The United States never fails to point fingers, interfering and lecturing, intruding in different countries on the pretext of human rights, privacy rights, democracy and other issues even if these matters go against those nations. But, rarely does the United States turn its eyes on maintaining the same noble principles in its own land.
As far as maintaining human rights and privacy rights are concerned, the United States not only fails to protect them but also lacks in ensuring the safety of the whistleblowers who expose institutional wrongdoing. Moreover, on many occasions it has framed severe charges against the whistleblowers who came up with the biggest of the exposes threatening human and privacy rights.
The safety of whistleblowers in the United States has never been above average but in recent years, the repeated targeting of whistleblowers has placed a concerning issue in front of the people.
Suchir Balaji
Recently, on the 26th of November. A 26 year old former researcher at Open AI named Suchir Balaji was found dead in his San Francisco apartment. Suchir Balaji, the Indo- American researcher left Open AI in August after working there for four long years and since then he had been a vocal critic of the company’s practices, particularly concerning the ethical use of copyrighted materials to train AI models like ChatGPT. In October, Suchir Balaji expressed his skepticism about generative AI’s reliance on “fair use” as a legal defense.
He had also appeared on New York Times discussing the same and had authored a blog where he criticised the exploitation of copyrighted materials by AI companies. “Fair use and generative AI is a much broader issue than any one product or company,” he stated in his blog. Balaji’s criticisms also extended to OpenAI’s data collection practices. In a separate interview with the New York Times, he labeled the approach of how Open AI collects data being harmful.
In the ongoing lawsuits against Open AI, the American artificial intelligence (AI) research organization filed by big publishers including The New York Times, Suchir Balaji’s name was also mentioned as having important documents that highlight Open AI and its partner Microsoft using copyrighted documents which includes using of published articles and write-ups in order to train its AI.
Though the death of Suchir Balaji has been held as suicide by the investigative authorities, the links of Suchir in coming out with documents exposing Open AI has labelled speculations around his death. Netizens have expressed concerns over his death and speculated that he must not have committed suicide but was assassinated by some major players.
This is not the first time the whistleblowers in the United States had to face such consequences. Legal consequences are being met by many whistleblowers who do big exposes.
Edward Snowden
Edward Snowden, a former contractor for the CIA and the National Security Agency (NSA), became a household name in 2013 after leaking classified information that exposed extensive global surveillance programs operated by the US and its allies.
Edward Snowden’s disclosures revealed the widespread collection of internet and phone data, sparking international debates on privacy, government overreach, and security. Snowden initially shared the classified files with journalists from The Guardian and The Washington Post. His revelations included details of the NSA’s Prism program, which allowed the agency to tap directly into the servers of major tech companies like Facebook, Google, and Microsoft to track online communications.
He also disclosed that the NSA was collecting phone records of millions of Americans and monitoring communications worldwide, including spying on foreign leaders and allies. After coming out as a whistleblower, Edward Snowden had to face serious legal consequences in the United States, including charges of espionage and theft of government property.
To evade prosecution, Snowden first fled to Hong Kong and then to Russia, where he was granted temporary asylum in August 2013. Later Edward Snowden’s status was extended by Russia to indefinite tenure. Snowden continues to speak for privacy rights.
Julian Assange
Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, rose to global prominence in 2010 when WikiLeaks released classified US military documents and diplomatic cables, many of which revealed unreported civilian deaths and alleged abuses during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Among the most infamous leaks was a video showing a US military helicopter firing on civilians in Baghdad.
The US charged him with 18 offenses, including violations of the Espionage Act, alleging he conspired to hack military databases to obtain classified information. Claiming the charges were a pretext for extradition to the US, Assange sought asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London in 2012. He spent seven years confined there before Ecuador withdrew its support in 2019, leading to his arrest by UK authorities.
Assange then faced five years in a UK prison while battling extradition to the US. After years of legal turmoil, Assange has finally returned to Australia.
Chelsea Manning
The name of Chelsea Manning is undoubtedly the biggest when it comes to the list of Whistleblowers in United States history. In 2010, Chelsea Manning, U.S. Army intelligence analysts made the world stunned.
She leaked a massive trove of classified documents, exposing U.S. military operations, including prisoner abuse and civilian casualties. Published by WikiLeaks, the leaks drew global criticism of United States military operations.
Chelsea Manning was then convicted under the Espionage Act and sentenced to 35 years in prison, the longest sentence ever for a whistleblower. In 2017, Former President of the United States Barack Obama clemency in 2017 after she served seven years in prison. Chelsea Manning continues to advocate for government transparency.
The likes of Suchir Balaji, Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, and Chelsea Manning had to face the worst after they came out exposing human rights and privacy rights violations. This underlines a troubling pattern in the United States of America regarding the safety of the whistleblowers. The United States must ensure the safety and well being of the whistleblowers who expose the grave wrongdoings in the society and not put severe legal charges upon them before pointing fingers upon any other country on these issues.
