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If you’re seeing this, I’m in jail [video]
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- soulofmischief 2y ago"I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the very highest respect for the law." - Martin Luther King, Jr. (P.S. Good luck, David. The international community stands with you.)
- dostick 2y agoSadly that’s from the different times, when morality was worth something. Saying such things would be considered childishly naive in modern world. And we know that laws themselves are outdated, especially as demonstrated genre, about whistleblowers.
- soulofmischief 2y agoI would die for my principles, so it stands to reason that I would go to prison for them. I have this quote painted on one of my favorite possessions. I live by the quote, I'd die by it. I don't consider that childishly naive. Naive would be thinking that taking a more Malcom X approach won't lead to death and prison as well.
- bcrosby95 2y agoMost people won't even be mildly inconvenienced for their principles. Such as using less optimal solutions that align more with their beliefs or taking a lower paying job that won't compromise their morals.
- soulofmischief 2y agoAnd those people will not be walking alongside me, standing up for the freedom of their fellow countrymen. That's fine. I'd rather focus on collectivizing with those who are principled.
- nuancebydefault 2y agoThing is, principles differ from wisdom. The latter implies that changing your mind while growing is possible.
- soulofmischief 2y agoAre you implying that principles stand in opposition to growth or wisdom? That a wise man cannot be principled?
- nuancebydefault 2y agoIn the narrow sense of principle, indeed principles can stand in the way of wisdom. A more wide definition of principle could be that you have them, but that they can change out of, for example, wisdom. Principles are 'wrong' just like scientific models are wrong. Over time, scientific models get replaced by other models that are less wrong. What I want to say actually : there is no Right or Meaning just like there is no Truth. There's only (wise) man's search for it.
- soulofmischief 2y agoIt may be the wise man's search, but it's possibly a fool's errand as well :)
- mrmanner 2y agoI believe you are right to some extent, but also overestimating how strong and important the specific principles you're observing are to most people. Some of us have stronger principles, yes. But more of us have _different_ principles.
- MaxBarraclough 2y ago> when morality was worth something There has never been a time when everyone behaved morally, and it's unhelpful to view the past in this way. MLK himself was murdered.
- yareal 2y agoYour mental model of the past is idealistic, morality in the past was lynchings, cop raids against gay people, racism against everyone, segregation, sexism, and imperial power.
- Intermernet 2y agoYou should see the hit pieces happening in the Australian press right now. They're claiming he's not a whistle blower, but apparently an idealogue. They can do this because, despite the fact that the war-crimes he exposed were real, the actual details of said crimes are still hidden behind a "national security" veil.
- medo-bear 2y agoWhat do you expect of a country that has abandoned Julian Assange. Australia is a despicable place when it comes to Human Rights, personal freedom, and privacy
- 8372049 2y ago> and privacy What could possibly go wrong with demanding "encryption backdoors" in everything...
- mrkeen 2y agoFwiw: > ‘Enough is enough’: Australian PM denounces US, UK legal pursuit of Assange > Anthony Albanese takes stand against attempts to extradite Australian to US ahead of court ruling next week. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/15/enough-is-enough-australian-pm-denounces-us-uk-legal-pursuit-of-assange https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/15/enough-is-enough-au...
- medo-bear 2y agoJulian Assange deserves credit for exposing the hypocrisy of the US propaganda about freedom and human rights. Australians should be proud of him as he actually embodies much of the advertised Aussie battler spirit
- tdeck 2y agoI'd argue that most high-stakes whistle blowers are idealogues. That's why they're willing to take such a great personal risk.
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- wazoox 2y agoThe international community is a common term for the US and their lackeys (EU, Japan and a couple other countries), and they absolutely support Australia. The situation is similar in many matters : see how almost all of the international community governments support staunchly the current massacre in Gaza, though the people of all countries are protesting daily. In the UK, both Sunak and Starmer support Netanyahu's crimes unequivocally, while hundreds of thousands protest in the streets. I've lost any hope about our "democracies". We need a complete upheaval.
