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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

#471

Post by conradkay »

logicchains wrote: post #389
fasterik wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing inherently good or bad about a group of people working toward some common purpose. In principle, given the right value system, incentives, and organizational structure, you could create a corporation that does an extraordinary amount of good in the world. The problem is bad power structures, not power structures per se . Just because corporations as they exist today have problems doesn't mean that we…

>There is nothing inherently good or bad about a group of people working toward some common purpose. There's something inherently bad about "limited liability" corporations, by their very nature. Because to some degree they free the people in them from "natural justice"; people are able to get away unpunished with bad things that they as individuals couldn't due to shifting liability to the corporation.

Surely LLCs don’t protect against criminal actions though?

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

#472

Post by lern_too_spel »

stale2002 wrote: post #459
lern_too_spel wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> Ok, well a lot of people care about warrants.

Including me.

> Therefore, it is good that this stuff was exposed, according to the people who care about warrants.

Once again, no country in the world requires its intelligence agencies to get a warrant to surveil a foreigner outside its borders who has information relevant to national security. This is both legal and something we all expect, and we already knew this before Snowden's leaks. To reveal the code names of systems that ingest this data, Snowden also leaked compromised Chinese computer systems. Is that something we should celebrate?

Even Snowden (and probably 99.9% of all people) would disagree with your position. His statements show he thought he was revealing something other than what his documents actually said.

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

#473

Post by mixmastamyk »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #405
mixmastamyk wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Those docs are not the final word. Then tell me, which document says otherwise? I've been waiting. > Further, it’s done with the express purpose to route around laws The law forbids the US government from asking anybody to spy on its citizens. > But good job trying to sow doubt on a well-understood subject. Well "understood" by conspiracy theorists. The rest of us living in reality knows this isn't happening or els…

I repeat:

> It has a well-sourced Wikipedia page for crying out loud.

You’ll have to read most of it as well, the juicy parts and citations are towards the bottom.

Bootlickers have the burden to prove data is not misused these days—not the other way around.

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

#474

Post by codehitchhiker »

jongjong wrote: post #406
kyawzazaw wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have sources to those executives expressing support?

The support was indirect but it helped to divert attention away from the 'criminal' aspect of Snowden's actions... Which is more than Assange ever got. For example, I remember Marissa Mayer saying something about it at a critical time after the story broke. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/davos-2014-... I think that's why a lot of Americans perceive Snowden much more favorably than Assange even thoug…

I don't really think this is true. I view him unfavorably because he avoided extradition on rape, sexual assault, molestation, and sexual coercion charges until time ran out.

I sympathize with him for cracking the admin password to help Manning get documents anonymously, but it doesn't overshadow that he'll never have a day in court for the women who brought credible criminal allegations against him.

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

#475

Post by codehitchhiker »

eastbound wrote: post #325
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.

The proof that this argument is not the true reason why he was targeted, is that he was targeted for rape. When there is such a great discrepancy between means and meaning, it’s when motives are dishonest, couldn’t be admitted in public, and wouldn’t pass a common man’s test.

And the fact that three different women brought credible allegations and he avoided extradition on them until time ran out to prosecute him.

He's gross. He's also a journalist and a hacker, not a whistleblower.

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

#476

Post by [deleted] »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #472
stale2002 wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> Ok, well a lot of people care about warrants. Including me. > Therefore, it is good that this stuff was exposed, according to the people who care about warrants. Once again, no country in the world requires its intelligence agencies to get a warrant to surveil a foreigner outside its borders who has information relevant to national security. This is both legal and something we all expect, and we already knew this b…

[deleted]

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

#477

Post by throwaway27391 »

h2odragon wrote: post #13
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US also has laws protecting whistleblowers, which to me just highlighted the complete moral bankruptcy of some Republican members of the US Congress when they tried to out the whistleblower who brought Trump's phone call with the Ukrainian president to light, but more importantly, when they tried to impugn his motives. The thing that made me so angry about this is that a huge point of whistleblower laws is that i…

I found the treatment of Julian Assange to be the disgusting poltics; after that its just more of the same, innit?

He avoided prosecution of three credible separate sexual abuse allegations by hiding in a non-extraditing country for seven years.

He's also not a whistleblower.

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

#478

Post by infamouscow »

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #453
pastacacioepepe wrote: post #446

Earlier 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?

What's the strongest evidence you have? The example provided isn't very compelling in my view.

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

#479

Post by kodah »

ok_dad wrote: post #449
kodah wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You’re assuming that anyone in the government cares about what she was surfacing. That’s why whistleblowers go to the press, because the power structures that be don’t care.

Yeah, I don't really accept that kind of logic. That's the kind of stuff that says Jan 6 is okay because the government is that untrustable. In Snowden's case, sure, but in Manning's case her testimony also highlights that intel analysts had been building a case against the helicopter crew for a while.

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

#480

Post by lern_too_spel »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #473
lern_too_spel wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Those docs are not the final word. Then tell me, which document says otherwise? I've been waiting. > Further, it’s done with the express purpose to route around laws The law forbids the US government from asking anybody to spy on its citizens. > But good job trying to sow doubt on a well-understood subject. Well "understood" by conspiracy theorists. The rest of us living in reality knows this isn't happening or els…

I repeat: > It has a well-sourced Wikipedia page for crying out loud. You’ll have to read most of it as well, the juicy parts and citations are towards the bottom. Bootlickers have the burden to prove data is not misused these days—not the other way around.

> It has a well-sourced Wikipedia page for crying out loud

That well-sourced Wikipedia article doesn't say what you claim. Nowhere does it say the US government can access data on its own citizens from other Five Eyes countries.

It says this:

"So far, no court case has been brought against any US intelligence community member claiming that they went around US domestic law to have foreign countries spy on US citizens and give that intelligence to the US."

The source says the following and does not have any information contradicting it:

"'Any allegation that NSA relies on its foreign partners to circumvent U.S. law is absolutely false. NSA does not ask its foreign partners to undertake any intelligence activity that the U.S. government would be legally prohibited from undertaking itself,' Emmel said."

A bunch of conspiracy theorists theorized that these countries could skirt their laws by asking for data from other countries in the intelligence sharing agreement without the proper warrant, but it turned out that they do not.

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