Whistleblowers
By Lola Ogunbambi, St Leonard's College
"Everyone has the right of freedom of opinion and expression”. This quote from Article 19 of The Declaration of Human Rights has been co-opted, used, and claimed by almost every government in the developed world. It stands as one of the guiding pillars of democracy and builds the foundation of trust and freedom that is expected in the modern era.
But what if I told you that this very cornerstone of democracy is under threat. Right now. And it has been for years – despite the promise of accountability and trust, governments have been silencing and villainising whistleblowers to hide their abhorrent actions.
Whistleblowers bridge the gap between what we don’t know and what we need to know. They can ensure that powerful organisations are held accountable for illicit or immoral behaviour. Recently, with increasing globalisation and technology like the internet, Whistle-blowers and their publishers are on a whole new playing field, with corrupt referees.
So, what does this look like in practice? A great example is WikiLeaks. This international non-profit started by the Australian journalist Julian Assange became prominent in 2010 when news coverage about the 2007, Baghdad airstrikes, shocked the world. Publishing a classified video, entitled Collateral damage, Wikileaks exposed 3 airstrikes performed by the United States’ military attacking 15 Iraqi men and two Children, leaving seven of them dead.
The release of these harrowing images sparked two differing reactions. For the most part they prompted enormous public outrage, due to the innocence of the causalities and the inclusion of both journalists and children in the attacks. These attacks were branded as war crimes and many journalists and human rights groups praised the efforts of Assange and Chelsea Manning the individual who leaked these documents with the goal of giving people the freedom of information.
While the public and media were disgusted by the actions of the soldiers, the American government was enraged in a very different way. They didn’t see this as an act of freedom allowing individuals to make their own decisions. They didn’t view Assange and Manning as political martyrs representing the people. They saw this leak as a threat to the power structures they had sort so hard to build and the only way to fix it was to target and punish those in charge of releasing the footage.
A series of charges and legal battles ensued. Manning, the source of the videos, was sentenced to a 35-year sentence. Julian Assange, escaped to Britain and sought asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy for 7 years and is currently held in Belmarsh Prison under threat of extradition to America with charges relating to the Espionage Act.
This still begs the question: should Julian Assange be punished? Furthermore, should any whistle-blowers or publishers be punished for releasing information they had a clear moral obligation to share?
The concept of punishing whistle-blowers and their publishers seems more of a ploy of government censorship than civilian safety. These actors often resemble the only means of accountability for our governments. By designing and upholding a system that breeds unlimited power, governments are shielding the public from their actions and thus their mistakes.
Whistle-blowers in collaboration with their publishers and publishing platforms; defend human rights and save lives by preventing these governments from acquiring absolute power. Through punishment and scare tactics, governments retain total control leading to an opaquer system for powerful organisations to work within.
By hunting down and prosecuting whistleblowers, the US is attempting to set a precedent, that if they don’t like what someone is publishing about them, they can imprison them, for life. This highlights the ambiguities of branding something as a threat to national security. By charging and convicting Assange we risk every article we read, every news show we watch, being written or presented by journalists who have effectively become marionette dolls, for whomever the most powerful at the time. Creating an uninformed or misinformed electorate, negating the value of our democracy.
This case with Assange is important because we are sitting on a precipice. His punishment or lack of, will dictate the way that other journalists and publishers operate moving forward. This case will always be in the back of their mind when deciding, whether or not to do the right thing and publish important information or keep it to themselves, allowing these organisations to act with impunity for fear of liability to other sanctions.
Therefore, it is essential to protect all whist-blowers and publishers globally. This Wiki Leaks case has given us a glimpse into the future of journalism, new precedents and protective structures need to be set now. Even though protections for individual whistleblowers exist, recent modernisation has weakened them.
Firstly, the new breadth of journalistic scope has outgrown its traditional confines. As they are now working outside the conventional boundaries of journalism, many laws that were put in place to protect journalists don’t apply to all relevant people.
Secondly, digital journalistic platforms have reduced privacy and protection for sources. Today it’s too easy for prosecutors and other parties to circumvent source protection laws through unencrypted messages. For example, in 2018, a time when encryption, was and remains so vital, the government passed anti-encryption laws. This method was used in prosecuting whistle-blower David McBride for the release of the Afghan files.
Whistle-blowers are simply not protected enough. A Submission to the UN in 2015 found that though nearly a 3rd of UN member states have some protections for whistle-blowers, they are not sufficient, most notably in the US and UK, where these protections were severely lacking when matters concern the state itself or matters of “national security”.
How can we ensure freedom of the press, so that we don’t end up in habitual extradition battles and silencing of truth? These are the first few ways we can move towards a true free press.
Firstly, laws must be passed to ensure journalistic status is applied to all who fit the brief in the evolving world of journalism.
Secondly, encryption must be protected so that laws protecting sources can’t be sidestepped through tech giants.
Thirdly, independent, organisations should investigate claims by whistle-blowers.
Next, national whistle-blower protection laws should explicitly include claims that pertain to national security or the state itself.
Finally, unmediated whistleblowing sites such as wiki leaks must be protected globally and be assisted to verify claims and protect the safety of people mentioned in their publications.
These steps will secure a world where, journalists, whistle-blowers publishers and the like no longer face punishments, whilst true perpetrators act with impunity. In order to protect the freedom of ourselves and stop government’s from abusing their power, we must protect Whistle-blowers and ensure that we hold up article 19, so that everyone has the right to freedom.