4 ms·

Whistle blowers are "spy's" now? Don't we have laws in place that are supposedly there to protect whistle blowers?

hsnewman 4y ago
A Whistle blower doesn't have to release top secret information to the public, rather they follow the rules and submit it to the proper authorities.
- maxharris 4y ago
  Secrecy is required to maintain empire. Where there is secrecy, there is always corruption. Edit (in order to reply to David - I am somehow blocked from replying to him): I'm not the government. I don't have the legal right to start a war, or to sentence a person to death. If you don't like what I have to say, you can just ignore me. But you can't do that with a government that keeps secrets. Official secrecy robs you of the knowledge required to participate in democracy.
  - _-david-_ 4y ago
    That is ridiculous. If secrecy means there is corruption then give me all your usernames and passwords. If you don't then you are corrupt.
- helloworld11 4y ago
  This and your previous comment suggest that you're either a troll or truly some unique level of narrow-minded fool. Do you simply defend and applauds any sort of self-serving government rules or characterizations of others because they have vague, nebulous state power justifications on their side? Whistleblowers often get fired or worse for "submitting to the proper authorities". History is loaded with cases of them doing just that only to be brushed off and the information they revealed to be buried even further in obscurity. Surely you can't be so dense as to not have read about just how easily and frequently this happens before labeling someone a traitor for going outside official channels to disclose conduct that even the responsible government admitted was BLATANTLY illegal in many ways?
schoen 4y ago
I'm a huge supporter and admirer of Snowden and wish him all the best, but there's no way that he would be protected under existing whistleblower laws. Government whistleblowers dealing with classified information are expected to use very specific, narrow channels such as making reports to agency inspectors-general. When their whistleblowing involves public disclosure of classified information, it's not at all protected by whistleblower laws, even if large parts of society end up agreeing with them. Edit: This is even true if the government ends up agreeing with them about object-level issues (e.g. if the courts agree that something they revealed was illegal or the executive or legislature agrees to change policy).
- hitpointdrew 4y ago
  Fair enough point. But self-defeating, no? This seems as idiotic as a police forcing being responsible for investigating themselves. What do you think would have happened if he had gone though "official channels"?
  - version_five 4y ago
    It's definitely ironic to suggest a whistleblower goes through the approved process of the entity against which he's blowing the whistle. I'd say that really this just shows the limitations of the concept of whistleblower laws- essentially they're just a feel good concept that lets people blow the whistle against entities the people in power want them too (like the silly Facebook thing). I don't really have an opinion about Snowden, but I'd say good or bad, if you're really planning on exposing "the system" you can't really expect any protection, and I think it's impossible to build in that kind of protection. An simple and maybe flawed example would be vigilante justice. Someone can decide to kill someone extra judicially. They may be "right" in some way, but there is never going to be an allowance for it.
    - schoen 4y ago
      There are meaningful benefits from the existing whistleblower laws; they're just focused on a very different set of problems and concerns. The existing whistleblower laws handle cases where a small number of people are, in fact, not following the official rules. This might be sexual harassment or embezzlement or something, or someone otherwise using government resources for personal aggrandizement. They don't really handle cases where a government entity has deliberately chosen (more or less following proper procedures or more or with the acquiescence or support of its leadership) to do something that some people think is bad. What someone might (perhaps dismissively) term a political objection to the entity's decisions or actions.

A Whistle blower doesn't have to release top secret information to the public, rather they follow the rules and submit it to the proper authorities.

maxharris 4y ago
Secrecy is required to maintain empire. Where there is secrecy, there is always corruption. Edit (in order to reply to David - I am somehow blocked from replying to him): I'm not the government. I don't have the legal right to start a war, or to sentence a person to death. If you don't like what I have to say, you can just ignore me. But you can't do that with a government that keeps secrets. Official secrecy robs you of the knowledge required to participate in democracy.
- _-david-_ 4y ago
  That is ridiculous. If secrecy means there is corruption then give me all your usernames and passwords. If you don't then you are corrupt.
helloworld11 4y ago
This and your previous comment suggest that you're either a troll or truly some unique level of narrow-minded fool. Do you simply defend and applauds any sort of self-serving government rules or characterizations of others because they have vague, nebulous state power justifications on their side? Whistleblowers often get fired or worse for "submitting to the proper authorities". History is loaded with cases of them doing just that only to be brushed off and the information they revealed to be buried even further in obscurity. Surely you can't be so dense as to not have read about just how easily and frequently this happens before labeling someone a traitor for going outside official channels to disclose conduct that even the responsible government admitted was BLATANTLY illegal in many ways?

schoen 4y ago

I'm a huge supporter and admirer of Snowden and wish him all the best, but there's no way that he would be protected under existing whistleblower laws. Government whistleblowers dealing with classified information are expected to use very specific, narrow channels such as making reports to agency inspectors-general. When their whistleblowing involves public disclosure of classified information, it's not at all protected by whistleblower laws, even if large parts of society end up agreeing with them. Edit: This is even true if the government ends up agreeing with them about object-level issues (e.g. if the courts agree that something they revealed was illegal or the executive or legislature agrees to change policy).

hitpointdrew 4y ago
Fair enough point. But self-defeating, no? This seems as idiotic as a police forcing being responsible for investigating themselves. What do you think would have happened if he had gone though "official channels"?
- version_five 4y ago
  It's definitely ironic to suggest a whistleblower goes through the approved process of the entity against which he's blowing the whistle. I'd say that really this just shows the limitations of the concept of whistleblower laws- essentially they're just a feel good concept that lets people blow the whistle against entities the people in power want them too (like the silly Facebook thing). I don't really have an opinion about Snowden, but I'd say good or bad, if you're really planning on exposing "the system" you can't really expect any protection, and I think it's impossible to build in that kind of protection. An simple and maybe flawed example would be vigilante justice. Someone can decide to kill someone extra judicially. They may be "right" in some way, but there is never going to be an allowance for it.
  - schoen 4y ago
    There are meaningful benefits from the existing whistleblower laws; they're just focused on a very different set of problems and concerns. The existing whistleblower laws handle cases where a small number of people are, in fact, not following the official rules. This might be sexual harassment or embezzlement or something, or someone otherwise using government resources for personal aggrandizement. They don't really handle cases where a government entity has deliberately chosen (more or less following proper procedures or more or with the acquiescence or support of its leadership) to do something that some people think is bad. What someone might (perhaps dismissively) term a political objection to the entity's decisions or actions.