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by timeuser
4683 days ago
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First, thank you for continuing to participate in this discussion. I think you are bringing some different perspective and make some good points. > I agree, whistleblower protections would be a massively positive change in how governance works in the US, and would make people accountable for decisions which have significant impact on national policy, security, and economy. That being said, I don't see either Manning or Snowden as whistleblowers. What do you think disqualifies them as whistleblowers? Manning seems disqualified on some level because his leaks were large, not specific, without a specific goal, and possibly not even motivated by the content of what he leaked. Snowden's leaks seem more specific and motivated by a desire to blow the whistle on specific practices he sees as illegal or immoral. Daniel Ellsberg's leaks were rather large and non-specific in many ways but he is widely regarded as a whistleblower. What is the qualification or disqualification? |
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I don't see them as whistleblowers, because their actions stand in contrast to Ellsberg. For one, neither of them tried to go to a higher authority to report wrongdoing -- that is the very first thing that a potential whistleblower must do, is handle things at the lowest level possible and allow the situation to rectify itself before taking matters into their own hands. When that fails, then you escalate to higher authorities. Secondly, Ellsberg surrendered himself to the court system willingly, knowing full well that he could face life imprisonment. Manning was caught and brought to justice after having bragged on an AOL chat to someone about his "hacking", while Snowden fled the country taking with him a trove of classified documents which could be in the hands of other countries, weakening any argument (to me) that he had the US's best intentions at heart. My argument about Snowden is that he knows so little about the programs he supposedly leaked -- I watched his interview and was astonished at the blatant lies in it (see my other post on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5885846), not to mention him saying that he could wiretap any american (or even the president!) at any time. True whistleblowers are caught in the middle of something that they have solid knowledge of, but are unable to change the course of, so they go to the public in order for the public to do the course correction.