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Whistleblowers are the conscience of society, yet suffer gravely

covertactionmagazine.com

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Re: Whistleblowers are the conscience of society, yet suffer gravely

#321

Post by suzzer99 »

HeckFeck wrote: post #126
paulmd wrote: post #71

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 relea…

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.

There's a difference between releasing everything, and only releasing stuff Russia wants you to release, like Assange was doing.

Re: Whistleblowers are the conscience of society, yet suffer gravely

#322

Post by bhawks »

handedness wrote: post #211
penneallagricia wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, then why punish whistleblowers so harshly? Countries should consider it a useful public service.

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…

See the successes of spycraft in South America. It has been truly a blessing to all people living there.

Re: Whistleblowers are the conscience of society, yet suffer gravely

#323

Post by pnt12 »

mvdl wrote: post #310

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.

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.

Re: Whistleblowers are the conscience of society, yet suffer gravely

#324

Post by JumpCrisscross »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #179
Loquebantur wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

>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…

> 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.

Re: Whistleblowers are the conscience of society, yet suffer gravely

#325

Post by eastbound »

suzzer99 wrote: post #321
HeckFeck wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There's a difference between releasing everything, and only releasing stuff Russia wants you to release, like Assange was doing.

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.

Re: Whistleblowers are the conscience of society, yet suffer gravely

#326

Post by staunton »

macrolocal wrote: post #255
phailhaus wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Although, silencing whistleblowers is as weak a strategy as security through obscurity.

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.

Re: Whistleblowers are the conscience of society, yet suffer gravely

#327

Post by mixmastamyk »

copper-float wrote: post #166
mandmandam wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 m…

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.

Unfortunately, regular folks have no idea how to do proper research. Not even academic level, but merely separating out low-quality obvious misinformation.

Re: Whistleblowers are the conscience of society, yet suffer gravely

#328

Post by stevenhuang »

pastacacioepepe wrote: post #192
nullityrofl wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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?

> 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

Re: Whistleblowers are the conscience of society, yet suffer gravely

#329

Post by mixmastamyk »

pif wrote: post #77
SQueeeeeL wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

Yeah, a “catastrophe” for innocent people everywhere.

Re: Whistleblowers are the conscience of society, yet suffer gravely

#330

Post by pnt12 »

andrewmutz wrote: post #22
freetime2 wrote: post #17

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.

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.

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.

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