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>I look at it actively -- as a starting point to motivate more whistleblowing, as a ratchet to push for more release, as a tool to promote more openness in gove
by pvnick 13y ago
>I look at it actively -- as a starting point to motivate more whistleblowing, as a ratchet to push for more release, as a tool to promote more openness in government.
I agree, that would be the ideal outcome of this trend of whistleblowers and the subsequent reactions. But the government will fight tooth and nail every step of the way. Julian Assange wrote a very cool essay about the role of information flow in an authoritarian conspiracy and how if the different nodes in the graph can't trust each other with information then the conspiracy breaks down and, presumably, truth and transparency replaces it [1]. I'm cautiously optimistic.
[1] http://cryptome.org/0002/ja-conspiracies.pdf http://cryptome.org/0002/ja-conspiracies.pdf
- adamonduty 13y agoBeyond Snowden, what is this "trend of whistleblowers"? Why haven't we seen others come out in similar ways? Or have I missed something?
- bmelton 13y agoDaniel (Chelsea) Manning, David Weber, Gina Grey, the recent Secret Service harassment whistleblowers, etc. Few of them have the press that Snowden did, but Snowden isn't an isolated whistleblower. That said, seeing the lives that Manning and he have been relegated to post-whistle, I'd be surprised if the current administration hasn't scared off a good bit of would-be whistle-blowers from doing so in the future.
- fnordfnordfnord 13y agoManning was a pre-Snowden whistleblower/leaker.
- jlgreco 13y agoIt isn't clear to me that he meant "trend of whistle-blowers" to mean "whistle-blowers inspired exclusively by Snowden". Both Snowden and Chelsea Manning (who previously went by Bradley, not Daniel) are a part of the presumed trend.
- Amadou 13y agoWhy haven't we seen others come out in similar ways? According to an attorney for the Government Accountability Project, they've been going there. I like her line that "Courage is contagious." http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/10/more-nsa-leakers-followed-snowdens-footsteps-whistleblower-lawyer-says/ http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/10/more-nsa-leake...