https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYRbEPLW4u0
Within her interview, she highlighted the uniqueness of WikiLeaks as it allowed everyone to be put on the same page and showed people that we have the capability to have our voices heard. This video allows us to grasp an understanding of how whistleblowers can be extremely powerful news sources as they can inform the public of misconduct and bring rise to important issues that effect millions of individuals worldwide. However, I believe it is important to take this one step further and explore how the whistleblower and the outlet releasing the information are often victimized and punished for their acts of courage.
In doing so, I conducted some external research on one individual that has been categorized as one of America's most consequential whistleblowers - former U.S. National Security Agency contractor, Edward Snowden. He decided to release confidential information to The Guardian revealing the NSA had been collecting the telephone records of over ten million American citizens. The exposing of highly confidential information also revealed that the NSA had hacked into the servers of nine different social media platforms including Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo to track online communication with a surveillance program called 'Prism'. Shortly after the release of this private information, he was charged and fled to Russia where he currently remains.
Personally, I find this case to be extremely important to our understanding of whistleblowing as it demonstrates the resistance to the circuit of informational capital. Edward Snowden's case in particular, parallels the ideas in our course reading, "Circuits of Labour", as the exploitation behind the iPhone at Foxconn was what triggered civil groups and concerned citizens to come together to establish alternative networks and forms of resistance.
Exploring the issues surrounding whistleblowing has raised a few questions I believe are important to discuss. Do you think the information released by Edward Snowden is similar to the way the Internet tracks our data today? Why do you think individuals who expose unethical behaviour get harshly repressed and categorized as evil? Lastly, do you think that groups such as Anonymous are beneficial or harmful for our society and to the enclosure of the Internet?
I do think the information released by Edward Snowden is similar to the way the internet tracks our data today. I believe there are probably even more invasive data collection methods much of the population is unaware of, though we deserve to know. I think it is unfortunate that whistleblowers who try to bring awareness to the public about things they should be informed of are forced to face repercussions. This reminds me of another whistleblower, Chelsea (Bradley) Manning, who served in the U.S. army and exposed military documents and videos to WikiLeaks. The information she released to the public showed some questionable military acts performed by the U.S. government. As a result, she was sentenced to 35 years in prison for treason and espionage. With this being said, I think groups like Anonymous are beneficial to society. Though sometimes the way they choose to act upon things are on the extreme side, whistleblowers and hackers are often the only way the public gets in on the truth. The government has such large control and power over the information the public is exposed to, the media sources we watch barely even scratch the surface of what is really going on in the world. Without groups like Anonymous and whistleblowers like Snowden and Manning, the public would completely be left in the dark about things we should be made aware of.
ReplyDeleteHere is one of the videos Manning leaked that shows the U.S. military firing at unarmed civilians in Baghdad, including children and journalists (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw442y2fTeU). I watched this video in one of my classes last year and it really stuck with me. Listening to the soldiers laugh and joke around as they shot at groups of people from their helicopter was eye-opening to see how much the government hides from the public.
This post brings up some really interesting points, and the supplementary information added to contrast and take the point one step further contributes to making an overall well rounded Blog Post.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to your first question "Do you think the information released by Edward Snowden is similar to the way the Internet tracks our data today?" My answer this question is yes. The reason for my notion is because the internet persists of such valuable information that can in turn be capitalized as well as some other uses, some even top secret I'm sure. In which case the information is exceptionally valuable to monitors that view this data.
This allows for easy contrast with you second question " Why do you think individuals who expose unethical behaviour get harshly repressed and categorized as evil?". The reason for the exceptionally "harsh" repercussions is to because if individuals were aware of how important the data they are transgressing is for corporations, organizations, etc. they may intern rene; and refute against using them. Which would be horrible for the users, because of how valuable this data truly is. So the reason for this harsh punishment is to ensure that it does not happen, simply.
To answer your last question of "do you think that groups such as Anonymous are beneficial or harmful for our society and to the enclosure of the Internet?" my answer to you is yes and no. I think it depends on the motives of the "hacker". This notion can be pursued in one way or the other enlisting all the pros and cons.
Yet, like i previously mentioned overall this is a great and thought-provoking post!