
Government accused of 'full-frontal attack' on whistleblowers - secfirstmd
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/feb/12/uk-government-accused-full-frontal-attack-prison-whistleblowers-media-journalists
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open-source-ux
I'm from the UK. The reason the British government can propose such outrageous
laws is because a) we don't have a functioning opposition party capable of
challenging or scrutinising the Government. The Labour party is completely
spineless and ineffectual; and b) that lack of opposition has emboldened the
Government to push through some of the most invasive surveillance laws in the
Western World. The British Prime Minster, Theresa May, has a nasty
authoritarian streak - she had it when she was Home Secretary responsible for
domestic security, and she has it now with even more zeal as the Prime
Minister.

If you picture in your minds eye the most dysfunctional, deceitful, lunatic-
filled version of politics you could possibly imagine, you still won't come
close to the giant sinkhole that is British politics right now. Utterly
depressing.

~~~
crdoconnor
The Labour party was, until pretty recently, overrun with exactly the same
kinds of authoritarians (e.g. Yvette Cooper) and they're sabotaging the
current leadership in a bid to get back power.

~~~
hd4
Honestly I hope they succeed, and from the ashes, we get a Labour/centre-left
party with some actual integrity and credibility, because this current one has
none and wouldn't get back into power anyway. Corbyn seems okay, but he seems
to be stuck in the difficult position of leading a party of delusional
Blairite idiots who think the people want the Labour party to go more to the
right.

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pmoriarty
_" Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to
think sanely under the influence of a great fear."_ \-- Bertrand Russell

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wallace_f
This is one of the atrocities involving civil and human rights abuses by
government that has nothing to do with neither Trump nor Clinton. However, the
media, even in the UK, is more concerned with Trump than the abuses of
government, which are what really threatens human liberty and welfare.

~~~
moxious
Each president that expands the president's power manages to forget that he
gives those powers to the next person. Which is how Trump now has quite the
surveillance apparatus.

~~~
wallace_f
Presidents may not hold anywhere near as much power as we believe. Eisenhower
seemed to be very concerned in his warning of this when he was leaving office
half a century ago:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y06NSBBRtY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y06NSBBRtY)

~~~
adventured
We got a dramatic demonstration of this in action, when the CIA performed a
media hatchet job on Trump shortly after his election victory (the
intelligence agencies are notorious for doing things like this, it happened
numerous times during the Bush Administration). Which then prompted him to
make the CIA his first stop after the inauguration, to show his belly and let
them know he wasn't a threat to them. It's pretty clear where the power rests
in the US.

~~~
mercer
Assuming this is true, who exactly would have the power? The director of the
CIA?

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vonklaus
I just watched zero days, a great documentary about stuxnet. It is important
to realize-- and this seems to be the films thesis, that secrecy is extremely
damaging. It took 20-30 years for bioweapons, nuclear weapons, and chemical
weapons treaties to be enacted and this process hasn't been started with
cyber.

Attacking whistleblowers is damaging because it is postponing inevitable
discussions that need to happen and interfering with discourse nations need to
have within themselves and with other counter-parties.

~~~
strictnein
> "It is important to realize-- and this seems to be the films thesis, that
> secrecy is extremely damaging."

Wow, I guess we watched the same documentary, but I didn't pull that message
from that movie at all.

Just seemed like kind of a two front warning to me:

1\. Those type of cyber operations are extremely difficult to pull off
effectively. Stuxnet did little to damper Iran's progress.

2\. Those type of operations are extremely difficult to control. Stuxnet got
into the wild, even though its original targets were airgapped networks and
industrial machines.

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kevinbowman
Note that this is the UK government

~~~
I_am_neo
Any government on this path is a tyrannic old dinosaur in need of reform.

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timthorn
The title here is inaccurate (at time of posting: Government accused of 'full-
frontal attack' on whistleblowers)

This is a proposal from the Law Commission, an independent body that advises
the Government, and might or might not be taken up as a policy position. The
title in the article makes the distinction clear.

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tracker1
Just... wow. And people question the need for civil liberties organizations,
or in the U.S. strong defenders of the bill of rights.

Donating to the ACLU, EFF and NRA is something most of us should be doing.

~~~
vvanders
One of those organizations isn't like the others.

~~~
tracker1
I don't agree with everything the NRA or it's members support... there isn't
an alternative organization that is working to protect second amendment rights
that I'm aware of. The ACLU specifically takes a back seat on the issue and
points to the NRA.

