YouTube-Using Russian Police Officer Fired For Whistleblowing

from the careful-where-you-whistleblow dept

One of the great things about the internet these days is that it gives a platform for people who had no voice before to speak out. Of course, there are certain risks associated with that. Apparently a police officer in the Russian port of Novorossiisk put up a YouTube video accusing his superiors of corruption. The video got lots of attention (over 200,000 views) leading Russia's Interior Ministor (who is responsible for the police) to start a probe. That probe apparently lasted all of two hours before it ended and the police officer who made the video was fired. Of course, many will assume that this was punishing a whistleblower, which certainly sounds plausible -- though, an argument could also be made that if the guy really was making stuff up, that's pretty bad as well. Either way, it is a reminder that just because you have a platform to speak out (whether legitimately or not), it doesn't mean there aren't consequences for doing so (as unfair as those consequences might be in some cases).

Filed Under: consequences, free speech, police, russia, whistle blowing, youtube

Swedish Authorities Take Action Against Blogger For Revealing Surveillance Documents

from the free-speech-violation? dept

Wille Faler writes "Swedish blogger and civil rights activist Henrik Alexandersson has been reported for "freedom of speech" violations by the head of FRA (Swedish National Defense Radio Establishment), the government agency that is responsible for surveilling the contents, origins and destinations of all phone calls, internet traffic and text messages passing through swedish networks, regardless of suspicion or not. Alexandersson published a classified document on his blog some time ago that had been leaked to him, that proved how FRA had been conducting illegal surveillance against innocent Swedes for more than ten years. It is this offense that has landed him in trouble and deemed him a "threat to national security." In other word, the messenger gets shot for whistleblowing about the illegal conduct of government agencies."

It's interesting that this comes so soon after Sweden passed a new law that lets the gov't tap all forms of communication. While you can understand the government's position, this definitely does appear to be punishing the whistleblower, which is all too common these days. Plus, of course, in attacking the guy who brought this info public, the Swedish government is all but guaranteeing that it gets that much more attention.

Filed Under: blogger, surveillance, sweden, whistle blowing

Virginia Won't Stop Publishing People's Social Security Numbers; But Will Fine You For Republishing Them

from the backwards-thinking dept

Apparently, the state of Virginia has been publishing various government documents on its websites that reveal the social security numbers of various residents. Betty "BJ" Ostergren thought this was a problem -- and when the state wouldn't listen to her, she decided to try to get more attention by republishing those documents on her own website. Basically, in an effort to show why it's wrong for Virginia to post people's SSNs, she's reposting them.

So how did the state of Virginia respond? Did it stop posting documents that exposed SSNs? Not at all. Instead, it passed a new law that let it continue to publish documents exposing SSNs, but would fine anyone like Ostergren who reposted that info on their own websites. In other words, instead of fixing the problem, it simply decided to fine the woman who helped highlight the problem. The ACLU and Ostergren are now suing the state to protest this new law. While I don't necessarily agree with Ostergren for republishing the SSNs exposed by the state, it does seem pretty ridiculous for the state to go after her, rather than to stop exposing SSNs.

Filed Under: aclu, privacy, social security numbers, virginia, whistle blowing