If you’re seeing this, I’m in jail [video](youtube.com) |
If you’re seeing this, I’m in jail [video](youtube.com) |
I think countries need laws on the duration of classification that get to the heart of national security vs public interest. I think a core issue is that classified information should come out within the lifetime of people involved with very few exceptions. Additionally, crimes found after declassification should have automatic statute of limitation renewals.
One system that may work could be automatic mandatory release unless renewed at a higher level of classification. Every time material is elevated it should require the highest level of administration to approve renewal. Additionally, when things are declassified they should be publicly advertised in some way so that records requests can find them.
There is a need for classified materials, but there should be a high bar to make them and a low bar to release them in order to avoid the government using them as a shield to hid activities they don't want the public to see.
You can probably rationalize anything as "protecting the public" with the magic phrases "national security" (no exposing shady government operations), "ensuring order and stability" (no political protests) and "ensuring innovation and prosperity" (no resisting anything the private sector wants to do).
That being said, "I will say that 'classified' has often become a way to hide actions that governments and individuals don't want the public to see" is just as true there.
That’s just not true unless you mean they apply already established classifications on derivative content.
https://www.archives.gov/isoo/policy-documents/cnsi-eo.html
Section 1.3 for the list of people that can classify things. The rest is “derivative” of an OCA’s decisions.
Isn't the mere passage of time also a remover of classification? Like isn't there a default time from the creation date?
Or it must be positively declassified by an action?
Never worked with any TS/SCI huh?
I agree with your base idea, but the devil is in the details here. We do need better policy around classified material, given it's supposed to serve the population. But automatic outcome based on some unconnected rules or judgement, uh... doesn't have a great track record for success. We likely do need more accountability to make sure secrets from society serve that society. But I don't think an edict about expiration dates is that.
is exactly what Division 3 of the Archives Act 1983 (Australia) and section 3(4) of the Public Records Act 1958 (UK) provide for, so this is hardly as unworkable an idea as you make it out to be.
[female newscaster]: Today, the president signed the superbill package preventing government shutdown, while funding all national military, education, and healthcare spending, in a move widely lauded.
Some fringe critics at the political extremes have, however, noted that the bill also approved all national security re-classifications. They claim it defeats the purpose of the reclassification bill by simply having all security requests clumped together.
What do you think Mr. Pundit?
[Male Pundit proceeds to talk about terrorism and protecting our children, and how select members of a congressional committee already individually reviewed the millions of requests via subordinate staffers, and found all of them to be vital for national security]
I think that the government would probably prefer he be locked up, since the current situation is the worst of both worlds: he is legally a war criminal, but remains embarrassingly free and unpunished by the criminal justice system.
This guy must be a sociopath.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-14/military-whistleblowe...
While this article is from the nationally funded news broadcaster it is the same news organisation that McBride provided the documents to - which were then used to produce 7 stories, leading to it being raided and the follow-on events. Detailed information of that is available here:
Ironically, this led to further scrutiny and the identification of alleged war crimes.
Based on what you’ve said it seems his messaging has evolved since this 2019 article:
https://amp.smh.com.au/politics/federal/what-i-ve-done-makes...
I have a hard time understanding why they couldn't do a closed court hearing, is that not an option in Australia?
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2022/oct/27/david-mcbride-af...
Contentious and depressing outcome, however rarely with classified documents does a judge rule the ends justified the means.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
(P.S. Good luck, David. The international community stands with you.)
George Orwell.
Also, think of Assange, still in high security jail in UK without being condemned to anything in this country : the very definition of arbitrary detention and torture.
Similarly there are still a number of prisoners in Guantanamo illegal prison, some having been there for decades. The very definition of arbitrary detention and torture.
The "West" (the US and their lackeys) has lost any semblance of moral high ground, but keep pointing fingers. That's shameful and despicable.
https://www.courts.act.gov.au/supreme/judgments/r-v-mcbride-...
The way I recall leaks from the US in Iraq and Afghanistan, the leaks typically depicted the U.S. killing or torturing innocent people. Sure, it's plausible they might have made some soldiers less safe.
But innocence is not so cut and dry. You can't only look from one perspective and see the whole picture.
I find it hard to blame the judge here, it is their duty to discharge the law as written.
However Australia's laws are inherently anti-whistle-blower and IMO therefore anti-democratic. How are the people expected to hold their leaders accountable if their leaders are legally allowed to deceive them and punish any who would expose that deceit?
Claiming that "national security" should somehow trump what are meant to be the most core tenets of our society is just simply more proof that the ruling class considers themselves above criticism, even if it costs the truth to snuff it out.
Why is it we can have a government that is so consistently anti-Australian? The politics of it don't seem to matter because swapping parties in and out hasn't had any impact. Both sides of the ruling class still believe they are above us while still preaching tall-poppy syndrome for the rest of us.
Chelsea Manning went to jail for something similar.
I bet other countries act exactly the same way
but,
What exactly was he blowing the whistle about?
> McBride had become dissatisfied with military leadership and increased scrutiny of soldiers.
> McBride's lawyers told the court that he had leaked information in an attempt to bring awareness to excessive investigation of soldiers.
What? Is he a counter-whistle blower? What am I missing?
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_McBride_(whistleblower...]
Follow-up:
Ok this article makes it make a bit more sense: https://apnews.com/article/mcbride-whistleblower-court-priso...
