Bravehearts: Whistle Blowing in the Age of Snowden by Mark Hertsgaard

Bravehearts: Whistle Blowing in the Age of Snowden Reviews

• 
  Dino-Jess ✮ The Book Eating Dinosaur ✮

  "Should reporting a crime be a crime?"

  
  
  I find the entire Edward Snowden saga absolutely fascinating. And while this book didn't have any new interviews from Snowden himself, it was all second hand information which was a little disappointing actually, this was a very interesting look into the world of whistle-blowing and what whistle-blowers go through in order to reveal government cover-ups, abuse of corporate or government resources and illegal or immoral conduct in the intelligence community.
  
  I went into this wanting more from Snowden, I didn't get that. But I did get more backstory as to why he went about whistle-blowing in the way he did, as we were shown what happened to previous whistle-blowers who went through both official and unofficial channels to get their information into the right hands and had their lives partly or completely destroyed in the process.
  
  There are truth bombs galore in here, but it is quite short. And at times I felt like the author was tooting his own horn, and letting other people toot their own horns a little too much. But there is an entire reference section at the end of this book that has given me plenty of ideas for further reading material on both whistle-blowing and Edward Snowden, so for that I am thankful.
  
  

  "Whistle-blowers have a broader sense of empathy than the average person and they're guided by a sense of morality they can't just put on a shelf. Whistle-blowers are also unique in that their morality doesn't change with circumstance. They don't see their family obligations as necessarily higher than their obligations to the society around them."

  
  
  I think the best part of this book was that it made me think, what would I do if I were faced with similar circumstances, like the three men who were highlighted in this book? And to be honest, until I am put in that situation I won't know. But I like to think that I would do what is right. But then, don't we all?
  
  3 Stars
• 
  Mal Warwick

  Since 2013, when Edward Snowden released a flood of classified data from the National Security Agency to the public eye, whistle-blowers have come under increased scrutiny. Snowden’s courageous act has highlighted the earlier efforts of other men and women whose names are familiar to many Americans: Daniel Ellsberg (Pentagon Papers), Mark Felt (“Deep Throat”), Frank Serpico (NYPD), Jeffrey Wigand (tobacco), Karen Silkwood (nuclear industry), Coleen Rowley (FBI – 9/11), Sherron Watkins (Enron), and Chelsea Manning (Wikileaks). As Mark Hertsgaard makes clear in his study of contemporary whistle-blowing in the U.S. government, Bravehearts, we owe a great deal to these brave people, who have helped keep democracy alive in America. However, he makes clear that these high-profile cases are among those involving hundreds of other men and women who have brought to light wrongdoing both in government and in private industry over the past several decades.
  
  National security or insecurity?
  
  Though whistle-blowers come to light in corporations as well as government agencies, Hertsgaard’s focus in Bravehearts is on those who have worked in the federal government. Much of his information comes from a Washington, DC-based nonprofit organization, the Government Accountability Project, known as GAP. The author himself witnessed GAP’s creation in 1978 as a project of the Institute of Policy Studies, and he has reported on its findings on several occasions in the years since then.
  
  One constant them in Hertsgaard’s book, and in GAP’s work in general, is a pattern of retaliation that almost invariably greets any well-meaning whistle-blower. Those who go through channels to report lawbreaking are typically fired and sometimes subjected to far worse. Those who go public in hopes of avoiding the harsh treatment that has greeted so many of their predecessors typically receive the harshest treatment. For example, as Hertsgaard points out, it’s not just Edward Snowden who has borne the brunt of the government’s antipathy. “The Obama administration has brought charges against seven whistle-blowers under the Espionage Act, far more than any previous administration has charged.” Given the importance of what came to light as a result of Snowden’s disclosures, it’s important to ask whether his act made the American people less secure, or more so. I believe, as Hertsgaard clearly does as well, that national security in a democracy must rest on the rule of law. It was lawbreaking that led Snowden to do what he has done. The same is true of so many others cited by the author in this superb little book. Without question, we are more secure as a result rather than less.
  
  Why do they do it?
  
  In explaining the motivation that leads whistle-blowers to act, Hertsgaard quotes Thomas Devine, GAP’s long-time legal director: “Whistle-blowers don’t start out as dissidents. Usually, they are the ones who believe most strongly in the institution where they work. That’s why they speak out — to help the institution live up to its mission. It’s the indifference and retaliation from management many whistle-blowers face that can turn them into dissidents.”
  
  Hertsgaard’s book comes to grip with a question that no doubt has puzzled many Americans: why did he do what he did how he did it? Why did he go public instead of going through channels, as President Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton belatedly (and, I believe, disingenuously) suggested he should have done?
  
  In answering this question, the author cites the experiences of two other whistle-blowers in the national security community: Thomas Drake and John Crane. Like Snowden, the former was employed at the National Security Agency though in a much more senior position. He tried to blow the whistle on the same illegal practices that Snowden successfully brought to light only many years later. His mistake was to go through channels; the result was that he was fired, stripped of his federal pension, indicted and threatened with prison, the FBI raided his home at gunpoint, his security clearance was removed, and he became unemployable to the extent that “he was reduced to clerking at an Apple store” in suburban Maryland.
  
  Crane, whose “testimony [is] published here for the first time,” was the assistant inspector general of the Department of Defense in charge of supervising the Department’s whistle-blower office. When he acted as expected and took his complaints about Drake’s shabby treatment to his superiors, he was ordered to shut down his investigation and identify Drake to the FBI. “To his horror, Crane watched as Drake and . . . four other NSA whistle-blowers were secretly ratted out to the Justice Department and then had their homes raided at gunpoint by federal agents.” As GAP’s Tom Devine explained, “Crane was our fly on the wall, letting us understand after the fact what really happened to Drake.” Hertsgaard notes: “Crane’s account illuminates how a system that in theory is supposed to protect whistle-blowing can in practice do just the opposite, a lesson Snowden took to heart when planning his own disclosures.”
  
