
Government Secrets and the Need for Whistle-blowers - Libertatea
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/06/government_secr.html
======
znowi
I'd like to quote this part:

 _I understand I am asking for people to engage in illegal and dangerous
behavior. Do it carefully and do it safely, but -- and I am talking directly
to you, person working on one of these secret and probably illegal programs --
do it._

In the heat of our anger against anything government and secretive, it's easy
to forget about common people who work there and I believe more than one feel
that what they do may be morally unjust.

It's not a comfortable position to be in. And greatly so for anyone deciding
to speak up.

They make a great deal of sacrifice and I, as a citizen, am immensely thankful
to them.

~~~
thisone
My problem with encouraging people to break the law is that they can delude
themselves into believing that there will be no consequences to them
personally.

No matter how right you are to break the law, you will still have to face the
consequences.

If someone is going to martyr themselves for their beliefs, I sure as hell
hope they have a damn good team of lawyers behind them.

------
carbocation
This is a big, bold article worth reading in its entirety. He does not shy
away from taking a very strong stance. Here is one paragraph that stood out:

" _Whistle-blowing is the moral response to immoral activity by those in
power. What 's important here are government programs and methods, not data
about individuals. I understand I am asking for people to engage in illegal
and dangerous behavior. Do it carefully and do it safely, but -- and I am
talking directly to you, person working on one of these secret and probably
illegal programs -- do it._"

------
ceautery
I tend to take the opposite of the popular HN view on security issues (to my
karmatic dismay), but...

"our government regularly classifies things not because they need to be
secret, but because their release would be embarrassing." \- Agreed.

"but the U.S. government seems to have successfully destroyed it {wikileaks}
as a platform." \- Agreed.

I don't agree, though, that you should put yourself at personal risk to expose
something you don't morally support. I also don't agree that the government
shouldn't pursue programs like this. If popular fiction is to be believed,
crime is predictable, and the magic answer to finding malicious people is
there in the Internet, if we have a superhacker who can bang randomly on a
keyboard while making Trekkie-sounding soliloquies.

I say eh, let them have a go at it. Because it will ultimately fail to give
the desired results, just as airport body scanners have failed to find
badguys, just as DHS security checkpoints have failed. Nothing will replace
regular brownshoe investigation, and no brave action on the part of
individuals will fix our tendency to build corrupt governments who abuse
power.

No, Bruce, I'm going to take care of my family by not being sent to jail,
rather than be a martyr to the doomed cause of dismantling the government's
ability to use the net to spy on us.

~~~
larrys
"I tend to take the opposite of the popular HN view on security issues (to my
karmatic dismay), but..."

Ironically I can almost guarantee that there are people who will openly state
agreement with something that they wouldn't actually ever do (say, something
that would send them to jail) in order to not loose karma points.

Consequently the popular opinion on HN is not even just based upon an already
small group of people who already are homogenized but an even smaller group
that fears being downvoted for going against that crowd thought. So much for
freedom of speech.

~~~
pfortuny
Wow, this is a sweeping generalization in all the possible senses of the
meaning of the word sweeping.

Also it helps the dialogue because?

------
euroclydon
If the NSA were not building an enormous computing facility in Utah, we could
rightly accuse them of being incompetent.

The government requested three months of Verizon's phone records right after
the Boston bombing, not right after say, a derogatory article was published on
Michelle Obama.

The government's actions must be viewed in light of the law enforcement
agencies continuous drive to use technology to solve crimes and catch
perpetrators. Most people celebrate this when they watch the CSI TV shows.
Consider how DNA technology has made it more efficient to convict murderers,
and how DNA has exonerated people on death row. Now consider how many people
are eliminated as potential murder suspects because an early DNA screen clears
then and consider how many people are eliminated as potential suspects in
other crimes because their phone records put them in another place -- now I
know that's a two edge sword, but technology is more illuminating and less
bias than eye-witness testimony.

~~~
josh2600
Hey I've got an idea! Why don't we all register with the government at birth
and provide tissue samples each year to verify our identity. Better yet, let's
all wear ankle tracking devices or even better still just embed them in the
back of babies necks Matrix-style.

These kinds of dragnets suck, for more reasons than I care to admit. The
fallacy of your argument is the idea that catching a few bad apples justifies
the good ones that get caught in the same net. The people on CSI have due
process, few of the NSAs targets will ever see their day in court.

Technology is neutral. Its application is decidedly not.

~~~
ceautery
We do register with the government at birth.

~~~
josh2600
But you hardly provide tissue samples as you age. Your point has little to do
with my argument :/.

Registration at birth is a choice we made because of the social values of
planning. It's unlikely that those same people, as adults, would consent to
yearly tissue exchange or other undignified spying apparati.

~~~
ceautery
"Your point has little to do with my argument" \- It's unclear what your
argument is.

In addition to registering for an SSN, we provide images of ourselves as we
age for driver's licenses, and some interactions with law enforcement end up
with one's DNA being collected. Allegories to your dystopian state you feel
people would balk at are already standard practice.

Bad stuff can be (and has been) done with this information (and that sucks),
and as was stated above, so has exculpatory stuff (which is great).

------
noerps
Even if we are hyping or sensationalizing this topic, current behavior is a
very good indicator for future behavior.

------
squozzer
I for one have trouble egging-on whistleblowers not because of what they do,
but because I have no effective way to back them up.

