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Whistleblowers are the conscience of society, yet suffer gravely
331–340 of 510 posts
Re: Whistleblowers are the conscience of society, yet suffer gravely
#332In 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.
Re: Whistleblowers are the conscience of society, yet suffer gravely
#333Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
This is a naive view of cybersecurity.
Re: Whistleblowers are the conscience of society, yet suffer gravely
#334Earlier quoted context omitted.
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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.
Those docs are not the final word. Further, it’s done with the express purpose to route around laws. There’s probably no standing to sue.
It has a well-sourced Wikipedia page for crying out loud.
But good job trying to sow doubt on a well-understood subject.
Re: Whistleblowers are the conscience of society, yet suffer gravely
#335Parts 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
It's in the reference list.
Re: Whistleblowers are the conscience of society, yet suffer gravely
#336Some whistleblowers are just disgruntled and are not acting out of a sense of moral obligation but are rather whistleblowing as a form of vengeance
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.
> Julian Assange leaked the DNC emails on behalf of Russian intelligence.
Journalists report on leaks from intelligence all the time, to the point that the "Intelligence sources say"-phrase is becoming a meme of US "news".
You can't open CNN or MSNBC without seeing some FBI or CIA head telling you what they want you to think.
Why something is being leaked is relevant, but it shouldn't be a reason to ignore the truth or attack the journalist.
Re: Whistleblowers are the conscience of society, yet suffer gravely
#337Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
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.
The word "thousands" is entirely irrelevant.
And I already made clear, of course there can be a whistleblower on somebody you like, if that person broke the law. People aren't above the law, end of story. So why are you asking for examples? Examples don't matter. It's a principle that applies no matter which side of the political aisle you're on.
Re: Whistleblowers are the conscience of society, yet suffer gravely
#338Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
This is a naive view of cybersecurity.
What's a better and non-naive view? Bonus points if you can explain why it's impossible to develop and sell a link encryptor running OS software.
Re: Whistleblowers are the conscience of society, yet suffer gravely
#339Earlier quoted context omitted.
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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.
It depends on how you define "moral", I guess. The people in power in that story believed themselves to be following the highest moral code of them all. You and I would of course disagree with their morals, but I think that's just evidence that "moral code" is an invented thing, and is something people agree on, not an absolute truth.
Re: Whistleblowers are the conscience of society, yet suffer gravely
#340Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
"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."
At times it's justified to be unreasonable