the bolts ever seen by mankind, the b i in february admitted with the release of a report from the bureaus inspector general that it had recruited an informant to infill trade. and despite on the civil rights group, black lives matter, denver, that informant went so far as to try on successfully thank goodness to convince 2 members of black lives matter. to assassinate the attorney general of the us state of colorado. with this informant, a whistle blower. of course not. he was a wreck. he was a snitch, a criminal. but what happens when the width of lower is not the stereotypical truth teller? after all, was the blowing comes in many forms? i'm john to reaku. welcome to the whistle blowers the

. 2 charles little john has become something of a controversial figure in whistleblower circles. the 38 year old former contractor with the us internal revenue service was recently sentenced to 5 years in a federal prison for leaking. donald trump's tax returns to the new york times and to the investigative journalism website, pro public in 2020 little john also sent the times the tax returns of billionaire ill on musk and others. he said to show that the very rich pay little or no taxes, the binding campaign seized on the revelation to portray trump as out of touch with the working man. reasonable people can agree to disagree about whether a little john did the right thing or didn't do the right thing. but 2 aspects of this case stand out. first little john sentence of 5 years stands out as unduly harsh, especially having come from a judge appoint made by joe biden. and 2nd, in

a sentencing statement, the judge said disingenuously, that little john's actions put american democracy at risk. and she compared him to protesters and rioters who took over the capital building on january 6th, 2021. and who tried to overturn the 2020 election? that's absurd, of course, but that's the ugly current political atmosphere in washington. we're very happy to be joined by line on he's a noted media analyst, substantive expert and conversationalist line. oh, thanks so much for being with us. it's good to see it again. indeed. sure, it's great to be a substantive expert and you are a non substantive. that's the problem. that's the problem. there is so much to talk about on this issue. let's start with the case of charles little john. i personally believe that charles little john is a whistle blower, although at the same time i can actually see why people might disagree with that. so give us your opinion on this case and this little john's motivation matter when

determining whether he is a whistle blower. i don't think it matters at all. i'll be honest with you because the, the, it's the action of what you do, not why you did it. and the same thing goes, for example, in law. it doesn't matter why i hit you, or why, unless it negates or vitiate shouldn't tent, right? but in this particular case, when you talk about somebody who goes in and here, here's the problem. we have somebody who works for a government and an e t by virtue of a variety of natural agreements. you're not to divulge information that could affect the operational integrity of the organization. whether it's the post office or the irish or what have you. right? because we're, it's nash rational. but let me ask you this. what happens if i work for a pharmaceutical company or an insurance company? and i find out is that, that you, by the way, have

a particular disease or the you were denied somebody because of your sexuality. or something, and i think, you know, i think society would benefit and i violate several laws, right? like the vote do this. now it doesn't. and i hate to say this, but this is number one legal, uh, answer it just, it depends. it depends on what these are, but you said, i believe somebody is a whistle blower. let me ask you something, please determine what's the bridge between a whistle blower and a snitch, and a rack, or a confidential informant. i mean is, is somebody who, who basically is caught me and says, look, i'll give up my co defendants. if you leave me alone, i don't think that's a whistle blower or is it? i don't, i don't know. it depends upon, i think your culture here, the ation. yes and then your your intent. and that's, that's really part of the debate because in many of these cases, one man's whistle blower is another man's rack. one of the things that we often

hear from prosecutors is that they ask for these ridiculously long sentences as a way to frighten. yeah, there are people who may be considering going public with sensitive information that has always struck me as outragious. because 1st of all, there will always be whistle blowers, 2nd whistle blowers are what to help secure democracy, openness, transparency, and 3rd. and i don't mean to sound cynical, but prosecutors get promoted by pushing for the longest sentence as possible. after all, they can't make careers by asking judges to impose short sentences. oh yeah. so what exactly, by the way, but by the same token, you know, when you have people who are public defenders and people who run for office, i know in florida where i'm from, the public defender run for office. how do you run for an office just by the way, if you vote for me, the person that breaks into your house, unless you're animal like yes, i'm going to do everything in my power to get some off. still voted for me. was that here? you know, nice, this is a very strange thing, but you know, you,

you talk about something um a while back. i'm sure you're aware of this sentencing guidelines came out and the sentencing guidelines this spirit behind it was that we're tired of setting this discrepancy. and we're tired of judges of finding people different, different levels of sentencing, depending upon where they're from. it's like no, no, no, no, no, this is the judge who sits in and listens to this case. not somebody not in alabama . they hold cocaine differently than let's say california. so what happened was we had this ridiculous sentencing guidelines, which i think was one of the worst days possible because it applies this idea that you could put something into a formula and get an answer. but also, i think society that should be, should be kind of commentary right here, where we say, wait a minute, the worst possible, the crimes against humanity, i think, you know, children and murder should get the worst punishment. and somehow,