- soulofmischief 2y ago> The international community is a common term for the US and their lackeys (EU, Japan and a couple other countries), and they absolutely support Australia. You know that words can mean different things, depending on context. You also know it's unproductive to disregard clear contextualization in favor of starting a strawman argument. We both absolutely agree however that the only path forward involves a complete rewrite from scratch. The American experiment has concluded, it's time to collect the data, form conclusions, create and test a new hypothesis.
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- mrkeen 2y agoI'm all for whistleblower protection and don't think he should be serving time, based on the 15 minutes I've been aware of this, (so don't take this "but" the wrong way) but, What exactly was he blowing the whistle about? > McBride had become dissatisfied with military leadership and increased scrutiny of soldiers. > McBride's lawyers told the court that he had leaked information in an attempt to bring awareness to excessive investigation of soldiers. What? Is he a counter-whistle blower? What am I missing? [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_McBride_(whistleblower) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_McBride_(whistleblower...] Follow-up: Ok this article makes it make a bit more sense: https://apnews.com/article/mcbride-whistleblower-court-prison-afghanistan-war-crimes-e3fd2301d22d35ee348668b91b02d6bb https://apnews.com/article/mcbride-whistleblower-court-priso... > McBride’s documents formed the basis of an Australian Broadcasting Corp. seven-part television series in 2017 that contained war crime allegations including Australian Special Air Service Regiment soldiers killing unarmed Afghan men and children in 2013. > McBride’s argument that his suspicions that the higher echelons of the Australian Defense Force were engaged in criminal activity obliged him to disclose classified papers “didn’t reflect reality,” Mossop said.
- yfw 2y agohttps://michaelwest.com.au/david-mcbride-sentencing-reserved-as-defence-pushes-for-jail/ https://michaelwest.com.au/david-mcbride-sentencing-reserved... Odgers says the Army command was involved with “window dressing” which he suspected involved criminality; that is “command was undertaking improper investigations done for PR purposes, and he found that repellant and believed that he needed this to be properly investigated”.
- viraptor 2y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_Files_(Australia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_Files_(Australia) > The documents were leaked to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) by David McBride,[3] upon and seven stories were ultimately published as a result. The documents covered a wide range of topics, however most notably it detailed multiple cases of possible unlawful killings of unarmed men and children.
- bosase 2y ago
- Staple_Diet 2y agoSurprised to see this on HN. Contentious and depressing outcome, however rarely with classified documents does a judge rule the ends justified the means.
- medo-bear 2y agoAustralia has outrageous Human Rights legal standards for a western country so this is to be expected.
- ekianjo 2y ago"western country" is a very fuzzy concept. The definition needs a list of proper list of requirements otherwise you have countries with very varying levels of individual rights
- schappim 2y agoA third of the country is literally called "Western Australia." Jokes aside, a Western country is typically defined as a nation with cultural, political, and economic ties to Europe. Our UK roots, democratic governance, military ties (e.g., AUKUS), and post-war European migration certainly place us in this category...
- 8372049 2y agoI think GP's point wasn't whether or not Australia should count (I agree that it should), but that the level between "the bad" (the US, Hungary, parts of former Yugoslavia, parts of Eastern Europe etc.) and "the good" (Finland, Estonia, Norway, etc.) is pretty big.
- willcipriano 2y agoI'd just stop calling the "good" ones western, they are something different.
- KyleOneill 2y agoWhat a weird time, when it's safer to be a war crime whistle blower than an airliner whistleblower.
- Affric 2y agoWeird but pretty much the entirety of human history
- krisoft 2y agoAre you sure about that? There were no airliners for most of human history, so how could any statement about airliner whistleblowers stand for "entirety of human history"?
- Affric 2y agoIf there are zero airliner whistleblowers then there are no airliner whistleblowers go which it is not happening. Though, I was referring to just whistleblowers.
- Puts 2y agoWhy is this being so heavily down voted? Are people actually that bad at understanding sarcasm?
- twodave 2y agoI think the down votes are more because it’s a low-effort take, and this site (while it continues to slide in that direction, still) isn’t Reddit.
