've stuck your head up and shown yourself to not be a yes-
| man.
|
| This is really bad career advice. There are certain situations
| where it makes sense to rock the boat, situations where it
| doesn't matter, and situations where it'll fuck you over
|
| This rule that you've come up with seems really
| overgeneralized. If I disagree with someone or someone
| disagrees with me, we reach consensus. If someone disagrees
| with me instead of just nodding at everything, it makes it
| easier to form a mental picture of what that person actually
| knows. Someone who just agrees with everything has something to
| hide
|
| This type of attitude is self perpetuating and creates an
| unproductive and political work culture
| readme wrote:
| I rocked the boat to save a failing project and then I had to
| bust my ass working 24 hour stints for several months to make
| sure it succeeded while I watched incompetent people go on
| vacations.
|
| His advice is legit.
| [deleted]
| trinsic2 wrote:
| This is why I don't operate in these power structures. From
| 1995 to 2005 I worked for corporations and seeing it was
| harmful to my well being, I decide to provide computer services
| directly to the public. Now I set my own rules, and I work very
| hard to set my own ethical spaces where people are forced to do
| the right thing if they want to operate in my world. I have
| found that people want to do the right things, but that they
| need people around them for encouragement. Treat everyone, even
| the most hardened criminals like they have it with in them to
| change and all the need is people to believe in them.
|
| For me, the dead world of the labor force takes on a symbolic
| meaning. Words are like super powers, the have resonance and
| meaning. Look at the etymology of words and the source meaning
| will always give you the correct answer to what you are
| energetically putting your life force into.
|
| corporation (n.)
|
| > mid-15c., corporacioun, "persons united in a body for some
| purpose," from such use in Anglo-Latin, from Late Latin
| corporationem (nominative corporatio) "assumption of a body"
| (used of the incarnation of Christ),
|
| > noun of action from past-participle stem of Latin corporare
| "embody, make or fashion into a body," from corpus (genitive
| corporis) "body, dead body, animal body," also "a whole
| composed of united parts, a structure, system,community,
| corporation, political body, a guild" (from PIE root *kwrep-
| "body, form, appearance").
|
| Corporations are dead things. Start small and make choices that
| slowly shifts your energy to people and things that actual have
| living essence like small business and endeavors that benefit
| the common good. We can't do in every part of our life, but
| just a slight shift can be like a cascade effect over time.
| Ghexor wrote:
| I agree wholeheartedly with your sentiment and your behavior.
| I'm grateful for everyone of us out there working with strong
| moral boundaries. Thank you!
|
| I also disagree with your perspective on corporations. To me
| they seem very much alive - in a less recognisable form, more
| complex than we can grasp with human minds.
|
| I argue mainly because I'd like to keep the term as something
| free of judgment. A group of people that comes together as a
| larger body or organism can be quite beautiful too.
| DanHulton wrote:
| > A group of people that comes together as a larger body or
| organism can be quite beautiful too.
|
| Sure, but that doesn't have to be a corporation. There are
| all kinds of terms that describe that, and they don't come
| with the clear emotional and interpretational baggage that
| "corporation" does.
|
| The term honestly isn't free of judgement, it carries with
| it a _lot_ of associations, and you can't just ignore them
| and pretend they're not there. Well, I mean you can, but
| you can't expect others to do the same. They're likely to
| interpret what you're saying as something else entirely.
|
| For example, try talking about "a corporation of
| churchgoers" and see what kinds of reactions you get. =)
| generic92034 wrote:
| While you may be less subject to corporate power structures
| the way you are operating now, you are still subject to all
| kinds of other power structures. As the GP has submitted, try
| working against the power structure of the country you are
| living in and you most likely will suffer greatly. The same
| even happens on lower levels (state, municipality, family?).
|
| And even regarding corporate power structures you are only
| avoiding a certain kind of their possible influences. For
| example, if a corporation buys up all water supply in your
| living area you can feel that influence, even if you are not
| working for them.
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| What are your thoughts on big vs small govt?
| lookdangerous wrote:
| Any large group of people organized together for enough time
| forms a body - the body of tradition and regulation.
|
| A large body of text is also known as a corpus.
|
| Both the large groups and the large texts are dead in the
| sense that they do not change of their own power. They are
| static and closed to new information.
|
| Both text and groups must be re-animated by the individual.
| loldk wrote:
| [dead]
| phailhaus wrote:
| Yeah, and it's why I think it's fundamentally impossible to
| prevent retaliation against whistleblowers. Organizations act
| in favor of self-preservation, like any living thing.
| Whistleblowers by definition act against them, so an
| organization will always benefit by removing them. Failure to
| do so will prolong the damage and encourage further
| transgressions.
| macrolocal wrote:
| Although, silencing whistleblowers is as weak a strategy as
| security through obscurity.
| lll-o-lll wrote:
| Yes exactly. Sunshine is the best disinfectant.
|
| Unfortunately, it can take a very long time for the
| organisation in question to be exposed and then reformed.
| Just look at the child-abuse within pretty much every
| organisation that had access to children. However, that
| doesn't make the fight fruitless; organisations can be
| reformed and it's worth it for society as a whole.
