Will the Law Ever Protect Whistle-Blowers?
The law is the law! A 54% majority of Americans may approve of Edward Snowden’s sensational leak about the National Security Agency’s indiscriminate surveillance - but just as many think the whistleblower should be prosecuted. The penalty is not light: the three (so far) charges against Snowden carry a sentence up to 30 years. But rules are rules, and despite our national self-image as rebels who buck systems and distrust government, we are, as one recent study bears out, the most obedient people in the industrialized world. And the most legalistic. The law is the law!
This tautology ought to be unquestionable, axiomatic, airtight. Instead, it carries a whiff of desperation, as we see increasingly often that the law is not the law at all - especially in the broad realm of national security. Will James Clapper, National Intelligence Director, be prosecuted for perjuring himself before congress when he lied about the surveillance program? (Clapper answered elected officials’ questions in the “least untruthful manner” available to him, he cutely said.) How often does rape get prosecuted in the military, and when it does, how often does a conviction stick? Did the U.S. Marine unit that slaughtered 24 civilians, execution-style, in Haditha, Iraq, face any real penalty?
There can be no real standards as people’s application of them is so prejudiced. If Bush were still President and the Snowden leak occured the polls would be about the same but the poeple in each 50% would trade places. My proof, similiar situations happen under Bush and the overall poll results were about the same, 50 / 50 and people switching sites due to partisan postions - commenters on JGF.
