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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

#411

Post by suzzer99 »

jongjong wrote: post #364
suzzer99 wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That's not true. Wikileaks was releasing all sorts of documents. I think the stuff about western governments just got a lot more attention because it broke through carefully crafted narratives and beliefs that people had about those governments. If some info about Russian corruption was released on Wikileaks, most Russians would be like "I already know most of these government people are corrupt, what is the news?"

I'm talking about Russia being all in on Trump in 2016, not about Russian corruption. Russia hacked the DNC and RNC. Only passed along the DNC to Assange, who released it. https://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2016/12/10/report-russi...

So it's basically Assange working as a political agent of Russia and knowing it.

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

#412

Post by [deleted] »

andirk wrote: post #360
suzzer99 wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You should watch collateral murder and a million other thing released that #1 show atrocities, and what you take is a red scare cry? Nothing to see here because Russia?

[deleted]

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

#413

Post by bombolo »

kelnos wrote: post #345
bombolo wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 engli…

You're being sarcastic, but in a generalized sense that's exactly what it is: of course spying is ok/good when it's your country doing it to someone else! Obviously that spying will enrich your country, and might even make you safer. But duh, of course it's bad when someone else spies on you! That can only make you less safe. It's not about "ok", it's about winning the "war".

But I'm not in USA, I'm in sweden.

For me, USA is the more imminent danger, so I don't understand why people aren't equally appalled.

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

#414

Post by bombolo »

ineedasername wrote: post #361
bombolo wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we should focus on the goons and ignore the boss sending them? Makes total sense.

It's not either or. But in this situation the Swedish people have a better chance of influencing their own government than the one trying to get it to do what it wants. In this situation the boss is powerless over swedish people if the goons lose their power.

LOL because they'd call a vote for this right?

Except very extreme fringes, every big party will bend over to do whatever USA tells them to do, regardless of what their voting base thinks.

See how they are changing the laws so that it's legal to send kurds in turkey to die.

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

#415

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

infamouscow wrote: post #256
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…

> Leaking sources and/or methods gets people killed. Is there any evidence of this being true or speculation?

yes, tons throughout history

here is 1 such example off the top of my head: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hanssen

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

#416

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

mandmandam wrote: post #216
copper-float wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 sam…

trusting science / expertise has always been a turn-off for a certain portion of people with some sort of inferiority or persecution complex or oppositional defiant disorder

unfortunately some politicians seek to gain power by appealing to this

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

#417

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

photochemsyn wrote: post #88
runnerup wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

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 communic…

> Is it OK for China to spy on American citizen's private communications, then?

if you are the Chinese government, your honest answer to this question would almost certainly be "yes, and that is why we are doing exactly that"

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

#418

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

bombolo wrote: post #413
kelnos wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're being sarcastic, but in a generalized sense that's exactly what it is: of course spying is ok/good when it's your country doing it to someone else! Obviously that spying will enrich your country, and might even make you safer. But duh, of course it's bad when someone else spies on you! That can only make you less safe. It's not about "ok", it's about winning the "war".

But I'm not in USA, I'm in sweden. For me, USA is the more imminent danger, so I don't understand why people aren't equally appalled.

> so I don't understand why people aren't equally appalled

the answer here is the difference between "me" and "people"

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

#419

Post by zirgs »

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…

I agree. If Putin had better intel on Ukraine and the west (and the true state of his own armed forces) then he, most likely, would not have started the war.

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

#420

Post by pastacacioepepe »

stevenhuang wrote: post #328
pastacacioepepe wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Thanks for being pointlessly condescending.

Realpolitik are the reason why I consider the USA and NATO a bunch of hypocrites, altho the USA surely championed the practice.

They fill their mouth with good intents, justice, peace and all that is good in public but act like criminals behind the scenes.

At the very least, countries like Russia and China seem to be much more open about their practicing Realpolitik.

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