Slashdot Mirror
Why Whistleblowers Can't Get a Fair Trial
phantomfive writes "'Seven whistleblowers have been prosecuted under the Obama administration,' writes Jesselyn Radack, a lawyer who advised two of them. She explains why they can't get a fair trial. In the Thomas Drake case, the administration retroactively marked documents as classified, saying, 'he knew they should have been classified.' In the Bradley Manning case, the jury wasn't allowed to see what information was leaked. The defendants, all who have been charged with espionage, have limited access to court documents. Most of these problems happen because the law was written to deal with traitorous spies, not whistleblowers."
When a government is corrupt, dishonest, and incompetent, then a whistleblower and a spy are essentially the same thing, as they threaten the positions and livelihoods of the corrupt, dishonest, and incompetent politicians and bureaucrats who comprise it.
Washington, Adams, Franklin, Hancock, et al would've been hung as traitors if the Brits had quashed the American rebellion.
Bucking the system is courageous for a reason.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
In a democracy, the public IS a higher authority than the government. Sometimes, the officials forget this.
Whistleblowing is reporting malpractice to a higher authority.
In a democracy, the highest authority is the people. Manning knew that she'd have no success going to her commanding officer, or his CO, or his CO, or even the President or Congress. So he reported the malpractice to the President's boss: the people.
"As Americans, we can take enormous pride in the fact that courage has been inspired by our own struggle for freedom, by the tradition of democratic law secured by our forefathers and enshrined in our Constitution. It is a tradition that says all men are created equal under the law and that no one is above it."
"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones weâ(TM)ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek."
"Iâ(TM)m in this race not just to hold an office, but to gather with you to transform a nation."
"Change doesnâ(TM)t come from Washington. Change comes to Washington."
Now watch me get modded down for using Obama's own words against him. Remember, citizens, report suspicious subversive activity immediately!
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Except that we do not live in a democracy, we live in a republic. A democracy fails to function beyond a certain number, so a republic is formed to increase efficiency. That is not to say that we are discovering the limits of functioning of a republic, too. Humans may simply not be justly organizable above a certain multiplier of their monkeysphere.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Wow, I grew up in south america as well and I have lots of colleagues from Russia. I am living in the UK now.
How many lies in few sentences. It is so easy to find the truth. Just compare the number of people that immigrated to the USA with the number that emigrated from the USA and you will see how much it is a fallacy.
In the Bradley Manning case, the jury wasn't allowed to see what information was leaked.
When you're on a jury, you have a duty to both the accused and your nation to consider evidence fairly, within Constitutional constraints. Being prevented from seeing evidence would, to me, be all the reason necessary to give a verdict of 'not guilty.'
All accused American citizens have a right to confront their accusers and the evidence presented against them, in a fair and speedy trial conducted within due process. Period, end of story; don't like it? Amend the Constitution or GTFO.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Sadly, the math pretty much guarantees this outcome. The people who designed the system we use had few models to look to and did not have the background to anticipate the problems that would arise.
"There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution."
Letter to Jonathan Jackson (2 October 1780), "The Works of John Adams", vol 9, p.511
And not just socialists, right wing opponents of war were not treated notably better.
The espionage act has been used against real spies on occasion, but more often it has been used as a stick against dissenters.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Except that we do not live in a democracy, we live in a republic.
It's time to update your dictionary, because you're using an 18th century definition of democracy. Back then democracy meant what we now call direct democracy. Nowadays the word has become more general, to the point where it includes both direct democracies and representative democracies. My apologies if the English language changes. I have trouble reading Chaucer too.
http://www.merriam-webster.com...
Unfortunately the way our voting system was constructed, you WILL always end up with 2 parties. End stop. Every other country that uses the US system has also ended up with 2 parties, it is built into the math, and no matter how much enthusiasm there is for any particular 3rd party, the 2 party system is what it will stabilize to every, single, time.
While you are right that the U.S. system is flawed and will tend toward 2 parties, you draw bad conclusions from that premise. That premise does not guarantee that (1) it will always be the same two parties, nor does it guarantee (2) that those parties will always adhere to the same agenda/platform for all time.
Notice that we didn't always have the two parties we have now, for example. The Republican party emerged in the mid-1800s and overtook the Whig party for good reasons. There have also been a number of times since then where a 3rd-party presidential candidate has significantly contributed toward changing the issues discussed in an election. The most recent significant one was probably Ross Perot, who received about 20% of the popular vote in 1992. His presence in debates and during the campaigns served to highlight issues that otherwise may not have even been discussed, as well as problematizing the consistency of the two major party platforms. (For the record, I was NOT a Perot fan, but that's just the most recent example of a strong presidential 3rd-party candidate.) If a 3rd party managed to get a candidate with the charisma, connections, and rhetorical skills of Obama in 2008, it certainly could be possible for a party shift to occur like that which destroyed the Whigs 150 years ago.
And, if you're willing to look beyond the presidency, you can find plenty of examples of 3rd-party candidates actually elected to various offices, including sometimes to federal office.
One can philosophize all they want, but the way our system was built, voting 3rd party streghtens the position of the candidate furthest from the voter's preferences. It is no throwing your vote away, it is helping the worst candidate.
Except when your candidate gets elected, which actually does happen, particularly in many local or state elections.
And even if your candidate doesn't get elected, the examples I mention can often cause major party candidates to shift their views if the 3rd party candidate is perceived as a significant threat.
So no, it's not as simple as you make it out to be. Just because we have a system that tends toward 2 major parties doesn't mean you have to shut up and take whatever crap they serve to you... and sometimes voting for a 3rd party candidate can facilitate changes. (Not saying it always will -- but it's not always the irrational choice you make it out to be either.)
Are you a Russian? I'm not. He gave me plenty of information... If you can list a way he could have released his information to the US as a whole without also letting it be seen by the Russians (who are opponents of ours on multiple political issues, but not our enemies by any stretch of the definition) then I will grant there is *some* point to what you said. Otherwise, it's complete bullshit.
Also, as others have pointed out, he did try going through proper channels. He was told to drop it. How high did you expect him to go, and what good did you expect it to do? The president himself has expressed support for the NSA's programs *and* branded Snowden a criminal *before* he took asylum in Russia, so that part of your argument is bullshit. Enough members of congress have said (or voted in favor of) much the same things that I doubt it would do much good to have gone to them, either. With the heads of the executive and legislative branches complicit in this travesty, Snowden *did* go over their heads: to the people who elect those scum. We, the citizens of these United States of America.
So, I ask you again: how was Snowden supposed to reveal the information to We The People, without also revealing it to our "enemies"? (If you wanted to pick examples of enemies, you could do much better than Russia).
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...