Frankly, the NRA has plenty of money behind it.. but I feel that it's
important to protect civil liberties spelled out by the constitution and
implied under the 10th amendment.

~~~
bmelton
> there isn't an alternative organization that is working to protect second
> amendment rights that I'm aware of

There are a few others: Gun Owners of America (GOA), Citizens Committee for
the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA), etc., but perhaps the biggest and
most effective (though not nearly as large as the NRA) is the Second Amendment
Foundation (SAF) - who effects most of the change they desire through lawsuit.

The two largest gun rights cases of our era (to date) are DC v Heller and
Chicago v McDonald. Both of those cases were the result of a suit initiated by
the Second Amendment Foundation. They're also better about keeping themselves
single-issue than the NRA, which is good for me personally because outside of
gun rights and safety, I disagree with the NRA on very little.

~~~
tracker1
Thank you for pointing the others out... will look into SAF.

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iamben
When you roll in the whole 'handing over of social media passwords' thing
(currently suggested in the US, but if mass adopted no doubt followed
elsewhere) all this becomes even more scary. Dare to criticise a government?
Don't even think about travelling there. Criticise your own government -
expect that to be shared back.

Who's going to want to challenge anything any government says? No one that
wants an easy life. Frightening.

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I_am_neo
Gee, should I be asking "why" instead?

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neutronicus
I don't think I've ever seen "full-frontal" modify anything other than
"nudity" (possibly implicitly).

~~~
wallace_f
Keeping the stereotype of software engineers in mind, I think it's funny that
posts attempting to be funny are down-voted.

~~~
grzm
Time and place.

~~~
lightedman
Slashdot manages a balance of it. Why can't HN do the same?

That's essentially one of the reasons I don't post a whole lot here. The
'community guidelines' are a real trainwreck to anyone who has experience
running a community. I ran BBSes, half of these 'guidelines' were proven
unworkable decades ago.

But then again, engineers are rarely known for hindsight or historical
perspective.

~~~
grzm
_Slashdot manages a balance of it. Why can 't HN do the same?_

While there may be similarities and overlap, Slashdot and HN are different
communities and have different expectations and community standards. I don't
think it's a matter of HN not managing the balance Slashdot has: it's more
that HN's sense of where that balance should be is different. I'm sure there
are plenty of members who frequent both sites, just as you do, and are aware
and accepting of the differences.

~~~
lightedman
Nobody bothers visiting Slashdot any more, just like nobody bothers with
Soylent News. Note that any venerable name on either of those sites
essentially doesn't post there any longer. Any accounts you see are either
die-hard try-hards or bots/spammers.

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dajohnson89
What I would like to see more in this conversation (on HN) is the potentially
harmful effects of whistleblowing. It's nice that Snowden/das Spiegel/guardian
were meticulous in making sure people weren't endangered by the leaks, but we
can't count on it in general.

State secrets are often nefarious. However, they are often well-meaning
(nuclear weapons schematics, etc). It is highly non trivial to ascertain the
long-term impact of intelligence leaks upon the state.

~~~
alexandercrohde
Maybe you're unclear on exactly what a whistleblower means. Definition (by
google): "a person who informs on a person or organization engaged in an
illicit activity."

So by definition, you can only whistleblow if the government (or company) is
doing ILLEGAL (and often IMMORAL) things. So you may not find many people on
HN who are too interested in arguing about the downsides of whisteblowing;
it'd almost be like asking what the upsides of spousal abuse are.

~~~
gydfi
The trouble is that in most of the recent prominent government
"whistleblowing" cases (Snowden, Manning, the other one I forget) there's a
great deal of disagreement on the legality of what has been exposed. The issue
is that an individual sets himself up as judge and jury on the subject of
complicated legal matters which he might not fully understand.

I will say that both Snowden and Manning went well into the territory of
leaking stuff that wasn't illegal in addition to stuff that was at least
debatable.

~~~
DarkKomunalec
"an individual sets himself up as judge and jury on the subject of complicated
legal matters"

Legal channels were shown to be utterly ineffective in these matters,
accomplishing nothing but drawing retribution against the would-be
whistleblower: [http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/12/15/nsa-inspector-
wh...](http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/12/15/nsa-inspector-who-
criticized-snowden-not-using-official-channels-found-guilty)

And how many judges were consulted on wether the spying was legal, let alone
got to rule on it? How carefully chosen were they? And how legitimate are such
secret trials? You accuse whistleblowers of playing judge and jury for merely
revealing what the government is -doing-.

Finally, the entire appeal to 'legal matters' is misguided - whistleblowing is
done when someone feels something is -morally- wrong, regardless of what the
law, written by the government and interpreted in secret, says.

