Reading Time: 3 minutes Whistleblower and former NSA contractor Reality Winner exposed attempts by Russian military officers to hack US elections. This week she was sentenced to over five years in federal prison.
Reading Time: 27 minutes Bill Binney was an NSA analyst whose work was so effective it was shut down. It threatened to derail the gravy train fueled by the kinds of problems he might have solved — including preventing potential terrorist attacks. The contractors and executives riding that train had a motto: “keep the problem going, so the money keeps flowing.”
Reading Time: 2 minutes As the nightmare of George Orwell’s 1984 becomes reality in slow motion, there may be a silver lining. It turns out that the people have some powerful surveillance tools of their own.
Reading Time: 2 minutes Coded messages on social media site by the exiled whistleblower bring frantic speculation.
Reading Time: 6 minutes What effect does the awareness of surveillance have on the behavior of people? WhoWhatWhy looked at the available results of research being conducted, and found that we may be reaching the tipping point — when awareness of being watched starts to affect behavior.
Reading Time: 2 minutes An NSA specialist who became an expert at hacking automobiles now works at Uber, the ride-sharing service. Is this something we ought to take interest in?
Reading Time: 2 minutes In a $100 million lawsuit that has garnered virtually no public attention, five National Security Agency whistleblowers are accusing the federal government of illegally retaliating against them for alerting the NSA and Congress to a waste of taxpayer funds that benefitted a well-connected contractor.
Reading Time: 1 minute In his work on leadership for both government and corporations, Ira Chaleff has become something of an expert on followers. What he’s found—and what he argues in his book Intelligent Disobedience and in his conversation with WhoWhatWhy’s Jeff Schechtman—is that we have to learn not to be so quick to follow orders and accept authority.
Chaleff explores how a remarkable range of wrongdoing of all magnitudes—from financial fraud to war crimes, and even, surprisingly, sexual misconduct—can to some degree trace back to the compromised moral compass of those too quick to comply with orders. While we may not all have it in us to become whistleblowers, says Chaleff, we can all stand to be a bit more disobedient—when it is warranted.
Reading Time: 3 minutes As NATO allies’ focus shifted from the Cold War to their own economic interests, the lack of a common enemy caused them to turn on each other.
Reading Time: 5 minutes A past presidential administration official weighs in on the complicated view of the NSA whistleblower… or traitor.
Reading Time: 1 minute With the Patriot Act debate raging in Congress, there has perhaps never been a better time to consider what’s at stake. And what is that? Most of us never really knew. But this documentary, from Executive Producer Robert Greenwald and Earl Katz, directed by Nonny de la Peña, whose work has been funded by a MacArthur grant and shown at TriBeCa Film Festival, spelled it all out a decade ago, and is as relevant as ever.
Reading Time: 6 minutes In his essay in this new collection, a law professor warns about the creep of the security state, from catching criminals to trying to anticipate who might commit a crime.
Reading Time: 1 minute Controversial views place you in, well, controversy. See below…: “Rand Paul has now decided he wants to be a liberal Democrat — undercut necessary intelligence collection, weaken the police officers and our intelligence services.” – Bill Kristol “[A]n aide might want to remind Senator Paul which party’s nomination he is seeking” – WSJ Editorial Board Read More
Reading Time: 1 minute Rand Paul wins the day — but does it put him more at odds with the Establishment…and voters?: “But big moves carry big risks, as supporters of Paul’s GOP competitors pointed out. Rival campaigns and other Republicans note that times have changed since Paul burst onto the national scene with his filibuster. Now, they say, Read More
Reading Time: 2 minutes Is Edward Snowden “still a traitor” or is he now an agreed-upon American hero? Europe seems to think it is the latter, and it is urging the United States to bring him home.
Reading Time: 4 minutes FBI Director James Comey, with a straight face, is arguing that the encryption in new iPhones and other mobile devices is so powerful that it’s hindering crime-fighting. He’s even given this latest purported public safety threat a menacing new name: “Going Dark.” Your selfies may never be safe again.
Reading Time: 10 minutes UK Member of Parliament David Davis has emerged as one of Britain’s top critics of government encroachment on liberty and privacy. In the second half of an interview with WhoWhatWhy’s Russ Baker, Davis talks about how he defied his party leadership to help stop Britain from fighting in Syria; the value and vulnerability of whistleblowers; and how government legal aid cuts are putting ordinary citizens at the mercy of the state.
Reading Time: 9 minutes UK legislator David Davis has emerged as one of Britain’s top critics of government surveillance. Davis talks to Russ Baker about going to America to get the ammunition he needed to fight back home, and how he turned his phone bill into a weapon. An intriguing conversation with an intriguing man.
Reading Time: 2 minutes A federal judge ruled Monday that the government’s bulk collection of phone data probably violates the Constitution. His 68-page ruling has withering words about the NSA, calling the data collection “Orwellian.” You can read his full ruling here.
Reading Time: 1 minute Headlines—Greenwald explains how Ed Snowden got to him; the ugly truth about Dallas’s paper on 50th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination; establishment to fact-check establishment pundits; Patriot Act Author now hates his handiwork; new movie fiction on Boston bombing; permanent climate change mid-century; some blunt talk about failed drug policy