  About the author
  
  Mark Hertsgaard is best known as the author of On Bended Knee: The Press and the Reagan Presidency and as the environmental correspondent for The Nation. Bravehearts is his seventh book. Six years ago, he published Hot: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth, a discussion of the consequences of climate change that I reviewed in this spot.
• 
  Denise

  A brief but fascinating look at a number of whistleblowers in recent(ish) years including but not limited to Snowden, Thomas Drake, Chelsea Manning, and decades before them Daniel Ellsberg. Hertsgaard examines their motives as well as the consequences of their actions in a book that doesn't really offer much anyone with a deeper interest in the subject isn't likely to have come across before but that was an interesting read nonetheless and would make a good introduction to the topic for those not yet well versed in it.
• 
  Nils

  Ein interessanter Ansatz, um das Thema Whistleblower zu beleuchten. Definitiv lesenswert!
• 
  Vhrai

  A legelső, ami feltűnt, az a borítón Edward Snowden, ami az elmúlt idők egyik legnagyobb amerikai titkosszolgálati leleplezése fűződik. Nos, a megérzésem nem csalt, róla és a hozzá hasonlókról szól ez a kötet. Egyértelműen a tényirodalom körébe sorolnám, de azt nem értem, miért a Hard Selection kiadói szériában jelent meg. Oké, férfiaknak és erősebb lelkű nőknek szól, de lehet a hasonló munkákhoz nem ártott volna egy külön kategóriát nyitni, és lehet jobban felfigyeltek volna rájuk, és nem tűnnek el a fantasy, thriller és horror regények között. Na, de térjünk rá a konkrétumokra. Számomra szerkezetileg és a gondolatmenetét tekintve is kissé kusza lett. Ugyanazt a témát vesézi ki végtelen számú nézőpontból, így több helyen ismételni kénytelen önmagát. Viszont ezzel kifejezetten segít azoknak, akik csak egy-egy részt szándékoznak belőle elolvasni. Mindemellett nagyon alaposnak tűnik, a laikusok számára is tökéletesen érthető, ugyanis részletekbe menően elmagyaráz mindent. A kezdetektől megosztja velünk az amerikai leleplezők történetét, a Vietnámi háborútól egészen a könyv megjelenéséig. Ők azok, akik dacolva a mindenkori hatalommal, a belső erkölcsi érzékükre hallgatva a nyilvánossághoz fordultak. Ez ember azt hinné, dicséretet kaptak érte, vagy éppen kitüntették őket, de nem! Valakit börtönbe zártak évtizedekre, más pedig soha nem térhet vissza a hazájába. Egyébként nem fest fekete-fehér képet jó és rossz döntésekről, egyáltalán nem heroizálja a leleplezőket. Sőt, inkább bemutatja, mennyire hétköznapi emberek, többnyire egyszerű irodai dolgozók Legfőképpen az az elgondolkodtató, hogy az USA-ban, ami elvileg a demokrácia hazája, eltapossák ezeket az embereket, ha pedig ott nem működik a fékek és ellensúlyok rendszere, akkor hol?! Főleg, ha belegondolunk, mik történnek az utóbbi időben kis hazánkban! Minden elismerésem a szerzőé, hogy kiállt ezek mellett az emberek mellett, és hangot adott az őket ért igazságtalanságoknak! Összességében egy nagyon érdekes és fontos olvasmánya volt ez az idei évemnek, de egy kissé megfontoltabb szerkesztést elbírt volna!
• 
  Gretchen Eick

  I read the English translation from our library but it is not showing here!
  This is a brief examination of the growing number of people who are willing to risk their careers and safety to expose what government is doing that violates its constitutional job description. I read it just before Chelsea Manning was pardoned and found it a fascinating read. It is brief and well written. Learning that the NSA was stopped from collecting all Americans' emails, cell phone data, and search histories in 2006 because of Snowden left me with a new appreciation of Edward Snowden. But realizing that all that they collected from 2001-06 is still stored and accessible to presidents with a personality disorder that leads them to punish all critics (anyone come to mind in 20017???) leaves me even more apprehensive about the current state of US political life.
• 
  Al Lock

  Excellent book that covers three whistleblowers in detail (and a few others that you may not have heard of in passing) and explains why each lead to the success of Snowden as a whistle-blower, and the commonality of character and courage that they each have. "Moral stubbornness", the author calls it. I like that. Very well written book, a fast read, and definitely worthwhile.
• 
  Paul Armstrong

  I didn't always enjoy the writing style, but a book like this is about its content and the content held my interest.
• 
  Bozena

  Great book, everybody should read.
• 
  Donald Schopflocher

  For those who might still believe that outrageous lies by the US government only began with Trump, read this one about whistle-blowers in the Bush and Obama administrations and how they got shafted.
• 
  PottWab Regional Library

  A
• 
  Olivia Meads

  I didn’t enjoy this audiobook as much as I hoped, I can’t tell wether it was the author’s writing style or the speech pattern of the narrator
• 
  Ryan

  Sort of interesting book about a topic I'm deeply interested in. All secondhand sources. The Snowden stuff was all rehashed; there was some boring stuff about much earlier whistleblowers. The Drake/Wiebe/Loomis + Roark part has been thoroughly covered elsewhere and wasn't well covered here. The only really interesting part for me was short bit about John Crane (DOD IG office), who hasn't been covered as well elsewhere.
• 
  Rhonda

  It is amazing how brave these people are and how cruelly they are treated as a consequence