|
| We just need much much stronger whistleblower protections.
| staunton wrote:
| Security through obscurity is how pretty much all
| cybersecurity security works on practice. There are a few
| publicly known primitives but organizations trusted with
| implementing actual security systems will go to great
| lengths to prevent anyone finding out which of them are
| used and in what way.
| ungamedplayer wrote:
| This is a naive view of cybersecurity.
| [deleted]
| phailhaus wrote:
| I disagree, it is an _extremely_ strong strategy. You shut
| them up, they cannot inflict any more damage. The public
| can speculate what other secrets exist, but they can 't
| _know_ as they would if the whistleblower was kept around.
| The short-term negative publicity is tiny compared to the
| fallout if more information was leaked. This is why
| organizations basically always move to silence: It works.
| macintux wrote:
| It also dissuades other potential whistleblowers.
| macrolocal wrote:
| "As weak as" means "as strong as." But in your scenario,
| weakness includes failing to adequately limit political
| or moral liability internally.
| Haga wrote:
| [dead]
| anonym29 wrote:
| "Truth is treason in the empire of lies."
|
| - George Orwell
| copper-float wrote:
| Perfectly said, it encapsulates America to a tee.
| lost_tourist wrote:
| and every other country, let's let them have credit too.
| Politicians everywhere are usually pieces of shit, as are
| their henchmen
| AlbertCory wrote:
| How about the guy right now who's blowing the whistle on favored
| IRS treatment of Hunter Biden? Does he count, too?
|
| https://abcnews.go.com/US/irs-whistleblower-told-congress-hu...
| fn-mote wrote:
| He is a _potential_ whistleblower.
|
| Your linked article says: "[My client] would like to make
| protected whistleblower disclosures to Congress." "[T]here are
| no specific examples provided to support the accusations."
|
| I don't understand the tone of this post. I guess the
| implication is that whistleblower support relies on the
| political leanings of the people involved?
|
| Is it my politics talking if I say that the scale of this
| argument is completely underwhelming to me given the level of
| true atrocities being committed in the world?
|
| The article details 'incredible' examples of retaliation.
| That's the biggest concern here, not the whistleblowing.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| I think what you & the other downvoters are illustrating is:
|
| _You can only be a 'whistleblower' if you're on MY side._
| crazygringo wrote:
| ...of course? If he's correct? Who would ever argue he wouldn't
| count?
|
| But I don't know what your point is in picking one potential
| whistleblowing example out of thousands. Let's not inject
| partisan politics where there's no need for it. Whistleblowing
| has nothing to do with being right-wing or left-wing.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Who are the "Thousands" of others?
| crazygringo wrote:
| I'm assuming that if you counted every potential
| whistleblower in the US that was ever reported on in the
| national or local news over the past few decades, it would
| probably add up to something in the thousands?
| AlbertCory wrote:
| In other words, you don't have any basis for that number
| you threw out.
|
| Can there be a whistleblower exposing some official you
| _like_? Please give some examples of those.
| dmbche wrote:
| Who gives a shit about the IRS taking not enough cash from one
| guy?
|
| That's a shit hill to die on don't you think?
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Thanks for role-playing the whistleblower's experience for
| us.
| dmbche wrote:
| Anytime
| swayvil wrote:
| I'm sure we could come up with a dozen more tragic ironies about
| our society, if we tried.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Julian Assange (not a whistleblower, I know) said wars are a way
| to transfer public money into private hands.
|
| Everything in the US is about the same. Like quantitative easing.
| mint2 wrote:
| Julian assange is a hypocritical scam artist - says a bunch of
| nice sounding words about democracy, abuse of power and war and
| yet his actions, speaking louder than words, increased all of
| those.
| kome wrote:
| his actions, indeed speaking louder than words. he showed how
| the American government is corrupted to the core and lawless
| and he is facing the consequences.
| nwp882 wrote:
| [flagged]
| jruohonen wrote:
| In the EU we already have a law for protecting whistleblowers:
|
| https://commission.europa.eu/aid-development-cooperation-fun...
|
| Also companies have emerged for providing secure platforms for
| whistleblowers.
|
| Though, as national security and related things are in the hands
| of the member states, I am not sure how well this EU law and its
| national adaptations apply to the cases discussed in this article
| (probably wholesale exemptions have been adopted by the member
| states at this front).
|
| EDIT #1: At some point they also tried to draft a law for
| protecting people involved in vulnerability disclosure, which
| would have been great, but I think this lawmaking proposal
| failed.
|
| EDIT #2: I should have read the article better; it seems similar
| laws exist also in the US.
| lost_tourist wrote:
| Laws are pointless if they aren't used. The US has laws to
| allow whistleblowing. However they are so vague US prosecutors
| can easily get around them to prosecute and imprison
| whistleblowers, and the system itself is so corrupt that the
| "channels" you would use to actually do it would shut down the
| process almost immediately to save embarrassment to the
| government. The laws are just feel good laws and don't work,
| that's why people go straight to the press.
