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Whistleblowers are the conscience of society, yet suffer gravely

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

#391

Post by logicchains »

penneallagricia wrote: post #119
andrewmutz wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

>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.

They're basically vassal states. With no meaningful armies of their own, they rely on the US for their protection, so they're in no position to challenge it.

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

#392

Post by kodah »

kelnos wrote: post #352
kodah wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why can't both things be true? Like any large organization, different parts of it behave in different ways. While you had a good impression of the whistleblowing infrastructure due to your experience, it's perfectly reasonable and unsurprising that others might have a bad impression of it due to their experience. And perhaps Manning was one of those latter people.

That can be true, but you can't really have your cake and eat it too though, no? If the process is robust enough for serious internal affairs and someone skips requesting mast, which they can do all the way up to the President, then the next question is "why?". She could've even gone to a Congressperson with this and it'd have afforded her protections. Instead, she went to WikiLeaks.

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

#393

Post by guide42 »

HeWhoLurksLate wrote: post #162
pastacacioepepe wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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...

> why would we want to give a potential adversary perfect information about what weaponry we have as well as its exact capabilities

To be fair and let the best win? There is just no honor anymore.

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

#394

Post by kodah »

kelnos wrote: post #351
kodah wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 trig…

> I don't really see a difference between the two besides intent. Intent isn't really something that matters in today's world. You can't have it both ways, though. In your original post, you said, "Second, she was releasing documents because she was angry that she was deployed." Clearly you believed her intent to be a big part of the reason why she shouldn't be considered a whistleblower. And in this thread we've lea…

Evading official channels of whistleblowing, including using her Congressperson if she didn't want to request mast, is my main grievance there. I still argue that the information is not net-new. The helicopter gunship video was said to have disappeared, yet she released it. The facts around the situation didn't change materially though. The 15k civilians that died weren't added to the death toll as far as I've read, they just now had attribution. I don't think her intent had much to do with anything; she still evaded using official channels and released confidential information including informants and people operating under cover (HumInt) that put peoples lives at risk.

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

#395

Post by sammalloy »

jiggywiggy wrote: post #169
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…

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…

> Because people who are good and social with the group do not have a contrarian character

That’s an interesting observation, and in my experience working in small businesses and large enterprise organizations, it’s entirely and totally wrong. Some of the worst people I’ve ever known in the workplace kiss up to the boss and to people in power while running the company into the ground. These are not good people. It’s actually a kind of evil in a way, as they present a likable "go along to get along" persona and facade while doing a terrible job. I would much rather be surrounded by humble yet candid truth tellers, who tell it like it is with empathy and compassion and care.

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

#396

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

sammalloy wrote: post #395
jiggywiggy wrote: post #169

Earlier 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…

> Because people who are good and social with the group do not have a contrarian character That’s an interesting observation, and in my experience working in small businesses and large enterprise organizations, it’s entirely and totally wrong. Some of the worst people I’ve ever known in the workplace kiss up to the boss and to people in power while running the company into the ground. These are not good people. It’s…

I agree. I think GP meant "good" like you'd use it to describe a dog. obedient.

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

#397

Post by fasterik »

lazide wrote: post #388
fasterik wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never said change can come fast in terms of a human lifetime. I was pushing back against this idea, which seems to be widespread, that corporations and power structures are inherently bad. The alternative viewpoint which seems more reasonable to me is that the problems we see are caused by the wrong kind of corporations and power structures. GP implied that I am naive for having this viewpoint. It's not actually cl…

That is not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying people are a mix of good and bad, and there are various levels of power and wealth inherent to the world, and that causes an inherent tension and level of corruption which you see manifest itself in all power structures around us. Including corporations. If you have a CONCRETE proposal for some kind of corporation which somehow counteracts the negative influences of huma…

>I'm also noting that those are already influences on the current formation and existence of the structures around us, so assuming that this is a new idea isn't helping anyone. [...] I am hearing that you don't seem to be aware of the active and ongoing work to stop corruption and produce better outcomes in the governments and corporations that currently exist.

I never said these are new ideas or that there aren't already people working on these problems. You're putting words in my mouth.

I'm a bit confused about what our disagreement is. In my first post, all I said was that corporations and power structures aren't inherently bad and that rather than abandoning those concepts, as OP suggests, we can work to improve them. You disagreed with me and made fun of me for being naive. However, what you're saying now sounds like a different version of what I was saying.

I don't get why you think I need to make a concrete proposal for this. I'm making a general possibility claim, not a prescription. There are many paths to get there, which probably involve a combination of cultural evolution and the accumulation of knowledge in a wide range of disciplines.

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

#398

Post by handedness »

bhawks wrote: post #322
handedness wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure. One can debate the Truman Doctrine, the way the Cold War was fought, the ethics of adopting a balance of power strategy, but those are all different discussions. Whether superpowers should use their intelligence apparatuses to implement their foreign political and military policies is another discussion.

Espionage, gathering secret intelligence, is arguably a net good for the planet.

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

#400

Post by diego_sandoval »

sammalloy wrote: post #395
jiggywiggy wrote: post #169

Earlier 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…

> Because people who are good and social with the group do not have a contrarian character That’s an interesting observation, and in my experience working in small businesses and large enterprise organizations, it’s entirely and totally wrong. Some of the worst people I’ve ever known in the workplace kiss up to the boss and to people in power while running the company into the ground. These are not good people. It’s…

I think parent comment meant good with the group as in "follows the social rules without questioning them and does what is expected of them", not as in morally good.
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