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A little off topic, but as a US citizen, I find it chilling how strongly President Obama went after whistle blowers (as much as all previous presidents combined

A little off topic, but as a US citizen, I find it chilling how strongly President Obama went after whistle blowers (as much as all previous presidents combined) and now President Trump is just as bad in this regard. Whistle blower and journalist legal protection is a hard requirement for a free and democratic republic.

Chris2048 7y ago
Which whistle blowers did Trump go after? The term is loaded, it implies a level of neutrality that we don't know exists in the impeachment case - we could just as well cause the official an "accuser".
- Miner49er 7y ago
  Reality Winner, Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning
  - tomschlick 7y ago
    Assange isn't a whistle-blower. He is a third party that was given classified information. Manning wasn't a whistle-blower either, he (at the time) was a leaker and didn't go through any of the official whistle-blower procedures to shield himself from prosecution. He also just data dumped everything he could find instead of leaking specific things.
    - Miner49er 7y ago
      Whistleblower: One who reveals wrongdoing within an organization to the public or to those in positions of authority. By that definition everyone I listed is a whistleblower. Also, FYI, you should use proper pronouns regardless of how they identified at the time. It's still a form of misgendering and unnecessarily brings up the fact that they are transgender.
      - tomschlick 7y ago
        > within an organization Key point there. Assange was not in the organization. At best he would be considered media in this case. Manning did not follow the proper steps to blow the whistle through the chain of command, and therefore was not given the legal protection that others would be. He didn't care what was leaked, he just wanted to do damage.
      - GVIrish 7y ago
        Whistleblowing is about revealing specific wrongdoing, not data dumping all sorts of sensitive and damaging information that had nothing to do with the wrongdoing. So if there were a defense contractor who noticed embezzlement in nuclear missile program, but then dumped all of the plans and schematics for the weapons system on the internet, should that person experience no consequences? If someone was trying to expose medical malpractice just dumped thousands of innocent and people's medical records, should that be ok? Manning's case would've been infinitely stronger had she just leaked the helicopter video or other information that she reasonably believed were war crimes.
  - imglorp 7y ago
    William Binney https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/government-elections-politics/united-states-of-secrets/the-frontline-interview-william-binney/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/government-election...
- pkilgore 7y ago
  How does whistleblower imply neutrality? Neutrality on what? Does a lack of neutrality about an unrelated issue exclude one from being a whistleblower on all things? If my new boss is an asshole, and he also orders me to lie to the government, am I not a whistleblower if my reasons for reporting the company are mostly to get revenge on my asshole boss? Shouldn't it be what is reported that we care about, not what failings we can accuse the whistleblower of having (and as a human being, they will certainly have)? Personally I've noticed with Snowden is that nobody really attacks what he said, they attack his perceived motivations, like that somehow matters worth a damn given the accuracy of his information.
  - vezycash 7y ago
    >Personally I've noticed with Snowden is that nobody really attacks what he said, they attack his perceived motivations Character assassination. They pull a, "He's a rapist, child molester" and everything the whistle blower says flies out the window.
  - tomatocracy 7y ago
    Plenty of people have criticized Wikileaks and Assange for not following a 'responsible' style of disclosure of leaked materials (usually thought of as aiming to minimize collateral damage such as spies operating in the field having their cover blown). Contrast their behaviour to how the Snowden stories were broken for example. Of course it's more nuanced than that but I don't think it's right to say the criticism is all just shooting the messenger or character assassination.
  - shadowgovt 7y ago
    Nowadays, sure. What he said has been consumed, digested, and recycled. Google encrypted the attack vector Five Eyes used to harvest user traffic. The why is the only thing left to talk about.
  - goodluckchuck 7y ago
    This is how: To "blow the whistle" is an idiom meaning to expose wrongdoing, usually from a position of privileged access to the information. See: https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/blow+the+whistle https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/blow+the+whistle This requires that the thing being reported is in fact wrongdoing. If you expose something that is innocent and innocuous, then you are - by definition - not a whistle-blower. So when a person is called "a whistle-blower" the person using that term is expressing the opinion that the subject of the exposure is in fact 1) did occur, and 2) an act of wrongdoing.
- neotek 7y ago
  Only if you're trying to deliberately obfuscate the issue.
blfr 7y ago
According to the first reply this is an investigation into Trump, not by Trump. https://twitter.com/greekemmy/status/1201766690918408193 https://twitter.com/greekemmy/status/1201766690918408193
mikece 7y ago
Whether under Omaba or Trump, how many career gov't employees (as opposed to political appointees) led the charge in going after whistle blowers? The careerists have more to lose from whistle blowers, I would think: the elected/political appointees can declare (feign?) righteous indignation and make mouth-noises about cleaning up corruption brought to light -- after all they are gone in 4 to 8 years and on to some other revolving door position. The careerists, on the other hand, could see their life's work go up in smoke if a whistle blower points blame in the direction of their area of government, even if they are innocent in any malfeasance. I'm not saying this is certainly the case, only that the Chief Executive very rarely sets the agenda for prosecution.
raxxorrax 7y ago
> Whistle blower and journalist legal protection Just generalize privacy and data protection here to everyone. Restricting protections to certain groups is a massive strategic mistake for any form of civil liberty.
- C1sc0cat 7y ago
  Exactly given what we know about journalists flexible approach to the law hacking a dead teenagers phones voice mail for example. May be journalist should have the same oversight as the police MI5 and SIS do innocent smile
- mark_l_watson 7y ago
  I agree
justincredible 7y ago
Red and Blue are just window dressing for the establishment Black.

