Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning (L) is serving 35 years for disclosing egregious war crimes. Edward Snowden (C) is in hiding for disclosing illegal and treasonous acts on the US population, and Antoine Deltour (R) awaits his fate.
Antoine Deltour, an accountant, decided to do the right thing. He downloaded 28,000 documents from PriceWaterhouseCoopers in Luxembourg that detailed strategies exploited by multinationals. He exposed a global tax rort worth trillions – which included a paltry $31 billion in Australia. But now the 29-year-old accountant and father-to-be is potentially faces five years jail. (VIDEO)
Deltour has been charged with a string of serious offences including theft and violating Luxembourg’s secrecy laws – but in 2014 more than 70 public figures signed a letter criticising Luxembourg’s decision to prosecute him.
“…according to Luxembourg’s finance minister, the 29-year-old accountant is responsible for “the worst attack Luxembourg has experienced in its history”. That’s a stunning claim when you consider it comes from a country once occupied by the nazis. “I don’t think I’m as bad as nazis,” Mr Deltour says. (Yahoo report)
This (Luxleaks scandal) highlights the relationship between the state and corporate industry. It is all about SECRECY. And secrecy leads to advantage.
The law does not necessarily favour disclosure of information that is in the public interest. These legal cases persuade everyone that whistle-blowing is hazardous to your health.
What is disturbing is that society has come to accept punishing people for trying to do the right thing. We have been brainwashed into believing this whistle-blower bashing is normal and good for society.
Our Father who art in heaven
Hallowed be thy Name.
We will not allow punishment of
those who try to protect the flock.
We will not prematurely forgive
those who are trespassing against You.
For Thine is the kingdom and the
power and the glory,
Or at least we hope so.
Forever. Amen.
If you must look at Gatekeeper sites like Bolt Blog or Catalaxy, its really easy to see how easily attitudes to people like these three get molded by the writers and then repeated back through the Herald-Sun reading echo chamber that comments at both sites. So many people were apparently turned into newts by these three (but got better).
Good point about the echo-chamber, Paul.
My 2014 Gumshoe article on the Bali bombings mentions that the Australian Law Reform Commission in 2005 had the good sense to disapprove of proposed anti-terrorist legislation, but this didn’t carry over to more recent attempts. See:
http://gumshoenews.com/2014/10/05/sedition-laws-in-australia-and-a-retrospective-on-the-bali-bombings/