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
It's in the reference list.
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Whistleblowers are the conscience of society, yet suffer gravely
451–460 of 510 posts
Re: Whistleblowers are the conscience of society, yet suffer gravely
#452Parts 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.
I haven’t read the book so not validating the plagiarism claim, but citing a book in a biblio isn’t a license to steal content
Re: Whistleblowers are the conscience of society, yet suffer gravely
#453Earlier quoted context omitted.
yes, tons throughout history here is 1 such example off the top of my head: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hanssen
The only instance of Hanssen causing deaths seem to be when he exposed "Martynov and Motorin" to be working for the FBI. They were arrested, tried, convicted and executed by the Soviet government. Getting corrupt spies to be exposed doesn't really seem to be a great datum to back your argument. He might have actually saved more lives indirectly since he stopped them from leaking secret Soviet information to the US. A…
the rejection of examples of what was requested is weak
labeling the victims as "corrupt" is also weak
saying 'ok you're right but maybe it's a good thing' is weak
none of the arguments really seem great against the evidence presented. anything else?
Re: Whistleblowers are the conscience of society, yet suffer gravely
#454Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
What are your thoughts on big vs small govt?
Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
Re: Whistleblowers are the conscience of society, yet suffer gravely
#455Earlier 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…
> Why? Because people who are good and social with the group do not have a contrarian character. Where does this line of thinking come from? It isn't true because e.g. MLK, Malcolm X It sounds like you're trying to psychologize whistleblowing or activism Where did you learn this from? Did you grow up in an authoritarian regime or something?
Could you please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and use HN in the intended spirit?
You broke the rules pretty badly here, and also in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35766457. We're trying to avoid flamewars to the extent possible. You can make your substantive points without doing that.
Re: Whistleblowers are the conscience of society, yet suffer gravely
#456Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, that's a hallowed tradition in America. And at the same time, blindly trusting institutions and their dogma has long been a turn-on for people with a superiority complex, or those content with the status quo. Each cheek of the political arse seeks to gain power by simplistically appealing to these groups, because it's more effective for raising funds and votes than it ought to be.
perhaps, perhaps not one thing is for sure, though: falsely portraying trust in expertise and science as, "blindly trusting institutions and their dogma" or "for people with a superiority complex, or those content with the status quo" , has been a trope of those same anti-science, anti-expertise politicians for even longer. As Asimov wrote: "There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been…
You may want to read what I wrote again. I did not "falsely portray trust in expertise and science" etc, not in any way; nor would I. It's rather aggressively wrong to attach such to my point (which you missed).
You seem to have jumped from me saying that some put too much stock in dogma and institutions, to believing that this was an attempt to attack expertise and science. There was nothing in my comment, even implicit, that would lead someone fair to this conclusion.
This assumptive leap typifies the 'with us or against us' thinking I'm talking about; tribal thinking which short-circuits reason, and harms genuine scientific thinking.
Even if you didn't mean to imply this, what you wrote has that effect; consider re-reading your own comment if you don't see that.
Re: Whistleblowers are the conscience of society, yet suffer gravely
#457Julian 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.
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.
I hate that he is pulled into these conversations, especially aligned with Snowden
Re: Whistleblowers are the conscience of society, yet suffer gravely
#458Some 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 did not leak anything. He's not a whistleblower or a leaker. He's a publisher, a hacker, and an activist.
Re: Whistleblowers are the conscience of society, yet suffer gravely
#459Earlier quoted context omitted.
So then no warrants required for them to make these requests, got it. > both agree the law is being followed. Notice how I didn't say that anything was illegal. The fact that it was legal, is entirely the problem! I think it is very important for the government to get a warrant, before making these requests. You can feel free to not care about warrants for these types of requests, but I care about them.
> So then no warrants required for them to make these requests, got it. Not for people who aren't US citizens who live outside the US, no. Is this really news to you? Do you know of any country in the world that requires its intelligence agencies to obtain a warrant for surveilling non-citizens outside its borders?
> no
Ok, well a lot of people care about warrants.
You can feel free to not care! But a lot of other people care about warrants.
Therefore, it is good that this stuff was exposed, according to the people who care about warrants.
Re: Whistleblowers are the conscience of society, yet suffer gravely
#460Earlier quoted context omitted.
The only instance of Hanssen causing deaths seem to be when he exposed "Martynov and Motorin" to be working for the FBI. They were arrested, tried, convicted and executed by the Soviet government. Getting corrupt spies to be exposed doesn't really seem to be a great datum to back your argument. He might have actually saved more lives indirectly since he stopped them from leaking secret Soviet information to the US. A…
the rejection of examples of what was requested is weak labeling the victims as "corrupt" is also weak saying 'ok you're right but maybe it's a good thing' is weak none of the arguments really seem great against the evidence presented. anything else?
Right, as I supposed.