| scrum-treats wrote:
| [flagged]
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| The US also has laws protecting whistleblowers, which to me
| just highlighted the complete moral bankruptcy of some
| Republican members of the US Congress when they tried to out
| the whistleblower who brought Trump's phone call with the
| Ukrainian president to light, but more importantly, when they
| tried to impugn his motives.
|
| The thing that made me so angry about this is that a huge point
| of whistleblower laws is that _it doesn 't matter what the
| motives of the whistleblower are_. Of course many
| whistleblowers are disgruntled for various reasons, but who
| cares? Whistleblowing laws aren't about taking the
| whistleblower's accusations at face value, it's just about
| protecting whistleblowers' ability to bring inside information
| and evidence to light, and then that information can be
| investigated independently.
|
| The push by folks like Rand Paul to expose and condemn the
| whistleblower was one of the most disgusting political acts
| I've ever seen.
| bourbonorgin wrote:
| are there any whistleblowers who keep working in their field
| in the US?
| RobotToaster wrote:
| US law doesn't allow public interest as a defence defence,
| that was partly why Snowden refused to return to the US.
| https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Justice-
| Dept-s...
| h2odragon wrote:
| I found the treatment of Julian Assange to be the disgusting
| poltics; after that its just more of the same, innit?
| alphanullmeric wrote:
| No, it's not the same because it doesn't benefit him this
| time. Leftists are like libertarians, if libertarians only
| applied their principles to themselves. Bodily autonomy,
| firearm rights, private property, taxation, misinformation
| censorship, death penalty, etc. Whether or not they support
| it depends not on what it does but who it benefits, and so
| a left winger can never truly take a concrete position like
| "I support gun control" when they need to make exceptions
| for SRA, Natives, Palestinians, etc.
| gghhzzgghhzz wrote:
| Putting aside your implied definition of Leftists here.
| The Palestinian point is broadly enlightening, but maybe
| not in the way you intended. Armed struggle for the
| purpose of self determination should be materially
| supported in Ukraine, but not in Palestine. This is the
| glowing contradiction, and I'm not sure real leftists are
| the most guilty party here.
| throwaway27391 wrote:
| [flagged]
| yarg wrote:
| US complicity has permitted the decades long ethnic
| cleansing of Palestine to continue unabated.
|
| It is truly abhorrent.
|
| However, there's a significant difference between arming
| a nation under invasion, and arming religious
| fundamentalists.
| alphanullmeric wrote:
| I don't want to materially support either country.
| gghhzzgghhzz wrote:
| As someone who considers themselves on the left, i have
| broadly the same view.
|
| I also don't have a hard view on gun control, because if
| the state authorities are militarised then it's hard to
| argue that civil society can't be. The solution for this
| of course is to demilitarise the police.
| gghhzzgghhzz wrote:
| The treatment of Assange defies belief, and the hypocrisy
| is off the scale. The defense from many people who would
| nominally be appalled by this, seems to rest on the poor
| character of Assange, so he gets written off. The poor
| character point may or may not be correct, but is
| completely irrelevant, and if it relates to civil or
| criminal offences then it has never been allowed to be
| tested.
| kelipso wrote:
| Also it's just insanely easy to malign the character of
| someone with a few well placed news articles and tweets.
| mnaxv wrote:
| The cartoon at the top of the article highlights the fact that
| the laws aren't working (the UK was in the EU when some of
| these people were imprisoned).
| wsc981 wrote:
| Yet the EU continues to make life very difficult for EU
| whistleblower Roelie Post [0].
|
| Perhaps because she fought against child trafficking and US-
| based adoption firms are lobbying in the EU for adopting
| vulnerable children from countries like Romania.
|
| ---
|
| [0]: http://www.roeliepost.com/about/
| jruohonen wrote:
| I didn't know that. Nor am I claiming that the law is working
| properly or have any evidence to any direction. The recent
| issues at UN are also "interesting":
|
| https://www.transparency.org/en/press/un-whistleblower-
| expos...
| vinay_ys wrote:
| Why isn't whistleblowing fully anonymous? Is it because of spam
| and investigative bandwidth challenges? Given the progress with
| LLMs recently, I suspect in the very near future we would have AI
| filters that receive anonymous whistleblower reports, process it
| for validity and route it to a large number of reporters and
| other public members for further handling without putting the
| original whistleblower at risk. For most sensitive things, if
| record-keeping was tamper-proof through publicly verifiable
| cryptographic mechanisms (decentralised crypto blockchains for
| information would become the biggest utility use case of crypto
| tech - that's my bet), then it would make such automated
| investigations of records much much easier.
| nahnahg wrote:
| [dead]
| mvdl wrote:
| Most whistleblowers have a high moral and ethical standard. In
| current societies where people make it to the top lying, cheating
| and misusing or even suppressing others, we watch movies about
| Jedi and turn a blind eye to the dark side the minute the TV is
| turned off. Humans are an odd species.
| pnt12 wrote:
| I think I read this about the original Simpsons: they were very
| critical of certain things, such as environmental dangers. But
| most people tuning in fantasize their role in protecting the
| environment, then go in with their lives without doing much
| about it.
|
| I think this is deep in all sorts of media with a positive
| message - scratch the moral itch so you don't have to do it in
| reality.
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