These are the words of Jesselyn Radack, a whistleblower who promoted transparency by exposing the truth to Americans. From the birth of this country, Americans have valued transparency in the government. Still, there are instances where the government is allowed to keep secrets from the American people. There has been ongoing debate on whether the American Federal government should be allowed to keep secrets from the American people. Whistleblowers are important is this debate because of their fail-safe method of creating transparency. There are three central reasons to prevent government secrecy. First, Secrecy goes against our American values. Second, Americans should have a transparent government. Third, Secrecy can harm the government and American people. To summarize, Governmental secrecy must be stopped because it is unconstitutional and undemocratic, transparency is a necessary check of the government, and governmental secrecy can lead to corruption.
In the 1970’s, Ralph Nard coined the term whistleblower referring to when a referee blows a whistle to indicate an illegal or foul play. Oxford dictionaries define whistleblower as “a person who informs on a person or organization regarded as engaging in an unlawful or immoral activity.” This can be in either the government or corporations. The debate on whistleblowers continues to be pertinent in light of recent scandals. Many believe in the value of transparency, but disagree about the correct way to achieve it. This is why we created laws, such as the Whistleblower Act and the Espionage Act. The Whistleblower Act was put in place in order to protect “[A]ny disclosure of information” that a covered employee “reasonably believes” evidences “a violation of any law, rule, or ...
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...You'll risk lives! National security! You'll endanger troops!" Then they say there is nothing of importance in what WikiLeaks publishes. It can't be both. Which is it?...It is neither. WikiLeaks has a four-year publishing history. During that time we have changed whole governments, but not a single person, as far as anyone is aware, has been harmed.” (Julian Assange). Whistleblowers should not be punished for trying to promote transparency and punishing whistleblowers will just lead to more secrecy.
One example of a whistleblower is Thomas Drake.
In 2005, a New York Times revealed that the N.S.A. was running a warrantless wiretapping program inside the United States. The phone companies were sending information to the NSA headquarters. Many denounced the program as illegal and demanded congressional hearings. Legal experts said that spying on Americans without a
Corruption is a persistent problem that plagues the world and it knows no boundaries. Transparency International defines it as the “abuse of entrusted power for private gain” (2013). For the purposes of this thread, ‘corruption’ is defined as any individual, collective, or structural act or process that permits the use of public authority or position for private gain. This definition captures the broad and many ways individuals and institutions abuse power and the public trust. In regard to whistleblowing, much conflict stems from the context in which the whistleblower is viewed.
The National Security Agency or NSA for short is a United States federal government intelligence organization that is used for global monitoring and collecting data. After the attacks on September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush implemented the NSA’s domestic spying program to conduct a range of surveillance activities inside the United States. There has been a lot of controversy surrounding this program as it allows the NSA to tap into the public’s phone calls, cameras, internet searches, text messages, and many other mediums to seek out individuals that may be potential threats to the security of the general public. Many individuals say that the tactics used by the NSA are unconstitutional as they invade people’s privacy. This is primarily
Glenn Greenwald, a talented and widely read columnist on civil liberties for the Guardian newspaper, failed in his attempt to alarm his readers to the flagrant and widespread violations of American privacy. Although his article was full of facts, documentation, and quotes from top rank officials, the article did not convey any sense of wrong doing or outrage. Rather it was dull, lacked passion and a sense of persuasion. In fact, the only attention grabbing part in the whole article is the title.
A short background on the laws concerning surveillance will help clear up some misconceptions on the NSA. Back in 1968, the Wiretap Act protected citizens from the government listening to their phone call...
After September 11th, Americans looked to the government for protection and reassurance. However, they did not expect to find out thirteen years later that the government did this by using technology to spy on Americans, as well as other countries. George W. Bush began the policy shortly after the terrorist attack and Barack Obama continued it. There have been many confrontations over the years about the extent of the N.S.A.’s spying; however, the most recent whistle-blower, Edward Snowden, leaked information that caused much upset throughout America (EFF). It has also brought many people to question: is he a hero or a traitor?
If someone broke the law trying to help the American keep their constitutional rights, would you consider them a hero or a criminal? Well that’s exactly what’s going on today with Edward Snowden. In 2013 Edward Snowden leaked classified information to the American people, information that shined a light on the dark things that the U.S government was doing behind closed doors. He revealed that the U.S government has been going against the constitution and taking away our freedoms. The U.S government has been taking away our freedoms however, Snowden is being called the criminal. Thesis Statement here.
In May of 2013 Edward Snowden who was then working at a National Security Agency office in Oahu, Hawaii began copying top secret documents that belonged to the American government as he believed the documentation contained unethical and immoral content that he believed the American people and the world in general needed to know about. (Snowden, 2014) The documentation that he collated contained information regarding projects such as Prism, which is a top secret NSA surveillance program that has the ability to access the data servers of some of America's large...
