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A comment on Hollywood Movie Aside, Just How Good a Physicist Was Oppenheimer?. Parent comment

Re:Hollywood Movie Aside, Just How Good a Physicist Was Oppe... by alchemist1e9 on Friday July 21, 2023 @08:42AM (#36813118)
It’s very worrying that in the US criticism of the government is now being actively censored and suppressed.

Is it true that US whistleblowers should consider getting to Berlin before leaking their information as German laws on speech would help protect them? For example wouldn’t Assange and Snowden have been much better off if they had?

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Re:Hollywood Movie Aside, Just How Good a Physicist Was Oppe... by lazide on Sunday July 23, 2023 @07:24PM (#36841068)
Being in Germany wouldn’t have saved them, and it’s fantasy to think they would have. They’d have to have been in Venezuela, Iran, NK, China, or as worked for Snowden, Russia.

Anti-whistleblower/leaker sentiment has always been a strong force in every gov’t - only being physically in the jurisdiction of the ‘enemy’ is decent protection, and even then assassinations happen.

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Re:Hollywood Movie Aside, Just How Good a Physicist Was Oppe... by solarkraft on Monday July 24, 2023 @02:01PM (#36851910)
Hate speech isn't protected, in case you mean that.

Governemt criticism and whistleblowing is generally regarded more highly. As far as I can tell Snowden is well respected and the idea of granting him asylum is fairly popular (it almost happened, but the US's pressure is strong).

The laws in place aren't as good as you'd hope, though. The powers that be are, for some reason, not very happy with the idea of it becoming easier to expose their misbehavior, so protections for whistleblowers are not all that great. There was a recent attempt to pass a law that improves these protections, but it got watered down quite far.

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