Maria Ressa Quotes
In a weird way, I'm a good target for the government, because I can push back.
Ressa, Maria. How to Stand Up to a Dictator: The Fight for Our Future. Harper, 2022.
Senator Church was the chairman of the committee. It’s reports (14 in all) are the most extensive documentation of U. S. intelligence ever compiled.
Snowden, was a contract worker for Booz Allan assigned to the National Security Agency (NSA). He felt that some of the NSA activities were illegal and unethical and tried to complain to NSA officials who rebuffed him. Despite the fact that he had signed an agreement not to do so, he copied many critical, classified documents that exposed much of the NSA activities that the NSA officials had denied existed—including lying under oath to the Senate. He then made many of them public, violating his oath, breaking the law, and opening up an entire area of government spying which most Americans knew nothing about and about which senior government officials had lied under oath to Congress. They of course wanted to prosecute Snowden who had told the truth, while they had lied. For many Americans, this became a moral and ethical conundrum.
While this sounds good, in Taiwan it is not clear that the Premier has any authority over the intelligence agencies that is meaningful. Even in the United States Major intelligence leaders have lied to Presidents and the Congress about their clearly illegal activities, and many sceptics suggest that the Premier would have no way of knowing what his intelligence agencies are actually doing.
Responders answer by pointing out that the government can incarcerate you and a corporation may not. Further, the 4th Amendment to the Constitution limit government action but not private action.
Unfortunately there has been a history in America of some overzealous police officers and prosecutors who have gone after particular people for reasons of prejudice, politics, self aggrandisement, or honest but erroneous belief of guilt. The 4th Amendment has acted as wall in many cases, but unfortunately it is a wall that can be scaled by over zealous officials who will falsify their applications for warrants. Though not a total barrier to abuse, the 4th Amendment has been one of the major reasons that Amercans enjoy greater freedom that exists in other countries.
Maria Angelita Ressa is a Filipino-American journalist and author, the co-founder and CEO of Rappler. She previously spent nearly two decades working as a lead investigative reporter in Southeast Asia for CNN. In 2020, she was convicted of cyberlibel under the controversial Philippine Anti-Cybercrime law, a move condemned by human rights groups and journalists as an attack on press freedom.
