STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Friday, 21 June 2013

[Demeter]

49. Edward Snowden — The Globalisation of Whistleblowing By Annie Machon

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article35338.htm


...The same night the story broke about who was behind the leaks, I dis­cussed the implic­a­tions on an RT inter­view and called what he did Whistleblowing 2.0.... it appeared from his initial video interview with The Guardian that he had learned from pre­vi­ous whis­tleblow­ing cases: he had watched the media and care­fully chosen a journ­al­ist, Glenn Greenwald, with a good track record on the rel­ev­ant issues who would prob­ably fight his corner fear­lessly; his inform­a­tion clearly demon­strated that the intel­li­gence agen­cies were spin­ning out of con­trol and build­ing sur­veil­lance states; he care­fully chose a jur­is­dic­tion to flee to that might have the clout to pro­tect him leg­ally against the wrath of an over-mighty USA; and he has used his inter­net and media savvy to gain as much expos­ure and pro­tec­tion as quickly as possible. Plus, he has been incred­ibly brave, con­sid­er­ing the dra­conian war on whistleblowers that is cur­rently being waged by the Amer­ican admin­is­tra­tion. There have been three other NSA whistleblowers in recent years, all also talk­ing about endemic sur­veil­lance. All have paid a high per­sonal price, all dis­played great bravery in the face of adversity yet, sadly, none has achieved the same level of inter­na­tional impact. Were we just deaf to their warn­ings, or has Snowden played this better?

I think a bit of both. He’s a geek, a young geek, he will have seen what happened to other whis­tleblowers and appears to have taken steps to avoid the same pit­falls. He has gone pub­lic to pro­tect his fam­ily and pre­vent harm to his former col­leagues in any ensu­ing witch-hunt. And he has fled the coun­try in order to remain at liberty to argue his case, which is key to keep­ing the story alive for more than a week in the gad­fly minds of the old media. I know, I’ve been involved in the same process. He has blown the whistle to pro­tect an Amer­ican way of life he thinks “worth dying for”. Yet he has broadened out the issues inter­na­tion­ally — what hap­pens in Amer­ica impacts the rest of the world. This, in my view, is cru­cial. I have been writ­ing for years that the US is increas­ingly claim­ing global legal hege­mony over the entire inter­net, as well as the right to kid­nap, tor­ture and murder for­eign­ers at will. The Pat­riot Act has not only shred­ded the US con­sti­tu­tion, it also now appar­ently has global reach for as long as our craven gov­ern­ments allow it to. Now we know that this is not some abstract concept, the­ory or spec­u­la­tion — we are all poten­tially being watched

Edward Snowden argued his case very effect­ively in a live chat on The Guard­ian news­pa­per web­site. It became clear that he is indeed a new gen­er­a­tion of whisteblower. This is not someone who wit­nessed one crime and imme­di­ately felt he had to speak out. This is a tech­nical expert who watched, over time and with dis­may, the encroach­ing Big Brother sur­veil­lance state that is tak­ing over the world via the NSA and its clones...


Annie Machon is a former intelligence officer for MI5, the UK Security Service, who resigned in 1996 to blow the whistle on the spies' incompetence and crimes. Drawing on her varied experiences, she is now a media pundit, author, journalist, political campaigner, and PR consultant. More AT LINK


THIS IS THE OBAMA GENERATION--HE MADE THEM, HE BETRAYED THEM, HE TURNED THEM INTO PATRIOTS!