When you download a new computer program or upgrade,
you have to first agree to the terms of the contract. By clicking on “I
agree.”you are bound to its terms,
though you can bow out by canceling all use of the product. Hidden in that fine
print no one reads is a clause that says you agree not to use the program for
unlawful purposes, a long list of which is usually spelled out. The point is,
if there is illegality involved, the contract is void. In case of a dispute or
lawsuit about damages yada yada yada there is usually an agreement to binding
arbitration.
Business contracts often use agreements of
confidentiality to protect proprietary information, patents and such. The same
goes for other contracts, but here’s where it gets sticky. What if you contract
with an organization that then, unbeknownst to you, engages in criminal
activity? Surely you should elect to bow out to avoid culpability and
liability. You could be swept up as a co-conspirator.
But what if that organization that has sworn you to
secrecy is a government agency that is involved with criminal activity? Are you
bound by your signature to hold to the contractual terms? That’s the dilemma
faced by whistle blowers like Ellserg, Manning and Snowden who exposed the
illegal activity of government agencies.
Violations of the Geneva Convention, assassinations,
torture, and violations of the 4th Amendment against unlawful search
and seizure are crimes the government seeks to conceal behind the Official
Secrets Act. So for speaking out are
those men criminals, conscientious citizens, traitors or heroes?
If you observe a crime being committed, what is your
responsibility? When we watched apparent drug deals going town in the house
across the street, we notified the police. That was our responsibility. If you
are a witness to a crime and refuse to speak out, you are sheltering the
criminals and are complicit in their crimes. You become willing
co-conspirators. Should you withhold evidence, like the two friends of the Boston bomber who threw away his laptop
and backpack, you are obstructing justice and may go to prison.
Of course, if the criminals in your neighborhood are
likely to kill you for speaking out,
what do you do then? Keep silent and reinforce their authority to
continue to commit crimes? Or take your chances and possibly end up dead or in
the Witness Protection Program, WITSEC, forced to take a new identity and live
in a distance place along with an estimated 40,000 other hidden witnesses?
But what if the criminal acts you have observed are
committed by your own government? Who do you turn to? That’s the dilemma faced
by Manning and Snowden. Manning turned to Wikileaks. Snowden went to the press.
In the days of Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers in the Vietnam War, the
information was turned over to the New York Times. Ellsberg went to prison.
Breaking the code of silence has consequences. If
you are a Mafioso and rat someone out, your body may be found in the trunk of a
stolen car abandoned in the long term lot of the airport. If you have sworn to
the Government Secrets Act you may go to prison or even, possibly executed if
your acr is determined to be treason.
So when is a crime not a crime? Are the victims of
the Boston bombers, killed or maimed simply “collateral
damage” And how are they different from the women and children killed in a
house struck by a drone flying over Pakistan? In the case of the Boston bombers, they constructed
and brought their pressure cooker bombs to the crowd and set them off. In the
case of the drone strikes, the anonymous persons who launched the smart bombs
and missiles were thousands of miles away, sitting safely on our soil.
We are not at war with Pakistan or Yemen. Their air space is
sovereign territory, just as the air space over New York is ours. To fly over a
foreign country and launch bombs and missiles is an act of war. To aim those
weapons at approximately specific alleged targets is assassination, another
name for murder.
In the case of our calling the police about the drug
deals going on across the street our recourse was our dependence on law and
order and the Constitution. If we had no law and order, as is the case in Iraq where those essential parts
of a civilized society have broken down or are non-existent, the alternative is
revenge. Hence the frequent car bombings intended to terrify and cow the
neighbors into silence or submission, just as our neighborhood gang of Mafioso
hope to achieve through intimidation.
So now we have Manning and Snowden who both signed
the Umberto Code of Silence known as the
National Secrets Act and then observed what they interpreted as crimes. If the
criminal acts are committed by your own government, who do you turn to?
Whether you believe him or not, President Obama has
said he had already taken steps to reign in the excesses of surveillance by the
NSA, violations of the Constitution rules against unlawful search and seizure,
issues which were our grounds for the Revolutionary War against the British
Empire. Obama claims Snowden’s public revelation simply hastened the changes.
The dilemma remains. Whoever fired the drone
missiles and killed those innocents are removed only by miles and intent from
the drunken soldier who burst into homes in the middle of the night and
murdered children in their beds. The anonymous
drone “pilots” will not be charged, but they generally pay a price of guilty
conscience and PTSD for what they have done. They have to live with themselves.
Some cannot and commit suicide out of remorse for what they have done and the
people they have killed..
But the issue remains of who do you turn to to
report a crime committed by your own government? The United Nations? A
complicit Congress that voted in favor like the Nazi government who passed the
Nuremberg Laws that made genocide of Jews legal?
