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> So the whistleblower law is just a "pretend-law"?

Not sure why you used the phrase 'pretend-law' in scare quotes, since the post you responded to said no such thing.

Either way, there isn't really such a thing as the whistleblower law (IANAL). Aside from the first amendment, the closest thing I could find was the Whistleblower Protection Act [1]. It's a young law by any standard (1989), so you'd be hard pressed to argue that we didn't have a functioning democracy in its absence.

Your central point is well received, but you rebutted a partial straw man.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistleblower_Protection_Act



I found this which explains a variety of protections: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistleblower_protection_in_Uni...

Additionally it would be interesting if the leakers leaked more to get a softer punishment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turn_state%27s_evidence

Also, I have to add, I'm a little ashamed of my country today. But I feel vindicated as a programmer that we were right! We knew it all along. Things like this have been reported for years. But no one cared. Finally this is plastered on every major publication and people no longer think it's some conspiracy theory or exaggeration of normal security measures. So now's the real test. What do we do? How do we fix this? Our innate liberties have been trampled and threatened. Have some self-respect and speak your mind at work, people.




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