5 ms·

so where is the public interest to justify whistleblowing?

tptacek 10y ago
Here I am veering from simply providing a précis to something closer to analysis, but not too close --- I think this is uncontroversial: Sterling isn't in prison for "whistleblowing", which describes the actions he took to alert the Senate Intelligence Committee to his concerns about "Merlin" and his complaints to CIA's IG about racial discrimination inside the agency. He's in prison for leaking details of a sensitive counterproliferation operation to a reporter, which is something else.
- jacquesm 10y ago
  Of course no whistle-blower ever got convicted of 'something else' as an act of retaliation for the whistle-blowing.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    I guess, but that's a difficult argument to falsify; you could make the same claim about pretty much any prosecution.
    - Retric 10y ago
      There are a small number of whistle blowers and a small % of the population get's prosecuted. If public whistle blowers in the intelligence community are over represented in the second group there is likely a connection. Note: Selective prosecution means this holds up even if they really did the other thing.
    - jacquesm 10y ago
      No, you can only make those claims about defendants who in the past have attempted to blow the whistle on something and who then subsequently also got convicted for something else. Given that the number of whistle-blowers is relatively small and that as a rule their lives turn to merry hell after they blow their whistle and that not rarely they are then prosecuted for something unrelated the claim is in fact not about 'pretty much any prosecution', even though you could make that claim that's not what I did. I make the - simple to verify - claim that whistle-blowers tend to be punished in ways that have at first sight nothing to do with their blowing the whistle. In fact I think you will find it rather harder to find examples of whistle-blowers that did not find some form of retaliation (through legal means or otherwise) on their path.
      - tptacek 10y ago
        You're moving the goalposts. The original comment you wrote, which I responded to, suggested that whistleblowers were routinely convicted of other crimes as retaliation. That's a point I'm interested in litigating. The fuzzier point is less interesting to me.
        deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
  - yread 10y ago
    Especially considering that the leaking happened in 2003 and he was charged in 2011!
- Bartweiss 10y ago
  As a counterpoint, here's what I expect Sterling and The Intercept might argue: Sterling unsuccessfully raised several concerns, including criticisms of Merlin, internally with the CIA and the Senate Intelligence Committee. Getting no results, he turned to external whistleblowing through a Pulitzer-winning reporter. This is in keeping with Thomas Drake's behavior - after being punished for attempting to use internal whistleblowing, he went outside the government and was given a minimal suspended sentence akin to what Sterling might have expected.
- kafkaesq 10y ago
  Both are forms of "whistleblowing": one within proper channels; the other, directly to the press. That's why Snowden is commonly referred to as a "whistleblower", without disservice to the term -- because he (prudently, in the view of many) saw it necessary and proper to bypass government channels, given the gravity of abuses he had become witness (and tacit accomplice) to. Though in Sterling's case it is clear that his prison sentence is (ostensibly) for his having done the latter, not the former.
js8 10y ago
Not an U.S. citizen, just a wild guess: It's not very wise to give somebody, even altered, nuclear blueprints. It's a similar type of stupid stuff that NSA does when it puts backdoors into devices or cryptosystems.
- tomschlick 10y ago
  It's not a bad plan as the idea is that the victim would spend billions developing a weapon that is flawed from the drawing board. Nothing would work right and they would have to start over setting them back many years from a workable weapon.
  - LeifCarrotson 10y ago
    Rewrites are a bad idea in software, where the code has no cost, and are an even worse idea in physical projects. Starting with a a slightly flawed design is much, much closer to a working weapon than starting from scratch. It would be incredibly naïve for the victim to assume their stolen plans are perfect and perfectly implemented. They would run the test, it doesn't work quite right, they fix the flaws, and they're now far ahead of where they would have been.
  - dv_dt 10y ago
    It's a terrible plan if you forget to account for the fact that the victim likely employs smart people too, and that before setting out on a billion dollar endeavour they might do a lot of cross checking. And indeed that's what happened, and much quicker than planned: "Operation Merlin backfired when the CIA's Russian contact/messenger noticed flaws in the schematics and told the Iranian nuclear scientists." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Merlin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Merlin
  - kafkaesq 10y ago
    It is a bad idea if you grossly underestimate the operational competence and general cognitive fortitude of your adversaries, as the CIA appears to have done in this case. (Apparently the alterations were easy to spot, and it turns out the Iranians weren't so dumb as to blindly go out and execute them, as the operation's planners had hoped).
1024core 10y ago
The blueprints weren't altered enough, apparently, and the Iranians were still able to use them to advance their nuclear program. Thus, it was sheer stupidity on the CIA's part. And you know what you don't do? Point out the big, mean guy's stupidity in public. He gets angry.
- tptacek 10y ago
  As I understand it --- corrections welcome --- he leaked details of the program while it was still in progress.
  - okwhatthe2 10y ago
    And when Snowden was in flight from HK to Moscow, he was a fugitive, until he "was actually in the company of a legal adviser." What you say, and how you say it, affects perception. The CIA understands this. The only solution is to eradicate death and suffering on the planet.
- abysmallyideal 10y ago
  They likely wanted the Iranians to develop and test a nuclear weapon to justify invasion, or to use it against another middle Eastern country or against one of the other major powers in the area. That was the real issue Sterling was bringing up.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- dismantlethesun 10y ago
  But within the government mistakes are made all the time, should every mistake be publicly acknowledged as it happens?
  - 1024core 10y ago
namlem 10y ago
Our own government gave nuclear secrets to our enemy which hastened their progress towards nuclear weapons. The CIA should be held accountable for endangering the US and its allies.