a bogus bitcoin were high are always critical originally. i don't understand and so i'm with you. but let me ask you this again. i'm, i'm sorry, i'm ruining this because maybe i'm a whistle blower. there's an opening of wine that all prosecutors do and they tell they tell your is during, during for deer or during opening statement. let's say if you're going to try to bust the devil, you don't get angels to help you. they don't know. we don't know what they do unless we enlist somebody from within that circle. so you might call them all right, you might come a whistle blower, but how were we supposed to find her? so i don't know what you think about the notion of the pentagon papers, but without ellsberg would have never know. how do you think i, julian, the sign is a journalist, not even in my opinion, not even. it was all blower. he's a journalist. so this is not what it we, it consisted, we are skits of frederick, in terms of how we a portion of respect and admiration for people who are basically as you say,

make society run. why don't you brought to my attention a situation in new york city where undocumented workers, who are injured on the job and who then report their companies to authorities for workman's compensation fraud, can get papers from the government to legalize their work status in the united states i had never heard of such a thing until you pointed out, tell our viewers what this is all about. it's called deferred action, and it works like this. a lot of these under scrupulous uh, businesses will take these poor. and i say this sometimes because anybody who's, who comes into this country to benefit their family, i got a piece of the american dream. i understood a 100 percent. ok anyway, but, but they'll come in to work in a work site. let's say it's, it's yours. and, you know, you've got this guy from, you know, ben as well or something and he's illegal. and you, you, you maybe don't equip him with the best safety equipment, right?

maybe you don't really care. she hurts himself. and you say, listen, i tell you, well here's a couple of bucks, go to the hospital, don't tell anybody where you are from because they're going to do it for you. and normally, if it was a regular, a worker, i'd have workmans comp. i'd have to be union, it'd be all kinds of considerations, better safety consideration. so what they do is they use these people benefit from their hard work, and then when they're injured, they threaten that would do for jason or whatever. so now this called a different action where a d h s, and others and state labor agencies will actually not only protect these workers, but accelerate in green light a faster application. we just kind of argue that one, but i think in, in, in, in syria make sense because if you're going to benefit from these people working at sub standard late wages, not paying social security, not enjoying any of the projections you have. you've got to have somebody to help them in india, but they're injured so it does make sense. however,

here's the downside, let's say you own a construction company and, and i me, the worker. i'm going to say, guess what, gary are good. i'm going to get hurt within 5 minutes a started. mm hm. oh i'm heart. i'm heart right. where's my paper? i mean, i got hurt. i just started guns, not pay. so i can see where this could be kind of abuse. where all of a sudden they're dropping things on their face, they're taking, you know what i mean. so it sounds terrific, but don't think that the criminal minds can't interrupt the, the sagacity of the program. yeah. well, i don't. thank you for these insights. stay right there. when we come back, we're going to ask final about an even more absurd sentence for an even more important list of lower so say to the . 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 take a for a she needs

a real life kaleidoscopic, isn't just a shifted reality distortion by tell us to do vision with no real opinions. fixtures designed to simplify will confuse really one say better wills, and is it just as a chosen few fractured images presented as 1st? can you see through their illusion going underground can as a result of why this can be cited by lawrence, these can be expanded by a true importance of wiki name of the, of, of stations that transparency is extraordinary. john mystic patrice then just succeeded in finding documents that existed in making them

available to the world public. i mean, what could be more than that by publishing information and sharing information with the public. he was exercising the right for a speech he did. so in the public interest wants to, so mom realized tends to me, uh and, and honestly, to relate to seriously i'm, i know why advice may attempt to know who is the guy that illegal anymore. wisely fort adjusted for to be on box weighing a 175 used to go through a sentence. all we going to let that stay the . 2 welcome back to the whistle, blowers. i'm john 3 onto were speaking with media critic, analyst,

and all around well informed guideline all about the different forms that whistle blowing takes line. oh, thanks again for being with us. indeed. why don't in late january a former c, i a software engineer by the name of joshua, she'll be with sentence to 40 years in prison. after being convicted of sending documents to wiki leeks that have come to be known as volt 7. the c, i a has said that this was the worst breach of classified information in the c i is history. shulty though was adamant that he was not the source of a week. and indeed, there was no direct evidence that he had actually done this prosecutor said that there was no evidence because he was such a computer genius that he was actually even able to cover his electronic tract. and he was convicted. there is no pool in the federal prison system and so the shortest sentence that he has to serve is 34 years. so it's 40 minus good behavior time 34 years of which at least the 1st 14 years will be in

