BRAVEHEARTS

Reviewed 10/28/2016

Bravehearts, by Mark Hertsgaard

BRAVEHEARTS Whistle-Blowing in the Age of Snowden Mark Hertsgaard New York: Hot Books, May 2016				Rating: 5.0 High
ISBN-13 978-1-5007-0337-7
ISBN 1-5007-0337-3	164pp.	HC	$21.99

How To Be an Effective Whistle-blower

Here's what you need to be an effective whistle-blower:

You need an instance of misconduct in some corporation or government agency: something of large consequence, like financial corruption, promoting a harmful medicine, or inveterate lying.
You need to collect documentation of this misconduct that identifies the misconduct and the people involved: journalism's traditional who, what, when, where & why — and the more documentation, the better.
You need the willingness to go public, and to make your documentation public. And you need the willingness to face the consequences.

If the experiences of whistle-blowers in these high-profile cases teach us anything, it is that "working within the system" seldom gets the job done. The reason is that what you aim to correct is being done by the very people to whom you would report if you take the problem up the chain of command. Even if they are not directly involved, they are likely to come down on the side of protecting the organization they are a part of.

This is also, of course, why you need proof in the form of documentation. And having documentation in quantity supports keeping the story in the public eye for a period of time. A story that flashes in the headlines for a few days and then disappears is unlikely to have much effect. The case of Chelsea Manning, who provided videotape of US military atrocities in Iraq, is a prime example.1 So is Thomas Drake's case.

A second whistle-blowing lesson Snowden drew from Drake's experience was that taking one's concerns to the media had to be done transparently and with plenty of ammunition. Apparently a canny student of the relationship among the news media, the public, and the government, Snowden understood that a given administration can usually withstand a negative story if that story remains prominent for only a day or three, as the Baltimore Sun articles based on Drake's leaks did. What's required to capture the public's attention and put real pressure on a government are revelations that pierce the static of the 24/7 media babble and make news not for just a few days but for weeks on end. That in turn requires not just a single exposé, no matter how sensational, but a continuing stream of newsworthy information.

– Page 44

The late Daniel Ellsberg is the counter-example. Ellsberg walked out of the Pentagon with hundreds of pages documenting the fact that, despite its beating the drums for victory, Lyndon Johnson's administration was aware the Vietnam War was unwinnable. The sensational news, and the administration's ongoing court battles to suppress it, sparked months of press coverage.2

Some of the whistle-blowers Mark Hertsgaard mentions in this book are:

Edward Snowden
Thomas Drake
John Crane
Chelsea Manning
A. Ernest Fitzgerald
Karen Silkwood
Frank Serpico
Katherine Gun

Jeffrey Wigand
Coleen Rowley
Sherron Watkins
Cynthia Cooper
Dr. David Graham
Rick Piltz
Dr. James Hansen
Ralph Nader

So anyone who thinks that whistle-blowing is a fool's errand or a fringe concern, please think again. That is not the lesson of the Exxon episode, or of the travails of Edward Snowden, Thomas Drake, John Crane, and the many other whistle-blowers featured in this book.

The truth, it seems to me, is that our lives, our liberty, and much else may depend on whistle-blowing and the tribe of singularly brave, eccentric, morally stubborn individuals who give it life. Whistle-blowers sometimes break the law. They are not always easy to deal with, and they are not always right. But without them, society—which is to say, all of us—risks tumbling into one disaster after another. Bless them, I say. Bless them, warts and all.

– Page 158

Here is information on a few books relevant to the subject.

