My analysis is the government has been cracking down on whistleblowers for some time now and tried to throw the sink at Snowden, Manning, Assange and others to send a message
Exactly. Ask to see all the great articles and stories Assange wrote (there’s none). He took stolen classified information and dumped it so our enemies could have it. I guess Benedict Arnold has been much aligned all these years considering he was just a journalist.
You are equating stealing and releasing classified information into the public domain with “whistleblowing”?
That is exactly what whistleblowing is, isnt it? If it isnt, I'd like to know what the good kind of whistleblowing is.
As a military member, I would protect that information with my life. Many have died doing so. Many have died because others didn’t.
Sounds good to me, where do we sign up? I'll take my chances with that if the alternative is classify basically everything as a state/corporate secret.
Why? That's a stupid thing to do, especially if the information was say, Americans committing war crimes, atrocities or violating international law. Would you do that in those cases?
Great point. Let’s start by you posting your social security number, date of birth and mother’s maiden name …
I figured that was your position, and I have a great answer for you. Sign up at your local military recruiting office, or apply to a job which requires access to classified information. You don’t have access because you don’t have a need to know. Once you establish that and have skills to contribute, the government will gladly provide you with access. Surely, you understand the need to safeguard information? I don’t think you’d be happy if someone posted all your text message, email history, bank information, passwords, medical history, etc… and called it whistleblowing. Let’s see how you’d defend Assange if he data-dumped your whole life on the internet.
If I was doing something unethical or illegal, I bet a lot of people would think it was whistleblowing. You and others are trying to equate someone stealing money from my bank account or exposing myself to fraud as being the same as the government protecting information about its activities and secret communications which are of public interest. I dont give a shit where some General goes to breakfast, where he lives or if he's cheating on his wife. That isnt of public interest. If he's ordering soldiers to break laws or commit acts of terror, that is of public interest. This isnt a hard concept!
If you get an insurance quote or a preapproval for credit, they almost certainly have your date of birth and social security number already. That information is out there, and state governments make money selling it. Here's an example: Can Florida legally sell your DMV information to third party companies?
That is a loaded question. It’s difficult to even fathom, considering I’ve never seen anything even remotely close to what you just described.
Topics being of public interest does not justify leaking. There are ways to report crimes. We’ve seen it in action many times. How many people went to jail over anything exposed by Wikileaks? How many indictments by The Hague came out if it?