- nicklecompte 2y agoProbably because the first Boeing whistleblower died by suicide and the second Boeing whistleblower died due to a stroke secondary to a respiratory infection. The idea that either of these were murders is a stupid conspiracy theory with no supporting evidence, and it deserves to be heavily downvoted.
- quitit 2y agoA fuller detailing of the case is available from this news article: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-14/military-whistleblower-david-mcbride-sentenced-classified-info/103843314 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-14/military-whistleblowe... While this article is from the nationally funded news broadcaster it is the same news organisation that McBride provided the documents to - which were then used to produce 7 stories, leading to it being raided and the follow-on events. Detailed information of that is available here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_Files_(Australia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_Files_(Australia)
- Rinzler89 2y agoAlso, a video covering the topic and an interview with the guy and his side of the story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYt4CxFfQUU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYt4CxFfQUU
- medo-bear 2y agoWhat an absolute legend of a man
- resolutebat 2y agoMeanwhile, this guy who was found by the Federal Court of Australia to have committed war crimes including the murder of civilians is walking free. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Roberts-Smith https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Roberts-Smith
- Rinzler89 2y agoWe can't send to jail, the same people the government previously praised as being national heroes. Discrediting him afterwards would also mean discrediting the government who didn't do their due diligence. So they'll cover for him in order to protect themselves. It's a story as old as humanity.
- strken 2y agoWe (thus far) have not been able to send him to gaol because the civil standard of proof is on the balance of probabilities but the criminal standard is beyond a reasonable doubt. Ben Roberts-Smith has been shown to have committed war crimes on the balance of probabilities, but not beyond a reasonable doubt. I think that the government would probably prefer he be locked up, since the current situation is the worst of both worlds: he is legally a war criminal, but remains embarrassingly free and unpunished by the criminal justice system.
- Aeolun 2y agoThat’s why we change the government every x years, so they can blame it all on their predecessors.
- schappim 2y agoThis was somewhat underreported internationally: McBride was whistleblowing because he was dissatisfied with military leadership and the *increased* scrutiny of soldiers. Ironically, this led to further scrutiny and the identification of alleged war crimes.
- wholinator2 2y agoThis is the story that has been pushed more recently, but the boy boy YouTube channel recently covered and interviewed the man [] in which he claims they misconstrued his intention in order to intentionally discredit him, probably under direction from the government he was attempting to criticize. [] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sYt4CxFfQUU https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sYt4CxFfQUU
- schappim 2y agoThanks for sharing. I was unaware of this. I’ll have to check it out. Based on what you’ve said it seems his messaging has evolved since this 2019 article: https://amp.smh.com.au/politics/federal/what-i-ve-done-makes-sense-to-me-the-complicated-colourful-life-of-david-mcbride-20190621-p5204h.html https://amp.smh.com.au/politics/federal/what-i-ve-done-makes...
- 7sidedmarble 2y agoIf you actually listen to an interview with him and not reporting about him, you'll see him explain that he identified some scape goats for prosecution the Australian military we're trying to throw under the bus for minor issues or straight up things they didn't do, while letting the real psychos like special forces off the hook entirely.
- jpgvm 2y agoFirst Australian to go to jail over Afghanistan & Iraq is a whistle-blower. Truly a kangaroo legal system. I find it hard to blame the judge here, it is their duty to discharge the law as written. However Australia's laws are inherently anti-whistle-blower and IMO therefore anti-democratic. How are the people expected to hold their leaders accountable if their leaders are legally allowed to deceive them and punish any who would expose that deceit? Claiming that "national security" should somehow trump what are meant to be the most core tenets of our society is just simply more proof that the ruling class considers themselves above criticism, even if it costs the truth to snuff it out. Why is it we can have a government that is so consistently anti-Australian? The politics of it don't seem to matter because swapping parties in and out hasn't had any impact. Both sides of the ruling class still believe they are above us while still preaching tall-poppy syndrome for the rest of us.
- ToucanLoucan 2y ago[flagged]
- zaphar 2y agoThis is a deliberate mischaracterization of democracy. If the system meets these criteria then it by definition isn't democracy. Allowing people to claim that it is democracy just let's them hide behind the idea without having to meet any of the obligations that idea puts on them.
