the question is whether whistle- blowerand their actions make the world a safer place or not, or to rephrase the question, with the absence of whistle- blowers make the world a more harmful place? we just heard this last speaker saying that when considering a balance between the desire of certain groups and iividuals for secrecy and those that coerce individuals at the point of a gun, then the rights of us to know what our government is doing, this is a matter for the courts. this is a matter for the democratic process. this is something to be ironed out between us and cast into law. how would we know whether the secrecy process is working for us or not? the only way we can no weather information is legitimately kept secret is when it is revealed. all systems of censorship have that problem and coded within them. because of that original sin of censorship, they all must be held to outside account. the way that has been traditionally done is by courageous individuals who are privy to information that they believe the public is interested in. they are putting it out at substantial personal ris