"Whistle-Blower, Beware". OP-ED NYT

[Smarmie Doofus]

(This belongs in this forum according to "tammywammy"; evidently a host of GD forum: "Host consensus is this belongs in GPD since it mentions Hillary." Don't ask me.)

This ran Wednesday of this week. Makes an unusually preceptive and concise case for enhanced whistleblower protection: specifically amend the 1917 Espionage Act to conform with reality. I for one want MORE Ellsbergs, Snowdens and Drakes; not fewer.

I don't know if one should laugh or cry at the Clinton quote.

>>>>SHOULD it be a crime to report a crime? Many top officials in Washington seem to think so, at least in the case of Edward Snowden.

June 6 will be the third anniversary of The Guardian’s publication of top-secret documents provided by Mr. Snowden that showed that the National Security Agency was collecting the telephone records of tens of millions of Americans.

Outraged by this assault on the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of unreasonable search and seizure, Tea Party Republicans and progressive Democrats joined to block reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act’s surveillance provisions last year. Only after the N.S.A. was required to obtain warrants to examine such records was reauthorization approved.

But Mr. Snowden, the whistle-blower who set this reform in motion with his disclosures, is persona non grata in the nation’s capital. Democrats and Republicans alike have denounced him as a traitor.

President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have also been unyielding. Mr. Snowden, now in Russia, deliberately broke the law and should not “be brought home without facing the music,” Mrs. Clinton said in a Democratic presidential debate.

“He could have gotten all of the protections of being a whistle-blower,” she said. “He could have raised all the issues that he has raised. And I think there would have been a positive response to that.”

Thomas Drake would disagree. So would John Crane.

Their intertwined stories, revealed this week, make clear that Secretary Clinton’s and President Obama’s faith in whistle-blower protections is unfounded, and cast Mr. Snowden’s actions in a different light.

Mr. Snowden has expressed his debt to Mr. Drake. “If there hadn’t been a Thomas Drake,” he told Al Jazeera, “there couldn’t have been an Edward Snowden.”

Mr. Drake was a senior N.S.A. official who had also complained, 12 years earlier, about warrantless surveillance. As a career military man, he followed the course later advocated by President Obama and Secretary Clinton. Joining others with similar concerns, he went up the chain of command, finally ending up at the Defense Department’s Office of Inspector General.

Things did not go well. In 2007, years after he first raised his concerns, F.B.I. agents raided his house brandishing a search warrant alleging an “unlawful disclosure of classified national defense information.” He was forced to resign and was indicted on 10 felony charges arising from an alleged “scheme” to improperly “retain>>>> the rest at
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/26/opinion/whistle-blower-beware.html

[Ash_F]

1. Very troubling. Thank you.

[Smarmie Doofus]

2. You're more than welcome.

Have a good holiday.

( And remember: it's *Memorial* Day and NOT Veterans Day.

One of my pet peeves. Grrrrrrrrrr......

[farleftlib]

3. Brilliant op-ed and chilling

We live in upside-down world. Edward Snowden should have a ticker-tape parade thrown for him.
But they call him a traitor and those who outed Valerie Plame, heroes and whistle-blowers. I never
thought I'd read something so honest and compelling about this issue in the Times. They carried
major water for WMDs during the Bush administration so I'm glad that this is seeing the light of
day.

K & R

[senz]

4. Ironic that Hill, so careless with classified information, wants Snowden punished.

[Smarmie Doofus]

5. Ya. He needs to be made "to face the music." nt

[CorporatistNation]

9. AGREED... Indeed Her Contention Is Hypocritical And In The End LAUGHABLE...

As the "story" of Hillary continues to unfold... the probability of her entering the oval office becomes increasingly slim...

"Things" in the modern world, no matter how much you attempt to hide them .. do have a way of CATCHING UP WITH PEOPLE!


E.G., MSNBC To the deniers... Watch THIS Video... It is not comforting to think that she may well be the Democratic Nominee...

Hillary really betrayed Andrea Mitchell... The entire context of this report was of a solemn nature... A Funeral so to speak...

Andrea Mitchell "I do not see this report as ...ANYTHING BUT... DEVASTATING!"

Chuck Todd "After this I don't think that she could get confirmed for Attorney General!"

Lots of FIBBING by Hillary here.. for more than a year!

[BernieforPres2016]

6. Hillary's staff told the State Department to never bring up her email again

And now she's supposedly encouraging people to be whistleblowers. She would use every tool of the Presidency to ruin anybody who was a whistleblower on anybody in her administration.

[Smarmie Doofus]

7. Without a doubt. She... and people LIKE her ....

are the reason WHY we need whistle-blower protections in the first place.

[enough]

8. Deserves wider distribution than GD Primaries. Thanks for posting. (nt)

[Smarmie Doofus]

10. Yer' tellin' me. See if you can communicate w. "tammywammy".....

.... who appears to be a gate keeper at GD. (See OP)