- ToucanLoucan 2y agoI mean, I fully agree with you. But this is the demonstrable reality of modern democracy. They all meet these criteria, and yes, they all hide behind the term democracy while not actually meeting any of it's obligations. If pressed they would say, "What are you going to do about it?" because they designed a system in which you are powerless, and so they know you can do nothing about it. Our planet is on fire and our world leaders twiddle their thumbs and prepare bunkers to coast out the collapse. Tell me how that's conceivably a result of an empowered populace after decades of said populace campaigning for climate change legislation.
- marcodiego 2y ago"Sharing classified documents...". That's a very complicated issue. If those documents put (innocent) people and national safety in risk he is in a very hard to defend position.
- yareal 2y agoHmmmm which innocent people and whose national safety? The way I recall leaks from the US in Iraq and Afghanistan, the leaks typically depicted the U.S. killing or torturing innocent people. Sure, it's plausible they might have made some soldiers less safe. But innocence is not so cut and dry. You can't only look from one perspective and see the whole picture.
- thriftwy 2y agoHowever, if these documents' contents put the nation in shame then it's going to stick regardless of the verdict.
- Aeolun 2y agoI mean, he presumably wasn’t sharing them with the enemy. National security is not at risk from the action of sharing documents an sich.
- hugh-avherald 2y agoHere's the actual judgment, including the particulars of the offence. https://www.courts.act.gov.au/supreme/judgments/r-v-mcbride-no-4 https://www.courts.act.gov.au/supreme/judgments/r-v-mcbride-...
- carlosjobim 2y agoWhy do you speculate? The case has been all over the news for months
- jmward01 2y agoI don't know the particulars of this person, the case, etc to comment on them so I won't. However, I will say that 'classified' has often become a way to hide actions that governments and individuals don't want the public to see instead of hiding things in order to protect the public. I think countries need laws on the duration of classification that get to the heart of national security vs public interest. I think a core issue is that classified information should come out within the lifetime of people involved with very few exceptions. Additionally, crimes found after declassification should have automatic statute of limitation renewals. One system that may work could be automatic mandatory release unless renewed at a higher level of classification. Every time material is elevated it should require the highest level of administration to approve renewal. Additionally, when things are declassified they should be publicly advertised in some way so that records requests can find them. There is a need for classified materials, but there should be a high bar to make them and a low bar to release them in order to avoid the government using them as a shield to hid activities they don't want the public to see.
- xg15 2y ago> I will say that 'classified' has often become a way to hide actions that governments and individuals don't want the public to see instead of hiding things in order to protect the public. You can probably rationalize anything as "protecting the public" with the magic phrases "national security" (no exposing shady government operations), "ensuring order and stability" (no political protests) and "ensuring innovation and prosperity" (no resisting anything the private sector wants to do).
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoDon’t forget about the “safety of children”.
- therealmrspock 2y ago[flagged]
- skeeter2020 2y ago
- aizen89 2y ago[flagged]
- wazoox 2y agoJournalism is printing what someone else does not want printed; everything else is public relations. George Orwell. Also, think of Assange, still in high security jail in UK without being condemned to anything in this country : the very definition of arbitrary detention and torture. Similarly there are still a number of prisoners in Guantanamo illegal prison, some having been there for decades. The very definition of arbitrary detention and torture. The "West" (the US and their lackeys) has lost any semblance of moral high ground, but keep pointing fingers. That's shameful and despicable.
- wouldbecouldbe 2y ago"Two experts were set to support McBride’s case, but commonwealth lawyers sought to have their testimony quashed under public interest immunity laws. The laws suppress information that would prejudice the public interest if they were made public. " I have a hard time understanding why they couldn't do a closed court hearing, is that not an option in Australia? https://www.theguardian.com/law/2022/oct/27/david-mcbride-afghanistan-alleged-war-crime-whistleblower https://www.theguardian.com/law/2022/oct/27/david-mcbride-af...
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- brokenmachine 2y agoCan't we just declare him a larrikin and talk about him at Anzac day?