Personally, I have learnt I do not have a moral compass strong enough to outweigh the consequences that come with being a whistleblower. I'm very grateful such people exist, though.
Vindman is a perfect recent example of how easily this protections are skirted. He was a “key witness” in Trump’s first impeachment.
His career was largely derailed, and his post-retirement second career options are most likely severely limited.
To be specific (and iirc):
- He was not kicked out of the military. He retired due to “bullying” and a big congressional kerfuffle that was about to happen because of his delayed promotion to full bird.
- Iirc, he was told that he could remain in his career, but he would have to move from a hot shot track he was in to something like being commandant of a nowhere base in Alaska so he could lay low. Note that moves like this happen when being promoted to full bird, but I got the sense that this was not his trajectory pre-testimony.
- His post-retirement options probably exclude working at any organization that is pro-Trump and most that are pro-Republican, which is a not small number of DoD contractors (common landing spot for retired military).
- Note that his lawsuits were dismissed. This type of discrimination is fairly easy to do in such a way that makes it difficult to sue successfully, usually due to something like “documented personal opinion or discretion” that the discriminator had. Note that I have personally seen this knowingly done several times —- it was super creepy to see in action.
How would you protect someone like Vindman from that kind of retaliation? Would you force the MAGA crowd to wash his feet? He's also benefited- I was surprised and delighted to see him on an episode of Curb your Enthusiasm
We were talking about protections from prosecution which Snowden absolutely had.
> How would you protect someone like Vindman from that kind of retaliation?
Realistically, there is nothing rule-based that I can think of in the US that would protect someone like Vindman. He probably knew that.
The protection has to be from a system of shared beliefs about what is ethical and appropriate.
Trump’s whole campaign and strategy (love it or hate it) was to completely dumpster that idea.
There could be an interesting discussion about the merits and demerits of disrupting the existing system of shared beliefs that was in place when Trump was elected (I would actually welcome that), but Trump mostly (if not entirely) just used the opportunity to feed his narcissism.
> Would you force the MAGA crowd to wash his feet?
Totally uncalled for.
A simple solution would be things like:
- Don’t block his career for petty politics. The problem is that Trump specifically was all about retaliation and petty politics. I think most of the folks around him gave guidance not to do these sorts of petty things, but that was his style.
- Own your mistakes. Again, I don’t think this was Trump’s strong suit.
- Factor in the bigger picture when making decisions. Vindman, if my read on his career is correct, is precisely the type of person we need more of in the upper officer ranks. Tanking his career was bad for Vindman, but worse for the country, imho. That’s just short-sightedness.
That was his choice. He could have chosen the legal avenue and would have been afforded whistleblower protections. Fleeing the country with classified material doesn't afford you protection.
Copying from another comment, to prove how stupid is to expect that a secret service will pet you on the head for talking out against them:
"Thomas Drake did everything you say is the right, he paid the price:
| The first is Thomas Drake, who blew the whistle on the
| very same NSA activities 10 years before Snowden did.
| Drake was a much higher-ranking NSA official than
| Snowden, and he obeyed US whistleblower laws, raising
| his concerns through official channels. And he got
| crushed.
| Drake was fired, arrested at dawn by gun-wielding FBI
| agents, stripped of his security clearance, charged
| with crimes that could have sent him to prison for
| the rest of his life, and all but ruined financially
| and professionally. The only job he could find
| afterwards was working in an Apple store in suburban
| Washington, where he remains today. Adding insult to
| injury, his warnings about the dangers of the NSA’s
| surveillance programme were largely ignored.
I'll have to read more but it seems that he didn't use proper channels he went to a reporter (with only unclass material, he claims). They raided him probably expecting classified material to be involved. Thanks for sharing, I hadn't heard of this instance.
https://www.dodig.mil/Resources/FAQs/#whistleblowerFAQs