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> Perhaps it’s the case that we could have shown, we could have explained to Mr. Snowden his misperceptions, his lack of understanding of what we do. I think t

> Perhaps it’s the case that we could have shown, we could have explained to Mr. Snowden his misperceptions, his lack of understanding of what we do. I think this says it all. Even if you don't retaliate, if the way you deal with a whistleblower who brings illegal activity to your attention is to explain to them why it's okay rather than do something about it, then you shouldn't really be surprised if whistleblowers lose trust in the organization's ability to police itself.

deleted 10y ago
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zeveb 10y ago
> Even if you don't retaliate, if the way you deal with a whistleblower who brings illegal activity to your attention is to explain to them why it's okay rather than do something about it, then you shouldn't really be surprised if whistleblowers lose trust in the organization's ability to police itself. You're begging the question by assuming that the activity a whistleblower reports is illegal. He could actually be mistaken; in that case explaining to him why it's okay to do something is precisely the correct action to take.
- logfromblammo 10y ago
  Generally speaking, a whistle-blower will be probably want to report something that he or she believes to be somewhere between blatantly unethical and morally questionable, and illegality will only come into play under the assumption that an illegal act is automatically dubious, at minimum. It could be something like "Mr. X is submitting exactly the same report with only the dates changed on subsequent days to meet his analysis quotas". That's legal, but unethical. Now, the whistle-keeper should be expected to at least investigate the facts as reported by the whistle-blower, rather than say, "You didn't really see what you saw. Maybe Mr. X actually did redo the analysis work on subsequent days and just coincidentally got the same results? Nothing to see here; case closed." The whistle-keeper has a duty to anonymize the source by independently investigating, then to determine whether the complaint is actionable, escalate appropriately, and then tell the original source(s) what was done and why. If you aren't doing that, you're at best a black hole for complaints, and at worst a honeypot for snaring employees that won't "go along to get along". Then potential whistle-blowers will recognize your disingenuous uselessness, and route around it by going further up the chain of command or leaking to an outsider. In order for whistle-blower protection to work, the ethics hotline has to do its freaking job and be trustworthy.
- gizmo686 10y ago
  >You're begging the question by assuming that the activity a whistleblower reports is illegal. In this particular case, we know that (some of) the activity reported was illegal. The fact that, even with this being known publicly, the "watchdog"'s response is still to explain why the activity is okay is a problem.
- parenthephobia 10y ago
  It is generally accepted that at least some of the activities Snowden was concerned about were in fact illegal. Now, Snowden isn't a judge, nor would he have had complete knowledge of what was going on. He couldn't have known for sure that the activities were illegal. But, unless you take the view that Snowden maliciously revealed activities he actually believed were legal, he at least had reasonable suspicions that they weren't. The job of somebody to whom whistleblowers report is to take that seriously. Perhaps, in many cases, the reasonable suspicions are unfounded. Perhaps there is a byzantine legal framework in place that makes apparently illegal activity technical legal. Perhaps Snowden's concerns had already been raised by others through the proper channels, investigated, and found to be unfounded. Regardless of that, we know that in this case some of the things Snowden reported on were illegal, and that going by the "proper channels" did not result in illegal activity being detected and stopped. Unless we imagine that Snowden is lying about having tried to report it to the agency first, and that nobody else amongst the hundreds of thousands - speculatively: the true number is classified - of NSA employees and contractors had both the knowledge of illegal activity and enough concern about it to report it through the proper channels. Whatever the case. The part of the NSA that is tasked with detecting and preventing illegal operations hasn't done that for what appear to be some pretty big operations. Either it didn't care that the operations were illegal, it didn't know they were illegal, or it didn't even know they were happening. None of those possibilities reflect well on the watchdog.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

zeveb 10y ago

> Even if you don't retaliate, if the way you deal with a whistleblower who brings illegal activity to your attention is to explain to them why it's okay rather than do something about it, then you shouldn't really be surprised if whistleblowers lose trust in the organization's ability to police itself. You're begging the question by assuming that the activity a whistleblower reports is illegal. He could actually be mistaken; in that case explaining to him why it's okay to do something is precisely the correct action to take.

logfromblammo 10y ago
Generally speaking, a whistle-blower will be probably want to report something that he or she believes to be somewhere between blatantly unethical and morally questionable, and illegality will only come into play under the assumption that an illegal act is automatically dubious, at minimum. It could be something like "Mr. X is submitting exactly the same report with only the dates changed on subsequent days to meet his analysis quotas". That's legal, but unethical. Now, the whistle-keeper should be expected to at least investigate the facts as reported by the whistle-blower, rather than say, "You didn't really see what you saw. Maybe Mr. X actually did redo the analysis work on subsequent days and just coincidentally got the same results? Nothing to see here; case closed." The whistle-keeper has a duty to anonymize the source by independently investigating, then to determine whether the complaint is actionable, escalate appropriately, and then tell the original source(s) what was done and why. If you aren't doing that, you're at best a black hole for complaints, and at worst a honeypot for snaring employees that won't "go along to get along". Then potential whistle-blowers will recognize your disingenuous uselessness, and route around it by going further up the chain of command or leaking to an outsider. In order for whistle-blower protection to work, the ethics hotline has to do its freaking job and be trustworthy.
gizmo686 10y ago
>You're begging the question by assuming that the activity a whistleblower reports is illegal. In this particular case, we know that (some of) the activity reported was illegal. The fact that, even with this being known publicly, the "watchdog"'s response is still to explain why the activity is okay is a problem.
parenthephobia 10y ago
It is generally accepted that at least some of the activities Snowden was concerned about were in fact illegal. Now, Snowden isn't a judge, nor would he have had complete knowledge of what was going on. He couldn't have known for sure that the activities were illegal. But, unless you take the view that Snowden maliciously revealed activities he actually believed were legal, he at least had reasonable suspicions that they weren't. The job of somebody to whom whistleblowers report is to take that seriously. Perhaps, in many cases, the reasonable suspicions are unfounded. Perhaps there is a byzantine legal framework in place that makes apparently illegal activity technical legal. Perhaps Snowden's concerns had already been raised by others through the proper channels, investigated, and found to be unfounded. Regardless of that, we know that in this case some of the things Snowden reported on were illegal, and that going by the "proper channels" did not result in illegal activity being detected and stopped. Unless we imagine that Snowden is lying about having tried to report it to the agency first, and that nobody else amongst the hundreds of thousands - speculatively: the true number is classified - of NSA employees and contractors had both the knowledge of illegal activity and enough concern about it to report it through the proper channels. Whatever the case. The part of the NSA that is tasked with detecting and preventing illegal operations hasn't done that for what appear to be some pretty big operations. Either it didn't care that the operations were illegal, it didn't know they were illegal, or it didn't even know they were happening. None of those possibilities reflect well on the watchdog.