For a long time the west has presented themselves as the leading force for liberty. But we should not judge by words alone. Actions speak louder and they tell a very different picture.

Prosecuting Whistleblowers

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Whistleblowers are exposing illegal or immoral actions of companies or authorities. In order to fullfill this vital task protection from retaliation is crucial. In the countries around the world hundreds of laws exist to do exactly that, such as the Whistleblower Protection Act.

While these exist on paper, whistleblowers that directly expose the government are usually prosecuted under questionable circumstances for speaking the truth. They are charged under the espionage act and for example Wikileaks was classified as an 'hostile foreign espionage agency'. What does that make you if the truth is hostile and foreign?

While the US has claimed that they are not seeking to prosecute Assange it was recently revealed that charges had been filled in secret that should only be revealed once Assange is in custody. The states angry that their abuses of power are exposed are ready to fight dirty and send a clear signal to all people that have sensitive information. That message is 'Better keep your mouth shut because we will come after you and lock you up.'

Killing Corrupt Structures

Power always breeds corruption. And when this power cannot be removed then the only way to keep corruption in check is to promote transparency and controll. Whenever an authority is abusing its power we need whistleblowers to expose this so that corrupt structures can be dismantled.

And while a free press is an important part to the puzzle, whistleblowers are almost as important as the press has no acces to the internals of secretive organisations. The only time their dark secrets are brought into light is when an internal employee chooses to leak information, potentially breaking a lot of laws in the process. But that is the only way to controll these secretive structures.
We are all responsible to watch out for abuse of power and when we find it we should take the fight.

Empire of Lies

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Snowden revealed that secret services massively abuse their power and have installed a near complete network of surveillance. If this is not the most obvious case of whistleblowing then what could it be. Snowden should be a national hero and secret services taken down and rebuild from scratch allowing more controls. Before Snowden the people suspecting massive government surveillance were called conspiracy theorists and were mocked to wear tin foil hats. Now everyone claims that this was an open secret all the while.

But the most shocking part is that nothing happened. Snowden is living in Russia as a refugee and secret services are continuing their illegal practices. If anything they have become more secretive and new laws do not cut their powers but extend them in retrospect legalising their criminal activities.

We see that while whistleblowing works fine on company scales, for national authorities these self-healing capabilities are failing. The peoples controll over these corrupt organisations is too small and a leak does not have direct consequences anymore.
Instead the whistleblower is charged, the corrupted media tries to discredit the source of information and governments are protecting the corrupted parts, possible out of fear of fallout for themselves.
Instead of curing the problems these are left to grow uncontrolled. And the clear message send to the subjects is to shut up, move on and never question authority.

But what does that imply for our 'democracies' when people that speak the truth are prosecuted instead of supported. If we are angry with the bringer of bad news and not face the real problem, when corruption is tolerated. It means that we are not living in a free society. It means that our structures of controll and authority themselves are completely corrupted. We do not have a healthy state that is able to controll isolated pockets of corruption. Even the highest officials are openly disregarding the most basic concepts of a liberal democracy. The corruption runs so deep that it can no longer be killed without taking the entire system down.

We are no longer a 'liberal democracy', we are living under an authoritarian rule disguising itself as such. And the longer this goes on the deeper the corruption creeps in, until it eventually becomes clear even from the outside. We are close to this point and more people are waking up to reality.
Truth becomes treason in an empire of lies.