> McBride’s documents formed the basis of an Australian Broadcasting Corp. seven-part television series in 2017 that contained war crime allegations including Australian Special Air Service Regiment soldiers killing unarmed Afghan men and children in 2013.
> McBride’s argument that his suspicions that the higher echelons of the Australian Defense Force were engaged in criminal activity obliged him to disclose classified papers “didn’t reflect reality,” Mossop said.
The situation is similar in many matters : see how almost all of the international community governments support staunchly the current massacre in Gaza, though the people of all countries are protesting daily. In the UK, both Sunak and Starmer support Netanyahu's crimes unequivocally, while hundreds of thousands protest in the streets.
I've lost any hope about our "democracies". We need a complete upheaval.
You know that words can mean different things, depending on context. You also know it's unproductive to disregard clear contextualization in favor of starting a strawman argument.
We both absolutely agree however that the only path forward involves a complete rewrite from scratch.
The American experiment has concluded, it's time to collect the data, form conclusions, create and test a new hypothesis.
There has never been a time when everyone behaved morally, and it's unhelpful to view the past in this way.
MLK himself was murdered.
I have this quote painted on one of my favorite possessions. I live by the quote, I'd die by it. I don't consider that childishly naive.
Naive would be thinking that taking a more Malcom X approach won't lead to death and prison as well.
You'll see the reporting is totally skewed (huge surprise). He identified certain low ranking military members being effectively thrown under the bus for small things, or things it's dubious they even did. While the Australian gov continues to protect the real psychos: special forces and the top brass.
> The documents were leaked to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) by David McBride,[3] upon and seven stories were ultimately published as a result. The documents covered a wide range of topics, however most notably it detailed multiple cases of possible unlawful killings of unarmed men and children.
Odgers says the Army command was involved with “window dressing” which he suspected involved criminality; that is “command was undertaking improper investigations done for PR purposes, and he found that repellant and believed that he needed this to be properly investigated”.
If you dig a bit deeper within your own Wikipedia link, you’ll see the actual list of issues [0].
> The documents contained at least 10 accounts of possibly unlawful killings of unarmed men and children
> of an incident in which an SAS soldier severed the hands of an Afghan insurgent for identification confirmation purposes
He says, both in court and elsewhere, that his concern was that higher ups were undertaking investigations of soldiers he felt did nothing wrong, for PR reasons, and he believed that was illegal.
David McBride is a military lawyer and is standing up for justice for the soldiers accused of war crimes because there is evidence they were acting under orders and did not simply lose discipline and go rogue. In other words this was coordinated terror campaign, not a few soldiers getting trigger happy.
The reporting around this has indicated that basically there was a culture within the SAS that you needed to be "blooded" and serving SAS personnel were isolated, harassed or threatened by other personnel if they didn't participate by those who were in it.
The people being investigated may or may not have been acting under orders from higher officers...but the accusations are that they also directly threatened other soldiers if they objected to, or directly facilitated, those unlawful orders.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/may/...
[2] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-20/former-sas-soldier-ar...
Ironically, this led to further scrutiny and the identification of alleged war crimes.
Someone elsewhere in this thread linked me to a video where McBride explained that the top brass knew about actual war crimes (e.g. Ben Roberts-Smith,) and wanted to appear to be doing something, so they tasked McBride with prosecuting a scapegoat (whom McBride believed innocent) and that was what caused him to to start gathering and leaking documents.
Though, I was referring to just whistleblowers.
As a lawyer, his assignment was to prosecute a soldier whom he thought innocent - a scapegoat - when the top brass knew about actual war criminals (e.g. Ben Roberts-Smith).
Just purely speculating btw...
Perhaps you have no special rights as an individual since you are not that meaningful to its success or existence…
…it’s trivial for someone else to do what you won’t and turn the mirror around for you. Your semantics games can be played on you.
“Adults” sure act afraid of kids. Good. They should be afraid of getting old and having the kids revolt on them.
The other billions aren’t trapped in here with you … you’re trapped here with them. Stop trying to look clever arguing semantics. Do your job and pay your taxes or start conflict and be ended. See what they do to college kids? Why care about the walking dead?
Perhaps you’re just paranoid from reading paranoid opinions all the time.
What could possibly go wrong with demanding "encryption backdoors" in everything...
> ‘Enough is enough’: Australian PM denounces US, UK legal pursuit of Assange
> Anthony Albanese takes stand against attempts to extradite Australian to US ahead of court ruling next week.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/15/enough-is-enough-au...
There was an article today in Foreign Policy, "U.S. Intelligence Is Facing a Crisis of Legitimacy".
If the material is stamped secret but everybody knows what's going on, then whoever sits on those documents looks like Ellis, the coke-sniffing negotiator in Die Hard. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irTozIjeqFM
Agree! Arendt's analysis of totalitarianism, power provides a framework for understanding contemporary political phenomena even now.
Jokes aside, a Western country is typically defined as a nation with cultural, political, and economic ties to Europe. Our UK roots, democratic governance, military ties (e.g., AUKUS), and post-war European migration certainly place us in this category...
Such as using less optimal solutions that align more with their beliefs or taking a lower paying job that won't compromise their morals.
Principles are 'wrong' just like scientific models are wrong. Over time, scientific models get replaced by other models that are less wrong.
What I want to say actually : there is no Right or Meaning just like there is no Truth. There's only (wise) man's search for it.