a maximum security penitentiary. shulty was accused of releasing evidence of this. the i is ability to turn smart tvs into microphones so that they could even drop on conversations, even with a tv turned off. he was accused of releasing evidence that the c i is able to take over cars by hacking into the vehicles computer system and then to force the car off the road or off a bridge or into a tree. and there were at least a dozen other programs that he was accused of compromising to me. this fits the bill of whistle blower. what are your thoughts? should we fear people like joshua shulty or should we celebrate them as well? for as far as what you just told me, think about what you just said, i'm thinking myself we you, you can do and present those guys. you give them an award? yes, that's number one. number 2, the to see a says this is the worst breach ever. didn't heard you pack. didn't heard you,

were there any missions compromise, or was it really a breach? if i broke into your home but didn't take anything? i mean technically that burglary but don't you to that you're be getting back or what if for example, i said there is a person who is dead, there were, there are no fingerprint, no forensics? no, nothing, no here, no fiber. what we're going to charge you with the giving you a murder. what about the lack of evidence? that's how good you are. you're so self liking you murdering. now you also under federal sentencing the original pearl under the truth in sentencing act. you have to serve 85 percent, right. let me talk to you about that very quickly. do you know what prison guard say? great. take away the incentive. in the old days, in a regular system, when you would have somebody that says, listen, you play your cards, right? can you g r e work out and maybe save a guards live? we will knock all this time off. learn trying to be help people learn a trade out there for english. and i said,

oh you're saying now you're saying just sit back. and i remember years ago when i was a prosecutor, there was a discussion of should, should we take away weight, lifting and from the prisoners because no, because this gave them something to go and the guard would say, no, let me go back to what you're saying. for me, the case of michael hastings just made all of a sudden his car just spread out of nowhere. it seems like what was this about and well, we don't know. we're not really sure. and i live in the see. i don't want to get conspiratorial, but that is a bit odd. yeah. all of a sudden you pay for a lot of money for a very expensive car that lo and behold does something that a you go doesn't do. you know, it just doesn't make any sense. but let's go back to what we're talking about here . we need these folks. remember in the case of julian assigned, when they said to him, he said i did. and by the way, i and there is a supreme court case called the bar nikki against viper. and it says, even if you as a journal, this received information that stole it. let's take

a show these information and when he passed it on don't know what, what she owes the journalist you read it raises park, nicky case except in the case of julian assigned because he said i didn't break any . what do you think they came to me? yeah, but you might have help them. and so here is the question. number one, this is what i want everybody to answer. do you america, or do you not? what individuals who are involved in government agencies and offices to never tell you what your government is doing in violation of some rule. do you want that? so if your government, if there is water in flint, michigan or some radioactive chemical, that's it. do you or do you want to live in a world? and the answer is, of course no, i want, especially if it helps me. great. now how do you propose to protect people?

are we going to have a i submit? and just like we have queen time legislation, which are, which allows you to benefit and the proportion of money use that you save by, by alerting the government to fraud. well that's whistle blowing. quicktime legislation, people make fortunes of that, right? we ought to have almost a separate bureau or some type of a, of a, of a about a tribunal that determines yes. the information also, did you try any other methods of letting the country know about this? some people do it out of desperation. some people are not, that's not their 1st move. maybe they want to, uh, a newspapers maybe maybe, maybe they, they met with people in the agency. listen boss. you know, this stuff is these uh where, where, where we have um, you know, toasters that blow up and you know, something that people might want to know. what, what did they do prior to this?

is there any, any agency, any, any tribunal that somebody can go to at least determine the legitimacy of it? because i don't want to live. i don't know about you. i don't want to live where, where people are disincentive. i it's right from warning me of my impending dev warning me, of, of somebody that, that, that could kill me and my family to having people better know what we're talking about and you want a new name, whistle blower. how about um you know, uh, you know, make shift journalist. what's a journal is to somebody who report somebody who's a reporter, right. we need a different name to his color. yes, the member number, there's no such thing of being a whistle blower if it's fake. that's right. it's like, you know, no label is only liable if it's fate. if it's wrong, if it's false, but yeah, never get just, it's just like a conspiracy theory is always right. how does the problem?

