Should all whistle-blowing be outlawed?

[kentuck]

If not, where would you draw the line?

What would the government have to do in order for you to blow the whistle on them? What kind of secrets would they have to be holding?

What if it was something that affected the health of millions of Americans?

What if we were engaged in a secret war in the middle of Africa?

What if the military was secretly using LSD on their air force and infantry?

What if there were departments in the government that were stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from the taxpayers?

How much are you willing to trust our government? And where would you draw the line?

[Tx4obama]

1. Stealing classified government documents should remain being a crime - a felony. n/t

[msongs]

2. and if classified documents show US officials are committing felonies themselves....they can

get away with it

[Tx4obama]

3. The person that has STOLEN government documents is still a thief and felon.

I am amazed at the folks all over the internet that that think that committing felonies is okay.

[ZombieHorde]

5. "Felony" is just rhetorical construct.

Although that label definitely affects the behavior of many people, I don't think the label should determine our ethics.

[99Forever]

8. Funny how...

... when you write the "laws" it's a-okay to be a lying, anti-Constitutional Rights scumbag, huh? But when you expose the shit the lying liars do, you are a "felon."

[pnwmom]

4. We have avenues for whistleblowing. For example,

Snowden could have gone directly to Senator Sanders with his concerns, or to one of the Pauls.

Or he could have followed in Ellsburg's footsteps and remained in the country. Ellsburg was released on bail, and charges were eventually dismissed.

But for some reason Snowden didn't want to limit his leaks to internal US surveillance. He wanted to leak about US spying on other countries. And that's where he stopped whistle-blowing and started engaging in espionage.

[allin99]

6. Previous nsa whistle blowers say going directly to the gov't doesn't work.

[treestar]

11. So that's it?

How do we know that they are completely in the right on that?

The Whistle blower protection laws are completely useless then, and should be repealed?

[pnwmom]

14. Which one of them went to Bernie Sanders? Or Senator Paul?

Since Snowden's a Libertarian, I'm surprised he didn't go to him.

[woo me with science]

12. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

Speaking of naive...

[gulliver]

7. The phrase "whistle-blowing" should be outlawed.

It is deep in rhetorical foul territory. When it is used (not in the meta sense as in this OP), it nearly always signifies rhetorical cheating.

[Nye Bevan]

9. That would suck for soccer referees (nt)

[treestar]

10. Whistle blowing is not strictly outlawed

There are protections built into the laws we have. Including a law President Obama signed.

What is outlawed is revealing classified documents.

Your post is a straw man question - no one said "all whistle blowing should be outlawed."

However, I do see a strain of "all leaks should be considered whistle blowing."

[kentuck]

13. You're right.

"...no one said "all whistle blowing should be outlawed."

[ZombieHorde]

15. I think the line is pretty clear.

There are two questions we should ask when judging a potential whistleblower: 1) what are the personal politics of the whistleblower, and 2) who looks bad from the information that was released?

If the answers are 1) liberal and 2) conservatives, then the whistleblowing is great. If the answers are reversed, then the whistleblowing is actually espionage and probably treasonous, and torture (oops! I mean enhanced interrogation techniques) may be necessary. If both answers are "liberal," then we should be very suspicious, and the "whistleblower" should be brought in, just in case. If both answer are "conservative," then the whistleblower just may be one of the last sane, patriotic conservatives in the country.

The actual information released should probably be ignored as much as possible.

[moondust]

16. Needs a comprehensive reevaluation.

And an approach geared to the 21st century.

Part of the problem with electronic communications is their temporary nature; they can be wiped out with the simple push of a button. I don't know if current statutes address this adequately, and it may be one of the goverment's justifications for saving large volumes of data: prevent the easy and routine destruction of potential evidence.

In this environment even the 4th Amendment probably needs updating.

Lots of nuances in this stuff that make it difficult to draw solid lines, but there definitely need to be safe and secure channels for whistleblowers.