938 Whistle-Blowers

<p>Free Speech includes the concept of a whistle-blower, someone who risks their job & reputation to report a government misdeed they have knowledge of. There’s actually a law that protects whistle-blowers but it’s seemingly ineffective except when abused as a political weapon. In fact, phony, partisan whistle-blowers get all the protections while the people the law was actually intended for suffer just as much or more punishment & censor as ever: Julian Assange & Edward Snowden come to mind.</p> <p>WikiLeaks founder, Assange, an Australian, published a series of leaks provided by U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning. These leaks included the Baghdad airstrike Collateral Murder video, the Afghanistan war logs, the Iraq war logs, and Cablegate. Phony sex charges were brought against Assange who escaped to the Ecuadorian embassy in London. At one point, the U.S. tried to abduct Assange from there with the embassy’s help; eventually the Ecuadorians handed him over to be jailed.</p> <p> </p> <p>American Edward Snowden’s disclosures revealed numerous global surveillance programs, many run by the NSA and the Five Eyes Intelligence Alliance with the cooperation of telecommunication companies and European governments. There were literally millions of documents but Snowden only turned over ones he deemed violated people’s rights. Like Assange, Snowden was a true hero who gave up the good life. his career, his fiance, his homeland, and his own freedom. He's a very brave person willing to sacrifice everything for liberty and the truth. I'd like to think that a lot of people would be whistle-blowers if they had to, no matter the cost, specifically me.</p>