In early June 2013, Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former defense contractor who had access to NSA database while working for an intelligence consulting company, leaked classified documents reports that the National Security Agency (NSA) is recording phone calls of millions of Americans along with gathering private data and spying foreign Internet activity. The Washington Post later broke the news disclosed PRISM, a program can collect data on Internet users. The leaked documents publicly stated a vast objection. Many people were shocked by the scale of the programs, even elected representatives were unaware of the surveillance range. A nationwide debate over privacy rights have been sparked. Although supporters claim that the NSA only does its best to protect the United States from terrorists as well as respecting Americans' rights and privacy, many civil rights advocates feel that the government failed to be clear about the limit of the surveillance programs, threatening Americans' civil...
The NSA has been secretly ordered to eavesdrop by the Bush administration after the 9/11 terrorist attack. The base of where the NSA has been operating their wiretapping agenda is in Bluff Dale, Utah the building sprawls 1,500,000 square feet and possess the capacity to hold as much as five zeta bytes of data it has cost almost $2,000,000,000. The act of spying over the USA citizens even though they are suspicious is a threat to the people’s privacy and the privacy of other countries’ members are being infringed on by the NSA by the act of wiretapping. The action of wiretapping violates laws for privacy, like the Bill of Right’s Amendment Four which says “Every subject has a right to be secure from all unreasonable searches, and seizures of his person, his houses, his papers, and all his possessions”. The wiretapping controversy has caused the panic and hysteria of the citizens of the USA and USA’s allies. This panic and hysteria has troubled the government by resulting to mistrust and concern against them by both groups. The panic effect of the NSA wiretapping has caused many people such as journalist to have their freedom of speech to be restricted in fear of the NSA to stamp them as terrorist and according to the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights that is an infringement of the people’s right of freedom of expression consists of the rights to freedom of speech, press, assembly and to petition the government for a redress of grievances, and the implied rights of association and belief.
Everyday citizens often live unaware of their government’s inner workings. The knowing of political espionage is often too heavy of a subject to be inducted in conversation. True, prima facie, modest twists and turns of information may not be considered substantial, but this inconsideration leaves much to be uncontrolled. It is easy for political leaders to become power crazed, to not realize the massive implications that come of their actions. Only after all is said and done do the people actually realize their government is an opaque mask of deception. The Watergate Scandal substantially impacted Americans’ trust in their government.
Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency (N.S.A) subcontractor turned whistle-blower is nothing short of a hero. His controversial decision to release information detailing the highly illegal ‘data mining’ practices of the N.S.A have caused shockwaves throughout the world and have raised important questions concerning how much the government actually monitors its people without their consent or knowledge. Comparable to Mark Felt in the Watergate scandals, Daniel Ellsberg with the Pentagon Papers, Edward Snowden joins the rank of infamous whistleblowers who gave up their jobs, livelihood, and forever will live under scrutiny of the public all in the service to the American people. Edward Snowden released information detailing the extent of the N.S.A breaches of American privacy and in doing so, became ostracized by the media and barred from freely reentering America, his home country.
Similarly some information are kept from being publicized to the whole world by the government. Wikileaks has done otherwise: material that they disclosed to the world was sensitive material that belonged to the g...
Edward Snowden. This is a name that will be in the history books for ages. He will be branded a traitor or a whistleblower depending on where you look. Many Americans feel that Edward Snowden is a traitor who sold the United States’ secrets aiming to harm the nation. Others believe that he was simply a citizen of the United States who exercised his right to expose the government for their unconstitutional actions. It is important to not only know the two sides to the argument of friend or foe, but to also know the facts as well. My goal in this paper is to present the facts without bias and to adequately portray the two sides of the argument.
It is reasonable to argue that, governmental institutions or people with authority are subject to withhold a great deal of information from society. Many may argue that secrets are kept to ensure the safety of the nation. Thus, upholding the governmental duty of protecting the nation against possible threats. On the other hand, many believe that secrets may exist which violate our constitutional rights. Over the last year, Edward Snowden, has made headline news for leaking sensitive governmental information to the press. Edward Snowden is a 29-year-old high school drop-out, who was a tech specialist for the National Security Association. Snowden had discovered and later exposed the NSA for monitoring the nations e-mails, phone calls, and internet searches. As the allegations spread like wild fire, Edward Snowden sought asylum in Russia for one year. Snowden had a valid and justifiable reason to expose the NSA to the world because they were in violation of our fourth Amendment rights to unreasonable searches and seizures. The government called him a traitor, while others viewed him as a hero for exposing the government. Edward Snowden is a whistle blower because he felt that it is up to society to decide if governmental practices are just or unjust. Snowden does “express the highest respect for the law”, and he wanted to protect the right of privacy for American citizens.
Whistle blowing is an attempt of an employee or former employee of a company to reveal what he or she believes to be a wrongdoing in or by a company or organization. Whistle blowing tries to make others aware of practices that are considered illegal or immoral. If the wrongdoing is reported to someone in the company it is said to be internal. Internal whistle blowing tends to do less damage to the company. There is also external whistle blowing. This is where the wrongdoing is reported to the media and brought to the attention of the public. This type of whistle blowing tends to affect the company in a negative way because of bad publicity. It is said that whistle blowing is personal if the wrongdoing affects the whistle blower alone (like sexual harassment), and said to be impersonal if the wrongdoing affects other people. Many people whistle blow for two main reasons: morality and revenge.