Not if your a whistleblower. What if instead of a domestic spying program he leaked a secret program by his bosses to round up every red haired and freckled person and put them in a concentration camp? Then would you still have to charge him with a crime for revealing a 'secret' program before he could be pardoned and treated as a hero? Of course not, thats ridiculous and so is this.
What if my aunt were my uncle? Inventing an alternative set of facts to support your argument is the surest sign that something is seriously wrong wrong with your argument.
Time to take it to the streets on July 4th: http://www.reddit.com/r/restorethefourth "Restore the Fourth is a non partisan group of concerned citizens working to restore privacy and fourth amendment rights. We are planning nationwide protests in over 100 locations on July 4th."
I really wonder when people are actually going to wake up, understand how the system works and spend their efforts lobbying politicians instead of meaningless protests.
How does one lobby a politician, logistically speaking? Campaign donations? Genuinely curious.
But he didn't do that. Are you a whistleblower if what you reveal isn't illegal?
Yes, if what you reveal is unethical but legal. Laws are not handed down from the heavens; laws are created by a notoriously corrupt set of human beings (politicians), and can easily become disconnected from morality.
laws are created by a notoriously corrupt set of human beings (politicians)
Your argument is flawed, because you're mistaking your personal opinions for fact and then trying to build logical arguments on them. Politicians are people, they're not 'a notoriously corrupt set of human beings' distinct from the normal mass of humanity.
Time to take it to the streets on July 4th: http://www.reddit.com/r/restorethefourth "Restore the Fourth is a non partisan group of concerned citizens working to restore privacy and fourth amendment rights. We are planning nationwide protests in over 100 locations on July 4th."
Greenwald: "The Obama DOJ just charged its 7th leaker under "espionage" statute - total for ALL prior presidents: 3" https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/348202448437002240
A predictably meaningless 'statistic' from Greenwald. For context, how many other leakers were there in the past who were not charged?
I'm not obsessed about the law. And honestly, I agree personally with everything Snowden did. I'm just disagreeing with the premise that even having a trial is itself unjust.
If the trial is a mechanism to enforce the bad laws, of course it is unjust. The dictionary definition is justice is "the quality of being fair and reasonable." Is there anything fair ad reasonable about how Snowden is about to be treated?
And who is in charge of deciding which laws are bad? What if two people disagree about the goodness or badness of a particular law, who should prevail?
Yes, if what you reveal is unethical but legal. Laws are not handed down from the heavens; laws are created by a notoriously corrupt set of human beings (politicians), and can easily become disconnected from morality.
The better question is: Are you a whistleblower in a legal sense if what you reveal is legal? The government doesn't operate on unicorns and happy thoughts, it operates on the law. It's the job of the people to elect representatives such that the law conforms as much as possible to unicorns and happy thoughts.
Yes (or at least, possibly).
> A federal agency violates the Whistleblower Protection Act
if it takes or fails to take (or threatens to take or fail
to take) a personnel action with respect to any employee or
applicant because of any disclosure of information by the
employee or applicant that he or she reasonably believes
evidences a violation of a law, rule or regulation; gross
mismanagement; gross waste of funds; an abuse of authority;
or a substantial and specific danger to public health or
safety.
I'm not obsessed about the law. And honestly, I agree personally with everything Snowden did. I'm just disagreeing with the premise that even having a trial is itself unjust.
If the trial is a mechanism to enforce the bad laws, of course it is unjust. The dictionary definition is justice is "the quality of being fair and reasonable." Is there anything fair ad reasonable about how Snowden is about to be treated?
The non-print, non-mobile version: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-cha... This actually seems to be a pretty big problem with the web right now. We've been balkanized into mobile and desktop versions of sites, to the point where sharing one with the other inevitably pisses someone off. This article is all but unreadable on desktop, and I suspect the same would be true in reverse. The point of…
I found it to be perfectly readable on desktop, and was actually really happy to not have all of the clutter of the regular site.