Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Why Whistleblowers Can't Get a Fair Trial

Posted by samzenpus on from the I-fought-the-law dept.

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."

14 of 441 comments (clear)

  1. One and the same by Akratist · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:One and the same by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      In the Thomas Drake case, the administration retroactively marked documents as classified, ...

      Going back retroactively to MAKE someone a criminal is an act of corruption and injustice.

      Son of bitch. I hated Bush and now Obama. Will there ever be a President that I can respect?

    2. Re:One and the same by cyborg_zx · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Will there ever be a President that I can respect?

      The system does not seem designed to allow that.

    3. Re: One and the same by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Vote third party. That's the only way it will ever happen.

    4. Re:One and the same by kurt555gs · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yes, Dwight D Eisenhower.

      --
      * Carthago Delenda Est *
    5. Re: One and the same by hummassa · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No, because politicians and diapers ought to be changed frequently, and for the same reasons.

      --
      It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
    6. Re:One and the same by kilfarsnar · · Score: 5, Insightful

      When a government is corrupt, dishonest, and incompetent, then a whistleblower and a spy are essentially the same thing

      That's why I get such a kick out of it when these idiots get on TV and call Snowden a traitor because he didn't "go through the proper channels," as if the very agency he was ratting on was going to give him a fair hearing and not throw his ass in prison as a spy/hacker/traitor immediately.

      And they're wrong anyway. Snowden did go through proper channels. He was ignored or told to mind his business. That's always the way it goes when one goes through proper channels. I don't think I have ever heard of a case where a person discovers wrongdoing, goes to his superior about it and has his superior actually take meaningful action.

      It makes perfect sense, if you think about it (which is why the folks on TV get it wrong). Any given program has been conceived, discussed and agreed upon by people at a high level. They have run the scenarios and considered the outcomes and consequences. Now some staffer comes along and tells them that what they are doing is likely illegal and certainly creepy. They're going to listen to him and take his concerns seriously? Of course not! They're going to tell him to shut up. But the folks on TV will say Snowden should have gone through proper channels, as though he would have gotten any traction. They're either serving an agenda or depressingly naive.

      --
      "What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
    7. Re:One and the same by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      True, individuals anticipated all sorts of things (both right and wrong), but so much of it was rooted in personal philosophy and so little could be backed up with any kind of historical evidence or models, even when they were right it was little more then an personal guess.

      That's because if we base on "historical evidence or models", what we'll find is that the norm for humanity is some form of authoritarian rule by a small group of elites, including that monarchy that the Founding Fathers were trying to move away from.

      The Founding Fathers, following queues from the Enlightenment, wanted to break away from that. They want to break away from how humanity has always behaved. Yes, the Founding Fathers are some of the first Progressives.

      Just like Progressives today and in every age, they're seen as rebels and traitors by the establishment. We only call them heroes because they succeeded.

    8. Re: One and the same by DuckDodgers · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I agreed with your line of thinking for almost 20 years, but I no longer do.

      The lesser of two evils argument is a big deal. I support abortion rights. I support separation of Church and State with respect to marriage (give any two adults that want legal marriage rights those rights, or give no two adults those legal marriage rights, don't selectively define who can and can't have them based on religious law). I support social welfare programs. I support a tax system that shifts the tax burden into a purely progressive system - which is not what we have now, because of the differences between the income tax and the capital gains tax. The Democratic Party supports those things, the Republican Party does not, so the Democrats are my lesser of two evils. But both parties are hopelessly corrupt.

      The current surveillance without court oversight and indefinite detention of terror suspects without court oversight was started under a Republican President and majority Republican Congress and perpetuated by a Democrat President with a majority Democrat progress.

      The Democrats that made me one of the hopeful in 2008 are trying to block, trap, and prosecute the whistleblowers that Obama promised to protect in his campaign. There was a Slashdot article when that statement was removed from the Obama campaign websites a few months ago.

      No Child Left Behind was the last serious attempt to reform education on a national level, and it was bipartisan and undoubtedly started with the best of intentions, but it takes money away from schools that need it most, gives money to schools that need it least, buries teachers in paperwork, and sucks the love of learning out of kids by grilling them with standardized tests.

      The Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards to save the environment by increasing fuel economy are a token gesture meant to appear like action without doing anything - the US uses 70% of its petroleum per year on transportation, but that's not all personal passenger vehicles - commercial vehicles aren't subject to any similar big jumps in fuel economy standards. A big chunk of the energy and other natural resources used in the country is used by businesses, and in many cases it's cheaper to deal with inefficient energy use on an ongoing basis than to make a big one time investment in more efficient equipment and then either pay interest on the loans you made to get it or deal with the opportunity costs associated with investing in efficiency instead of something else. CAFE is a classic case of "make it look like you're doing something!"

      The War on Drugs against marijuana is the latest form of the make-work programs under FDR's New Deal. Employ some people (DEA and associated prosecutors, plus lots of prison staff) and keep other people out of the work force (drug offenders in prison). We should have just put the pot heads to work digging ditches, spent the rest of the money funding free rehab clinics for any citizen, and saved ourselves a lot of heartache - and it's taken too damn long for the federal view of a substance clearly less dangerous in all respects than alcohol to change.

      Our freedoms are eroding, our education is failing, our veterans are suffering, and the middle class is shrinking. These clowns are all either incompetent to fix it or too busy profiting from the problems. I will still support a local candidate that's Democrat or Republican based on the person. But on the national level, I will be voting third party, even if I think that third party is looney, because the other two parties are Sauron and Saruman trading jokes between Mordor and Isengard while the world burns.

  2. This Is Nothing New. by rmdingler · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Labels such as traitor or revolutionary hero are interchangeable, depending on how things work out.

    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

  3. Re:They aren't whistleblowing. by artg · · Score: 5, Insightful

    In a democracy, the public IS a higher authority than the government. Sometimes, the officials forget this.

  4. Hope and Change by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "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!
  5. So Don't Convict by CanHasDIY · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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
  6. Nope, they anticipated this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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