Here I am veering from simply providing a précis to something closer to analysis, but not too close --- I think this is uncontroversial: Sterling isn't in prison for "whistleblowing", which describes the actions he took to alert the Senate Intelligence Committee to his concerns about "Merlin" and his complaints to CIA's IG about racial discrimination inside the agency. He's in prison for leaking details of a sensitive counterproliferation operation to a reporter, which is something else.

jacquesm 10y ago
Of course no whistle-blower ever got convicted of 'something else' as an act of retaliation for the whistle-blowing.
- tptacek 10y ago
  I guess, but that's a difficult argument to falsify; you could make the same claim about pretty much any prosecution.
  - Retric 10y ago
    There are a small number of whistle blowers and a small % of the population get's prosecuted. If public whistle blowers in the intelligence community are over represented in the second group there is likely a connection. Note: Selective prosecution means this holds up even if they really did the other thing.
  - jacquesm 10y ago
    No, you can only make those claims about defendants who in the past have attempted to blow the whistle on something and who then subsequently also got convicted for something else. Given that the number of whistle-blowers is relatively small and that as a rule their lives turn to merry hell after they blow their whistle and that not rarely they are then prosecuted for something unrelated the claim is in fact not about 'pretty much any prosecution', even though you could make that claim that's not what I did. I make the - simple to verify - claim that whistle-blowers tend to be punished in ways that have at first sight nothing to do with their blowing the whistle. In fact I think you will find it rather harder to find examples of whistle-blowers that did not find some form of retaliation (through legal means or otherwise) on their path.
    - tptacek 10y ago
      You're moving the goalposts. The original comment you wrote, which I responded to, suggested that whistleblowers were routinely convicted of other crimes as retaliation. That's a point I'm interested in litigating. The fuzzier point is less interesting to me.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
- yread 10y ago
  Especially considering that the leaking happened in 2003 and he was charged in 2011!
Bartweiss 10y ago
As a counterpoint, here's what I expect Sterling and The Intercept might argue: Sterling unsuccessfully raised several concerns, including criticisms of Merlin, internally with the CIA and the Senate Intelligence Committee. Getting no results, he turned to external whistleblowing through a Pulitzer-winning reporter. This is in keeping with Thomas Drake's behavior - after being punished for attempting to use internal whistleblowing, he went outside the government and was given a minimal suspended sentence akin to what Sterling might have expected.
kafkaesq 10y ago
Both are forms of "whistleblowing": one within proper channels; the other, directly to the press. That's why Snowden is commonly referred to as a "whistleblower", without disservice to the term -- because he (prudently, in the view of many) saw it necessary and proper to bypass government channels, given the gravity of abuses he had become witness (and tacit accomplice) to. Though in Sterling's case it is clear that his prison sentence is (ostensibly) for his having done the latter, not the former.

js8 10y ago

Not an U.S. citizen, just a wild guess: It's not very wise to give somebody, even altered, nuclear blueprints. It's a similar type of stupid stuff that NSA does when it puts backdoors into devices or cryptosystems.

tomschlick 10y ago
It's not a bad plan as the idea is that the victim would spend billions developing a weapon that is flawed from the drawing board. Nothing would work right and they would have to start over setting them back many years from a workable weapon.
- LeifCarrotson 10y ago
  Rewrites are a bad idea in software, where the code has no cost, and are an even worse idea in physical projects. Starting with a a slightly flawed design is much, much closer to a working weapon than starting from scratch. It would be incredibly naïve for the victim to assume their stolen plans are perfect and perfectly implemented. They would run the test, it doesn't work quite right, they fix the flaws, and they're now far ahead of where they would have been.
- dv_dt 10y ago
  It's a terrible plan if you forget to account for the fact that the victim likely employs smart people too, and that before setting out on a billion dollar endeavour they might do a lot of cross checking. And indeed that's what happened, and much quicker than planned: "Operation Merlin backfired when the CIA's Russian contact/messenger noticed flaws in the schematics and told the Iranian nuclear scientists." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Merlin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Merlin
- kafkaesq 10y ago
  It is a bad idea if you grossly underestimate the operational competence and general cognitive fortitude of your adversaries, as the CIA appears to have done in this case. (Apparently the alterations were easy to spot, and it turns out the Iranians weren't so dumb as to blindly go out and execute them, as the operation's planners had hoped).

1024core 10y ago

The blueprints weren't altered enough, apparently, and the Iranians were still able to use them to advance their nuclear program. Thus, it was sheer stupidity on the CIA's part. And you know what you don't do? Point out the big, mean guy's stupidity in public. He gets angry.

tptacek 10y ago
As I understand it --- corrections welcome --- he leaked details of the program while it was still in progress.
- okwhatthe2 10y ago
  And when Snowden was in flight from HK to Moscow, he was a fugitive, until he "was actually in the company of a legal adviser." What you say, and how you say it, affects perception. The CIA understands this. The only solution is to eradicate death and suffering on the planet.
abysmallyideal 10y ago
They likely wanted the Iranians to develop and test a nuclear weapon to justify invasion, or to use it against another middle Eastern country or against one of the other major powers in the area. That was the real issue Sterling was bringing up.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
dismantlethesun 10y ago
But within the government mistakes are made all the time, should every mistake be publicly acknowledged as it happens?
- 1024core 10y ago

namlem 10y ago

Our own government gave nuclear secrets to our enemy which hastened their progress towards nuclear weapons. The CIA should be held accountable for endangering the US and its allies.