Hello. Hope you and yours are well. Have you ever heard of Edward Snowden? If you have not, Edward worked for the intelligence service in the U.S and was read in to the fact that they were spying on Americans in conjunction with major telecommunications providers. You may be surprised to hear that Edward is currently living abroad in Russia, as he had to redirect there since there were serious threats to his life and freedom after these revelations came out. No, Edward did not get any awards or celebrations by congress. Everyone was talking about Edward for a hot minute, there was even a movie made about him and his experience. But if you say his name now, most people will likely struggle to know who he is, or what even happened to him. Edward put his life and freedom on the line, nothing changed and the spying is still going on and is likely even more pervasive and all encroaching. Nobody went to jail, nobody was punished. The government relied on peoples swift attention spans and focus on their day to day survival. How about Dr. Dean Wyatt? A public health veterinarian for the USDA for nearly 20 years. He reported horrific animal cruelty and food safety violations at slaughterhouses . Instead of acting, his superiors told him to stop "meddling," forced him to attend humiliating remedial training, and created a hostile work environment. He passed away in 2010. No awards, no medals. Most don't even know his name. The "Quiet Skies" Whistleblower (2024): A Federal Air Marshal disclosed that the TSA was improperly surveilling U.S. citizens, INCLUDING former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard . According to a watchdog group, the TSA responded by investigating the whistleblower for a "leak" (retaliation), rather than investigating the illegal surveillance he reported. Want to talk about defense contractors(The ones all this stuff is allegedly tied too?) well, we don’t even have to get into aliens or advanced craft. There’s plenty of horrible stuff at base. For example, Kenneth Pedeleose: A Pentagon fraud investigator who wrote a 90-page report accusing defense giant Lockheed Martin of willfully overcharging the government . After exposing the "cozy relationship" between the Pentagon and the contractor, he was suspended for "insubordination" and later admitted he believed he had "ruined his career" . -------------------------------------- But what if you do awful and monstrous things for the state to hide their crimes? Well, then you’re protected of course: Have you heard of PEGASUS software? Stuxnet and their ilk? The Stuxnet virus was a sophisticated cyberweapon developed by the U.S. and Israel to destroy Iran's nuclear centrifuges . For years, its origins were a mystery. However, in June 2012, The New York Times published a detailed exposé revealing that President Obama had personally ordered the "Olympic Games" cyberattack. Unlike Edward Snowden (who remains in exile) or Thomas Drake (who was financially destroyed), General Cartwright who this was pinned on, was initially expected to face little to no punishment. It wasn't until years later that he pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanor charge and received no prison time. As one analysis put it, the Obama administration charged more people under the Espionage Act for embarrassing leaks (like Snowden) than all previous presidents combined, while turning a blind eye to politically beneficial ones. And what of PEGASUS?. While Stuxnet was a weapon of mass disruption, Pegasus is a tool of mass surveillance, sold to governments to track criminals and terrorists. However, leaked data revealed it was being used to spy on journalists, activists, and even heads of state . For years, the Israeli police and government officials vehemently denied using Pegasus against citizens, calling the allegations an "unreliable narrative. When Spain tried to investigate who hacked the phones of its Prime Minister (Pedro Sanchez) and Defense Minister, the Spanish judge hit a wall. Israel simply refused to cooperate with the investigation, ignoring legal requests for information(Sound familiar?). It is strongly believed that PEGASUS is in use by 5 eyes countries and their allies(Canada, US, Australia, U.K, etc) on their own citizens and others to this day. Nobody cares to investigate from any of those countries and no one has been held accountable. So let me ask you this. Of what benefit is it to run out to media or whomever else to reveal anything? If we take a side step here, Amy Robach from ABC had revealed that they tried to report on Jeffrey Epstein back in 2015, but her producers killed the story. The result? She had to immediately walk back her statements and a producer who had saved the clip from ABC’s servers, was fired in her place. So again, if even the people who leakers and whistleblowers run to are afraid to speak, have to have things passed through the “proper hands” before you see it, read it, and those “proper hands” have long since been cozy to power, or utterly replaced by power as the CIA even did by getting journalists on their payrolls, then what immense danger is it already to have knowledge of things, then try to get it out to the public? And finally, even if you somehow get that knowledge out to the public as Snowden did, what of it? You cannot fight the media apparatus, Google in particular is a revolving door of NSA/CIA and DoD personnel, Meta, Amazon, etc. If you somehow get past all their word checks and flags to network TV or the internet, then what happens? Mass media goes on a blitz, all saying strangely similar things, writing similar articles, etc about whatever other drama and your whistle is barely heard. And if you get past that and your whistle is heard loudly and clearly, then still, mass media shifts the attention to “look here at these celebrities or other drama”. --------------------------------------- In short: I am of two minds about the whole “Why won’t someone just dump everything?”: A) I think that it is likely someone already has, just due to human nature, but it was overlooked or it is so strange and wicked, that we, even those deep in this community, wrote it off as “claptrap” or “No way”. Which is very sad and often makes me pause. B) The other is that nobody actually has(find this harder to believe) and have made the calculations that it’s not worth it to them, their family, friends to make such a move; because of how governments all over treat whistleblowers and not even in very serious matters, but even ones that may be embarrassing to them. And if that’s the case, I can’t say I hold it against anyone for doing so. submitted by /u/techtimee [link] [comments]