Reversing the Flow of the Panopticon if Only Momentarily and Destined to Be Forgotten

    The previous article about whistleblowing, “Whistleblowing and the Law: Here and There, Now and Then,” was written in only a few hours, (thus the many spelling errors) a few days ago, which included hours of having to retype several paragraphs from the email which was deleted from the county servers 2 and 1/2 years ago. I only excerpted relevant parts which I thought should not be lost to the memory hole which covered why I do what I do as far as putting up with things I would not normally put up with so helplessly, because eventually I thought I might need to publish something important and I liked having somewhat a protected job, at least minimally and if only in the near term.

    The ever increasing indignation and sometimes outright humiliation at work was always an issue. If I seemed belligerent and a bit bitter in the previous post, it was due to the fact that those higher up, as Karl Rove once famously said, “create their own reality” which is often at odds with what those who have not such power would ever consider “reality.” The panopticon only sees one way and despite all the talk of “transparency” those in power are completely shielded from any meaningful exposure or investigation into their own wrongdoings, yet have complete control over any facts about and knowledge of anyone lower in position.

    I wanted to convey in that article, that I at least, as usual, was not happy about being the only one who realistically would ever have attempted to make such things public. Though I had an idea of how to do so which might have assured that it would not have been completely in vain to do so, there still is absolutely no guarantee anyone higher up will seriously look into it.

    In addition to the County Council, I became aware of a State of Hawaii Ombudsman Office and similar office which could conceivably look into such matters and hopefully change or lessen what might otherwise have gone or been wrong, so I forwarded the initial email to them as well.

    I would never had done such things if I was not confident that there was enough email evidence over the years to back up what I was saying and knowing that if the emails were not deleted or wiped from the servers as I knew that they could be, violation of law or not, any FOIA requests of several relevant officials would put out quite a lot of backup to what I had said.

    The fact that the original email of 2 and 1/2 years ago went to many county employees mistakenly probably was the only reason any of the corruption came to light at all, and I knew that this time though I added every relevant agency that would have the power to look into such things, and that for now the evidence probably still exists that would prove such assertions, that regardless, coming forward will still most likely seem to have proven to have been a waste of time and eventually might prove to have cost me my job, sooner or later.

    One thing that I left out in that article which I wished I had covered was the monitoring of employees as well as the gagging of them to prevent anything from being made public that might prove embarrassing or illegal in regards to the behavior of those at the top, mostly elected or appointed officials.

    I have seen, though it is not on any notices to employees which I have been aware of, of people for nontechnical support reasons being able to monitor any employee below them’s computer screens at any time. Not that I had done anything wrong, but that is something one would think would have been limited to the private sector, being able to secretly monitor employees computer screens at any time, watch them on their webcams secretly at any time, and what I found most egregious of all, secretly monitor their movements 24/7 through their government mobile phones.

    I had been shown how all employees in our department were being monitored on a Google maps type software which showed all their locations and speeds in real time. Not only that but the software was capable of storing this information for all other off-duty times as well. Meaning you could rewind it to any other time you chose to see where the person was, or where their phone was, at that time.

    There was a big blowup about Apple iPhones secretly saving a persons location at all times since they had purchased the phones, and that was a secrecy issue. However, those who are monitored by their employers in such a fashion without being told is even worse.

    Should a person frequent an adult motel instead of going home to their wife, go to bars or gambling places while on probation, all of these things can be known by such surveillance by their employers, and eventually be used against them to blackmail them or hold it over them, and again without prior notification that they were at risk of having that happen to them.

    The gagging of employees to talk publicly about such things I mentioned in that the last article about whistleblowing. It is doubtful I would be able to write another one like that or like this because that is what will most likely soon be the case. I was similarly gagged while running for State Senate about talking about any wrongdoing in my department just before the election, not that I was inclined or wanting to talk about such things once I had ruled it out, but that showed nothing of that type of behavior no matter how egregious it may be in regards to the political process, would still be the first response to talking about illegal things the department does now.

    As I said, I have gotten lazy in how I view myself as only doing any significant writing at all except when I think I am out of time to do so, or to try to make a difference. A lot of that I can chalk up to never really having been in any way confident that anything I write anymore will be read by anyone in a position to make a difference, or that doing so for any reason less than of critical importance would simply cost me the ability to do so in the future if I thought that then I might have had something important to say.

    When things most seemed at risk of coming apart previously, in the summer of 2012, I then wrote what I most wanted to say at that time in the post, “Real Men Fear Nuclear War, Not in Kansas Anymore.” This time what I wanted to speak of the most is that the protections of whistleblowers are hindered if there is not enough protection of them should they be forced out of their jobs.

    In other words, the gap between public sector benefits and private sector benefits means that most would never risk losing their jobs by coming forward if it meant losing their health care, sick time, and other benefits they would never likely be able to receive again if banned from working in the public sector due to whistleblowing or giving evidence in support of investigation of such crimes once they become at risk to be exposed.

    So once again, having said what I thought was most important to say at that this time, come what may, at least I can feel better that I did not hold back what I should have said long ago anymore. The feeling of having a protected job was nice for awhile while it lasted, and though I still feel that I ought to have used that power to write whatever I wanted, and fought very hard to keep, when I wanted should have been used to a greater degree, I can say that keeping the option of that open for the future if needed was a valid consideration as well.

    Doing too much in the present robs one of the chances of doing good in the future, but also if you always think that way, you often will get very little done. I have not found the perfect balance yet, if there is one, which is why I try to leave myself free in every moment as much as possible to decide where I think it is, or should be, today.