4 ms·

What is a whistleblower, exactly? It should be defined before we make these sweeping statements. You could imagine whistleblower protections being abused ...

dalke 13y ago
"Exactly" is too detailed of a request. Currently in the US the "exact" definition depends very much on the activity, organization, and person involved. For purposes of this discussion, a reasonable definition might be "a person who releases information about internal activities when 1) the information concerns illegal activity of an organization, and where 2) there is a strong and reasonable belief that internal mechanisms in the organization is insufficient to address the activity. This is an incomplete definition. For example, someone who reports to a supervisor about possible fraud case and is punished for doing so because that person's supervisor and department head are actively participating in the fraud, should have whistleblowing protection, even if that information stays entirely within the organization. Of course these can be abused. But as with all cases of power imbalance, the lack of whistleblowing protections means that people who might report fraud or other illegal activities may decide that it's not worthwhile to risk one's job, personal safety, or threat of jail, and therefore allow the crime to continue. Note that "concerns illegal activity" is of course the issue here. The reference everyone uses in this discussion is the Pentagon Papers. The NYT wrote that it "demonstrated, among other things, that the Lyndon Baines Johnson Administration had systematically lied, not only to the public but also to Congress, about a subject of transcendent national interest and significance." Quoting from Wikipedia, "The most damaging revelations in the papers revealed that four administrations, from Truman to Johnson, had misled the public regarding their intentions." If you believe it was appropriate to publish this classified information, then under what guidelines do you think it's appropriate to break the laws regarding the release of classified material. If you think that Daniel Ellsberg was wrong for doing so, then do we now have a mechanism in place which is able to detect and correct systemic "misleading" by a presidential administration? If so, what is it? If not, then I'll assume you think it's okay for an administration to mislead Congress and the public.

dalke 13y ago

"Exactly" is too detailed of a request. Currently in the US the "exact" definition depends very much on the activity, organization, and person involved. For purposes of this discussion, a reasonable definition might be "a person who releases information about internal activities when 1) the information concerns illegal activity of an organization, and where 2) there is a strong and reasonable belief that internal mechanisms in the organization is insufficient to address the activity. This is an incomplete definition. For example, someone who reports to a supervisor about possible fraud case and is punished for doing so because that person's supervisor and department head are actively participating in the fraud, should have whistleblowing protection, even if that information stays entirely within the organization. Of course these can be abused. But as with all cases of power imbalance, the lack of whistleblowing protections means that people who might report fraud or other illegal activities may decide that it's not worthwhile to risk one's job, personal safety, or threat of jail, and therefore allow the crime to continue. Note that "concerns illegal activity" is of course the issue here. The reference everyone uses in this discussion is the Pentagon Papers. The NYT wrote that it "demonstrated, among other things, that the Lyndon Baines Johnson Administration had systematically lied, not only to the public but also to Congress, about a subject of transcendent national interest and significance." Quoting from Wikipedia, "The most damaging revelations in the papers revealed that four administrations, from Truman to Johnson, had misled the public regarding their intentions." If you believe it was appropriate to publish this classified information, then under what guidelines do you think it's appropriate to break the laws regarding the release of classified material. If you think that Daniel Ellsberg was wrong for doing so, then do we now have a mechanism in place which is able to detect and correct systemic "misleading" by a presidential administration? If so, what is it? If not, then I'll assume you think it's okay for an administration to mislead Congress and the public.