it's this thing that so these people actually warning us. i've never heard of anybody who was put in prison for a horrible list. unimportant whistle blowing me nothing. you know, when you save the government $0.30 a year on packaging, or, you know, it's always something that drastic critical affects people's lives. that's, that's up. so the more time you get in prison, the more important it was for the country to find out about, think about that. what kind of a message is that? yeah, i think that's exactly right. no, getting back to the notion of long sentences, serving is a deterrence or not serving as a deterrent. i actually find that to be disingenuous. in 1996, when i was working at the c, i a, i sat next to a woman who was having an affair with a journalist with cnn. in the course of pillow talk, she revealed classified information to him, which he then promptly repeated on the air. the c. i investigated the leak and they

immediately found that my coworker was the source. she was not charged with espionage. she wasn't even fired by the c i a instead, she was suspended without pay for 2 weeks. a strongly worded letter was put in her personnel file and she was not eligible for promotion for one year. that was enough . she never revealed classified information. ever again. what do you think that says about the draconian sentences that we've seen in recent years more than 5 years for reality? winter, for example, more than 4 years for daniel hale. now, 40 years for joshua sharpie, what are we supposed to take from all that? and this is interesting because this is not a whistle blower. by the way, there's a terrible pun that it can be using, but i'm not going to do it because it's a family show. this is not a whistle blower in the classic sense. this is somebody who actually reveals

like a, uh, let's use it was a boy, that's a squealer. a reverse racked somebody who was, you know, a veritable trader. i don't know what you would have called somebody who is a government agent. who base a summer general portray is got into a little oh yeah, but with somebody perhaps. oh yes. um. uh remember that one that was really forever and ready. yeah. and have you know what didn't you seek? don't you think that somewhere there's some school that they take you do? isn't that list? here's torture. this is how they want to avoid charger and water board. but when you're in bed with somebody that that's what we're really double down on. imagine the training they go through just to simulate that, just to make it a real like life fire. anyway, i'm getting off into this. but what happens is think about this message. she's not what was her self interest?

what was the whistle blower says, i'm trying to do something to help society shut up, you know, 80 years. no, you don't understand. kids are needing ground glass, you know, measure ma, 80 years. this one is i'm trying to make time with this guy. i'm just trying to impress him. i'm just, i'm not benefiting anybody. i got a big mouth. it's not like welf crammed it. i'm just, i'm just yeah, get it up for no reason. this is the worst. this is negligent. it could be, if you think about it, treason is you still, you weren't tortured. that shot up. we're in a bad a couple of hits a chart named jr. now, what does this tell you? this would be the worst. and by the way, you know that everybody in her division or our area was say, wow, let's see what imagine what's gonna happen to this one. a letter in her file. yeah

. all right, and the files apps a great it's, it is about, yes it is. uh huh. yeah. so, so which i double secret probation, i mean, does this, this is good. so for that this is the worst. what kind of training do, do you think i'm and, and also a message shortly i i hope that if we can, if anybody you're watching this today as they are, i hope people realize they come away from the sticky stuff and make any sense precisely. exactly. that's exactly the point. well, i want to thank our guests being comfortable lionel, for joining us today and for sharing his insights, we were happy to have you line on. and thanks to our viewers for taking the time to be with us. charles louie, this how come the on the 18th century, french judge and philosopher known as month esque, you once said that there is no greater tyranny than that which is perpetrated under

the shield of law and in the name of justice. i believe that is exactly what we have seen developed right here in the united states over the past 20 years in its treatment of whistle blowers. what remains is for the rest of us to fight. as edmund burke once said, all that tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for good people of good conscience to remain silent. thanks for joining us for another episode of the whistle, blowers drawn curiosity. we will see you next time the. 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 the the

hi, i'm executive, and i'm here to plan with you whatever you do. do not watch my new show. seriously . why watch something that's so different. whitelisted all opinions that he won't get anywhere else. welcome to please or do you have the state department c. i a weapons bankers, multi $1000000000.00 corporations. choose your fax for you. go ahead. change and whatever you do. don't marshall state main street because i'm probably going to

make you, i'm comfortable. my show is called direction. but again, you probably don't wanna watch it because it might just change the way and say the you for your part. and leadership

depends tenacity, engine wisdom and publishing. since 2010 assigned just being held in aggressively narrow a dock, cold and cruelest spaces has been since the 7th of december 2010 and one for another. and we're now here. ready of videos often present, where does the system fall down that the foundation, corruption being something that if it was fixed, when have it's kind of in the warm, it's low on effect and would reduce in equity in society, or people would be less for the

same lice the information that such doesn't change the specially loans in which we live today with the power of the state and its links to the media and networks is so strong that it's not easy to fight against them. we can the extent that and they did that extremely intelligently. they never made up information, the name of menu, fact and information. they'd just succeeded in finding documents

that existed in making them available to the world public. that mean what could be more mobile than that for their release is, or a 100 percent? correct? they're all time take is no body of journalism can ever claim to be that however quote, it is. so the importance of wiki makes can never be of a statement. so i have transparency, is an extraordinary drawn list. take a chief month. see i repeatedly propose can not bring the will get weeks. founder from the younger, doran embassy in london, signed him to the united states, some senior trump administration officials and c. i. executives even discussing fascination assigned to coined former intelligence officials, the spanish.