Tuesday, November 5, 2019

Allison Stanger

Allison Stanger is Russell Leng ‘60 Professor of International Politics and Economics at Middlebury College, New America Cybersecurity Fellow, and an External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. Her new book is Whistleblowers: Honesty in America from Washington to Trump.

From the transcript of Stanger's interview with Fareed Zakaria:

ZAKARIA: Allison, finally, there are people, the president himself and others, who really cast doubt on the efforts, the patriotism of these whistleblowers. There's something underhand, there's something kind of un-American about what they're doing. What do you say to that?

STANGER: Whistleblowing couldn't be more more American. Whistleblowers keep our elites honest. And it's an America tradition, as we discussed dating back to 1778. So it's important to realize that this is not a partisan, it's really an American issue. And if you look at the national security community, the intelligence community, they are doing something since Trump's election that they don't normally do. No previous president has been considered a national security threat by his own intelligence community. And we certainly haven't seen this sort of blatant corruption, the use of the office of the president for private gain, but I think Americans know that obviously Americans should elect their officials, not foreigners, and that public servants should serve the American people and not their own pocketbook.

So I'm hopeful that in the days ahead, we'll see...[read on]
--Marshal Zeringue