User:Alexpamintuan/sandbox

We are Legion
Whistleblowing is prevalent in today’s entertainment media. There are two documentaries that portray acts of Whistleblowing to help the citizens of different countries. The first documentary is called “We are Legion”. This movie was released on October 19th, 2012 in the United States. It is a documentary that explains what the worldwide recognized group “Anonymous” is. 'Anonymous is a group of hackers that fight corruption for they believe in rights and freedom. They wear the same mask “Guy Fawkes” uses in “V for Vendetta” (Venkatesh, 2014). In the documentary, “We are Legion”, Anonymous portrays Whistleblowing in the fights against injustice.

Whistleblowing was demonstrated in the documentary by presenting the Arab Spring movement. Anonymous had made their first move in Tunisia where they fought corruption in the government. The Tunisian government was misusing their power by citizen brutality and murder (Anderson, 2011). Many civilians had died for fighting for social and economic change in their government. This was not granted and instead the government started acting unjustly.

The government also had citizen’s Facebook accounts hacked where posts were deleted and people were locked out of their accounts. These wrongdoing were simply to prevent the citizens from exposing the government’s corrupt actions. The government also had the website named “WikiLeaks” censored. This is a site that was created by Julian Assange, a recognized Whistleblower, to leak any type of government documentation that expose corruption. The Tunisian government didn’t want the world to become aware of the country’s political situation.

This is a direct example of how the documentary portrays Whistleblowing. Anonymous in response had stepped in to assist the people of Tunisia. They proceeded by making “Denial of Service” attacks on the Tunisian government’s websites. This prevented the government from accessing any of their websites. They also reconnected and enable WikiLeaks to allow people to expose what exactly was occurring in their country. This lead to the defeat of Tunisia’s dictator Ben Ali.

Another evident example of Whistleblowing that was portrayed in the movie was in Egypt. Once again, Anonymous had helped in another country to fight against injustice during the Arab Spring movement. In Egypt, civilians were being murdered for simply leaving their home. Citizens of Egypt were fighting for the freedom to choose their government. The president at the time, Hosni Mubarak, didn’t agree with the people of Egypt’s desires. Teargas was used against citizens and innocent people were being killed. Mubarak then ordered to have the internet shut down completely to prevent citizens from exposing the corruption being displayed.

Another group of hackers named “Telecomix”, whose sole priority is to keep the internet running in the Middle East, also helped Anonymous fight corruption in Egypt by Whistleblowing. Anonymous and Telecomix tweeted local reports for citizens to spread awareness of the government brutality that they were experiencing. Anonymous and Telecomix also connected 500 dial-up modem lines to give citizens a voice to expose the Egypt government. Anonymous also took down large government websites to send a warning to the government. Soon after Hosni Mubarak had stepped down as President. This documentary presented the act and effects of Whistleblowing.

We Still Steal Secrets
The second documentary that portrays Whistleblowing is called “We Still Steal Secrets”. It was released on January 21st, 2013 in the United States. It is a documentary that explains the life of Julian Assange and the system he created to expose corruption in governments, WikiLeaks. Julian Assange is a worldwide recognized Whistleblower and in this documentary he reveals all the corrupt acts of the United States. The documentary also consists of Assange’s life in chronological order from youth to present day (Gibney, 2013).

Whistleblowing was demonstrated throughout the entire movie especially when he released the “Afghan War Logs” on July 25th, 2010. Assange leaked unbelievable information that the government was hiding. Civilian causalities were significantly higher than the statistics presented through media outlets. Pakistan was playing a double game since they were taking military aid from the United States and also working with the Taliban to plan attacks on Afghanistan (Gibney, 2013). Also, Assange leaked information that the United States had a secret assassination squad that killed innocent mothers and children. Assange did this as an act of Whistleblowing because he felt that information should be free and accessible. Julian Assange stated in the documentary that, “without information, you cannot make an informed decision as a public” (Gibney, 2013).

Another example of Whistleblowing was displayed in the documentary when Julian Assange released the “Iraq War Log” on October 22nd, 2010. He revealed 400,000 documents that proved the United States was hiding information in regards to civilian casualties. He also leaked information that verifies Obama’s administration violating the Geneva Convention which is a war crime (Legal Information Institute, n.d). Obama was handing over prisoners to Iraqi officials knowing that they were going to be tortured through acts of abuse, sodomy and murder (Gibney, 2013). Whistleblowing is again evidently portrayed in the documentary as the unjust acts of the U.S government were exposed through WikiLeaks.

The last example of Whistleblowing that was depicted in the documentary was when Bradley Manning gave Julian Assange the “Collateral Damage” footage (Gibney, 2013). The footage was a video of innocent civilians in Bagdad being massacred by the U.S military. It was almost a shooting game for the U.S soldiers while a father and his two kids were killed. Many other innocent civilians died during the patrol in Bagdad (Gibney, 2013). Julian Assange blew the whistle once again by leaking the footage on WikiLeaks. He wanted to uncover to the world how corrupt the U.S government is and he believes in having a transparent government. Transparency is holding the government accountable for their actions and informing the public about their activities.

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