Chris2048 7y ago

Which whistle blowers did Trump go after? The term is loaded, it implies a level of neutrality that we don't know exists in the impeachment case - we could just as well cause the official an "accuser".

Miner49er 7y ago
Reality Winner, Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning
- tomschlick 7y ago
  Assange isn't a whistle-blower. He is a third party that was given classified information. Manning wasn't a whistle-blower either, he (at the time) was a leaker and didn't go through any of the official whistle-blower procedures to shield himself from prosecution. He also just data dumped everything he could find instead of leaking specific things.
  - Miner49er 7y ago
    Whistleblower: One who reveals wrongdoing within an organization to the public or to those in positions of authority. By that definition everyone I listed is a whistleblower. Also, FYI, you should use proper pronouns regardless of how they identified at the time. It's still a form of misgendering and unnecessarily brings up the fact that they are transgender.
    - tomschlick 7y ago
      > within an organization Key point there. Assange was not in the organization. At best he would be considered media in this case. Manning did not follow the proper steps to blow the whistle through the chain of command, and therefore was not given the legal protection that others would be. He didn't care what was leaked, he just wanted to do damage.
    - GVIrish 7y ago
      Whistleblowing is about revealing specific wrongdoing, not data dumping all sorts of sensitive and damaging information that had nothing to do with the wrongdoing. So if there were a defense contractor who noticed embezzlement in nuclear missile program, but then dumped all of the plans and schematics for the weapons system on the internet, should that person experience no consequences? If someone was trying to expose medical malpractice just dumped thousands of innocent and people's medical records, should that be ok? Manning's case would've been infinitely stronger had she just leaked the helicopter video or other information that she reasonably believed were war crimes.
- imglorp 7y ago
  William Binney https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/government-elections-politics/united-states-of-secrets/the-frontline-interview-william-binney/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/government-election...
pkilgore 7y ago
How does whistleblower imply neutrality? Neutrality on what? Does a lack of neutrality about an unrelated issue exclude one from being a whistleblower on all things? If my new boss is an asshole, and he also orders me to lie to the government, am I not a whistleblower if my reasons for reporting the company are mostly to get revenge on my asshole boss? Shouldn't it be what is reported that we care about, not what failings we can accuse the whistleblower of having (and as a human being, they will certainly have)? Personally I've noticed with Snowden is that nobody really attacks what he said, they attack his perceived motivations, like that somehow matters worth a damn given the accuracy of his information.
- vezycash 7y ago
  >Personally I've noticed with Snowden is that nobody really attacks what he said, they attack his perceived motivations Character assassination. They pull a, "He's a rapist, child molester" and everything the whistle blower says flies out the window.
- tomatocracy 7y ago
  Plenty of people have criticized Wikileaks and Assange for not following a 'responsible' style of disclosure of leaked materials (usually thought of as aiming to minimize collateral damage such as spies operating in the field having their cover blown). Contrast their behaviour to how the Snowden stories were broken for example. Of course it's more nuanced than that but I don't think it's right to say the criticism is all just shooting the messenger or character assassination.
- shadowgovt 7y ago
  Nowadays, sure. What he said has been consumed, digested, and recycled. Google encrypted the attack vector Five Eyes used to harvest user traffic. The why is the only thing left to talk about.
- goodluckchuck 7y ago
  This is how: To "blow the whistle" is an idiom meaning to expose wrongdoing, usually from a position of privileged access to the information. See: https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/blow+the+whistle https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/blow+the+whistle This requires that the thing being reported is in fact wrongdoing. If you expose something that is innocent and innocuous, then you are - by definition - not a whistle-blower. So when a person is called "a whistle-blower" the person using that term is expressing the opinion that the subject of the exposure is in fact 1) did occur, and 2) an act of wrongdoing.
neotek 7y ago
Only if you're trying to deliberately obfuscate the issue.

blfr 7y ago

According to the first reply this is an investigation into Trump, not by Trump. https://twitter.com/greekemmy/status/1201766690918408193 https://twitter.com/greekemmy/status/1201766690918408193

mikece 7y ago

Whether under Omaba or Trump, how many career gov't employees (as opposed to political appointees) led the charge in going after whistle blowers? The careerists have more to lose from whistle blowers, I would think: the elected/political appointees can declare (feign?) righteous indignation and make mouth-noises about cleaning up corruption brought to light -- after all they are gone in 4 to 8 years and on to some other revolving door position. The careerists, on the other hand, could see their life's work go up in smoke if a whistle blower points blame in the direction of their area of government, even if they are innocent in any malfeasance. I'm not saying this is certainly the case, only that the Chief Executive very rarely sets the agenda for prosecution.

raxxorrax 7y ago

> Whistle blower and journalist legal protection Just generalize privacy and data protection here to everyone. Restricting protections to certain groups is a massive strategic mistake for any form of civil liberty.

C1sc0cat 7y ago
Exactly given what we know about journalists flexible approach to the law hacking a dead teenagers phones voice mail for example. May be journalist should have the same oversight as the police MI5 and SIS do innocent smile
mark_l_watson 7y ago
I agree

justincredible 7y ago

Red and Blue are just window dressing for the establishment Black.