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by IanCal 3352 days ago
Why should we not support those who expose wrongdoing? That's the core of the issue you're ignoring here, whistleblowing is not just releasing whatever things you want.

If we as a nation want those activities, then we should make them legal and clearly defined. If not, then stopping those activities from taking place hardly sounds like "treason".
1 comments
DanBC 3352 days ago
> then we should make them legal and clearly defined

We did, in 1998, in the Public Interest Disclosure Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Interest_Disclosure_Act...

And we made things a bit better for NHS Whistleblowers with the Freedom to Speak Up Review and and NHS Improvement (was Monitor) Freedom to Speak Up policy which is compulsory for NHS Trusts

https://improvement.nhs.uk/resources/freedom-to-speak-up-whi...

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/sir-robert-franci...

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IanCal 3352 days ago
Sorry, I think I wasn't clear. I meant making the activities that people blow the whistle on legal/clearly defined as expected practice, rather than whistleblowing itself. If as a country we're OK with doing X and not with people whistleblowing about the country doing X, then we should make X clearly defined as legal.

I don't think we should make these things legal, personally, but I think they should either be legal so whistleblowing doesn't make sense or illegal and whistleblowing is encouraged.

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DanBC 3352 days ago
We have made surveillance legal, and provided a framework of protections, under Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act.

Before RIPA we had a bunch of different public bodies using surveillance with little control over what they were doing. After RIPA they can still use surveillance if they follow the correct procedures, and some of the abuses were reigned in.

The police especially have strong powers to use surveillance.

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IanCal 3352 days ago
And so something that falls entirely within both the letter and spirit of those regulations wouldn't be something a person would have protections for 'whistleblowing', right? Since it's not really whistleblowing in those cases.
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