As reporters continue to pull back the curtain on sweeping government surveillance, whistle-blowers are gaining wind as a vital and ever-threatened cog in the American democracy machine.
The Atlantic Monthly published an article June 6 calling all citizens to arms to help hold the government accountable — especially those working on the inside of National Security Agency (NSA) programs recently exposed for monitoring and mining information about the American public.
Since the revelation that the government has the ability to track every citizen like a potential terrorist (collecting personal phone records and using programs like PRISM to tap into information from U.S. Internet giants), The Atlantic is encouraging insiders to report these programs’ activities to the press so the public can learn more.
Now that we know phone lines and computers are being watched (and that’s only scratching the surface, The Atlantic says), we need whistle-blowers more than ever to expose secrets about other ways Feds are collecting information and how they’re using the information they have.
The Atlantic said these top secret NSA programs are “probably illegal,” so blowing the whistle on them is essentially “the moral response to immoral activity by those in power.”
On June 7, MSNBC published an article saying the author of the Patriot Act, Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), denounced the government’s overbroad interpretation of it as “un-American” and potentially un-Constitutional. But despite his apparent dismay, The Atlantic notes that Sensenbrenner has “a curious history of insisting that it is good law” since he first introduced it in 2001.
In their editorial board on June 6, The New York Times called for the infamous act to be either sharply curtailed or repealed to prevent overbroad interpretations in the future.
But intrusive government surveillance isn’t a problem unique to Patriots. The Human Rights Watch tracked the issue on Twitter, showing that appalling abuses of federal power are stirring up controversy everywhere from the European Union, to India, to Singapore, to Jordan and Azerbaijan — just to name a few.
Kara Hackett is SPJ’s Pulliam/Kilgore Freedom of Information intern, a freelance writer and a free press enthusiast. Contact her at khackett@spj.org or on Twitter: @KaraHackett.
