

Whistleblowers are not traitors - Libertatea
http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/blog/whistleblowers-edward-snowden-bradley-manning/#.UcBtm-smzs8

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onion2k
Ed Snowden is a traitor. He betrayed the trust of the government he worked
for. That means he _is_ a traitor. He committed a traitorous act against those
who trusted him.

What he is _not_ , however, is treasonous. He didn't betray his country. He
did his country (and many others, including mine) a huge favour by changing
his allegiance from government to country - he did the right thing. It'd be
nice if those working in government never had to do that, but it'd be foolish
to thing they won't, and downright wrong to think they've done a terrible
thing if they do.

If you believe he committed treason then you're conflating the country with
its government. They are not the same thing _at all_.

~~~
alexqgb
""He betrayed the trust of the government he worked for. That means he is a
traitor."

Actually, no. Treason - as a formal charge - can only exists in a time of
formally declared war. Even in the depth of the Cold War, we didn't charge
turncoats spying for the Soviets with treason since technically, we were never
at war with the USSR. Espionage, yes, treason no.

~~~
covingkj
I'm confused about what you're getting at. In the next paragraph he defines
being a traitor and being treasonous as different things.

~~~
alexqgb
Correct, but that doesn't change the fact that his definition of "treason" is
wrong.

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tmandarano
There's a balance. Complete transparency and access to all information (ie,
Julian Assange's stance) is extreme. If we gave away all of our secrets, we
wouldn't have an advantage over our country's enemies.

~~~
psadauskas
This may be extremely naive of me, but I really hope that within my lifetime
those notions ("our county", "country's enemies") well have ended. The
imperialistic nationalism of Europe culminated in WW1&2, and now they mostly
get along. Maybe the rest of the world can, too, in the next 50 years (without
another cataclysmic war).

~~~
if_by_whisky
Is that to say that nationalism among EU member states is a thing of the past?
I'm skeptical that EU citizens are collectively so enlightened.

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psadauskas
The national pride is still there, sure, but the circumstances that brought
about two world wars are not. I just mean that (generalizing) the French don't
view the Germans the same way Americans view the Middle East.

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

~~~
dalke
"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.

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chris_mahan
The premise of the article is false. It says, right in the first paragraph,
that "[Western States] at least accept that they will be held accountable by
the press and public alike." (By Western States I don't mean states west of
the Mississippi river, I mean states of Western European types, description
which presumably the US fits.

Alas, the US government seems to have lost that particular element. They seem
to think that they will not be held accountable by the press and the public.
They may be right too.

I find it most saddening and ironic that a United Kingdom journal is defending
the freedom we fought to acquire from the King of England.

------
Meglis
ancient Greeks said : τα εν οίκο, μή εν δήμο

those of the house not of the public