A Pretext for War:	9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies	James Bamford	Doubleday (June 8, 2004)	432 pages	978-0385506724	Amazon: 4.4 (103)	Goodreads: 3.9 (396)
Bamford probes the failure to prevent the 9/11 attacks and the made-up justification for the Bush administration's war on Iraq that left the United States more vulnerable to terrorism.
Wikileaks:	Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy	David Leigh & Luke Harding	PublicAffairs (February 15, 2011)	352 pages	978-1610390613	Amazon: 4.2 (56)	Goodreads: 3.5 (1,234)
"A team of journalists with unparalleled inside access provides the first full, in-depth account of WikiLeaks, its founder Julian Assange, and the ethical, legal, and political controversies it has both uncovered and provoked."
The Corporate Whistleblower's Survival Guide:	A Handbook for Committing the Truth	Tom Devine & Tarek F. Maassarani	Berrett-Koehler Publishers (April 4, 2011)	360 pages	978-1605099866	Amazon: 4.8 (18)	Goodreads: none
"A Step-by-Step Guide to Blowing the Whistle—and Surviving the Storm That Follows Corporate whistleblowers save lives, prevent fraud, and preserve the environment. But these results come through a long, difficult, draining, and often frightening process that leads many unprepared would-be whistleblowers to give up. Fortunately, they now have the support they need. This unprecedented and authoritative guide covers every step of the process—finding information to support your claims, determining whom to blow the whistle to, dealing with attacks from opponents, enlisting allies, understanding the law, and more."
The Snowden Files:	The Inside Story of the World's Most Wanted Man	Luke Harding	Vintage (February 7, 2014)	352 pages	978-0804173520	Amazon: 4.2 (1,616)	Goodreads: 3.8 (4,505)
NSA contractor Edward Snowden, learning of the near-universal surveillance of American citizens the agency began after 9/11, stole documentation of this and fled to Hong Kong. There, he revealed portions of it to selected journalists before going on to Russia where, thanks to the US canceling his passport, he became an exile. Guardian reporter Luke Harding recounts the details of Snowden's journey: both physical and motivational.
No Place To Hide:	Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State	Glenn Greenwald	Metropolitan Books (May 13, 2014)	272 pages	978-1627790734	Amazon: 4.5 (3,626)	Goodreads: 4.1 (14,377)
Glenn Greenwald recounts his trip to Hong Kong to meet an anonymous source who turned out to be Edward Snowden. He explores the implications of the surveillance detailed in his reporting for the Guardian — including the habitual avoidance by US establishment media of adversarial reporting on the government.
The Trial of Julian Assange:	A Story of Persecution	Nils Melzer	Verso (February 8, 2022)	368 pages	978-1839766220	Amazon: 4.8 (100)	Goodreads: 4.6 (338)
Wikileaks published "Cablegate" in July 2010, unveiling evidence of war crimes and torture on the part of the US military. Wikileaks founder Julian Assange found himself at the center of a media storm and facing charges from espionage to sexual assault. After a change of government in Ecuador ended his asylum in their embassy in Britain, he was imprisoned by British authorities in 2019. The US government immediately demanded his extradition. Melzer, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, at this point began looking into Assange's treatment. He found systematic due process violations, judicial bias, and manipulated evidence. Melzer explains the current status of the case and its implications for other whistle-blowers.
Secret Power:	Wikileaks and its Enemies	by Stefania Maurizi, with Lesli Cavanaugh-Bardelli (Translator)	Pluto Press (November 4, 2022)	368 pages	978-0745347622	Amazon: 4.7 (35)	Goodreads: 4.6 (135)
Stefania Maurizi, an investigative journalist with a growing interest in cryptography, begins in 2008 to probe the little-known organization Wikileaks. Working closely with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, Maurizi tirelessly exposes the brutality of secret power: the shameful treatment of Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden, to the cruel persecution of Assange and Wikileaks.

1 Chelsea Manning provided a great deal of documentation in the form of diplomatic cables. The problem was the short-lived media coverage, which came about because of Manning's lack of media savvy.

2 Henry Kissinger called Ellsberg "the most dangerous man in America" — but not because of the Pentagon Papers. Kissinger thought those made the Democrats look bad. But Ellsberg also had documentation of Nixon's plans to use nuclear weapons on Viet Nam. See The Secrets and Lies of the Vietnam War, Exposed in One Epic Document (Elizabeth Becker, The New York Times, 9 June 2021), Fifty years later, Pentagon Papers still speak loudly about war and government untruths (David M. Shribman, The Boston Globe, 12 June 2021), and Daniel Ellsberg: The 90-year-old whistleblower tempting prosecution (Joshua Nevett, BBC News, 7 June 2021).