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I'm always struck by the strange cognitive dissonance US law has for corporate whistleblowers vs governmental whistleblowers. How can you recognize the value of

I'm always struck by the strange cognitive dissonance US law has for corporate whistleblowers vs governmental whistleblowers. How can you recognize the value of one while dismissing the value of the other? It's not like a whistleblower defense is a get-out-of-jail-free card either, as you must prove that what you did was actually in the public interest. It's a shame that there's no movement for reform in this area, because ultimately it would be very interesting to see Snowden return to the US for a "fair trial" and see the public response (both within the US and globally) to the outcome.

dragonwriter 11y ago
Law at both federal and state levels (in most states) has fairly strong protection for government whistleblowers in general; the Espionage Act specifically lacks whistleblower provisions, which certainly presents an issue when whistleblowing relates to the kind of defense-related information to which the Espionage Act applies, but that's not indicative of a general approach in law to government whistleblowers.
wtbob 11y ago
> I'm always struck by the strange cognitive dissonance US law has for corporate whistleblowers vs governmental whistleblowers. It doesn't: there are multiple different programs for reporting perceived illegal activity. Snowden never availed himself of any of these, but instead committed espionage.
- throwaway7767 11y ago
  > It doesn't: there are multiple different programs for reporting perceived illegal activity. Snowden never availed himself of any of these, but instead committed espionage. These programs had been used by multiple people before, with no results. They are for show, so that people like you can point to them to show that there's "oversight". Whistleblowing of the type done by Snowden is a last resort when there is no other option. The options you speak of are not credible avenues for change.
- theandrewbailey 11y ago
  He tried. He found out that because he wasn't a government employee, those programs treated him like shit.[0] > One of the things that has not been widely reported by journalists is that whistle-blower protection laws in the US do not protect contractors in the national security arena. There are so many holes in the laws, the protections they afford are so weak, and the processes for reporting they provide are so ineffective that they appear to be intended to discourage reporting of even the clearest wrongdoing. If I had revealed what I knew about these unconstitutional but classified programs to Congress, they could have charged me with a felony. One only need to look at the case of Thomas Drake to see how the government doesn't have a good history of handling legitimate reports of wrongdoing within the system. > Despite this, and despite the fact that I could not legally go to the official channels that direct NSA employees have available to them, I still made tremendous efforts to report these programs to co-workers, supervisors, and anyone with the proper clearance who would listen. The reactions of those I told about the scale of the constitutional violations ranged from deeply concerned to appalled, but no one was willing to risk their jobs, families, and possibly even freedom to go through what Drake did. [0] http://www.cnet.com/news/snowden-not-all-spying-bad-but-nsa-program-divorced-from-reason/ http://www.cnet.com/news/snowden-not-all-spying-bad-but-nsa-... Every time I've been a contractor[1], I've been treated likewise. [1]never been contracted out to a government agency of any level.
- cryoshon 11y ago
  The legality shouldn't even be part of the conversation. Government activity that is fascistic is usually going to be completely legal or made legal once revealed. We saw the government do this with the USA Freedom Act. Before that, they claimed to have authorization under the FISA and PATRIOT Acts. They do not want oversight, and the "abuses" are actually functioning exactly as intended. This is also why they endlessly lie to our faces about what is going on and don't get fired, even when they have been outed repeatedly. Also, there's the documented fact [0][1] that whistleblowers at the NSA who go through the "proper channels" ultimately gets you fired, ostracized, raided, and prosecuted. So really, it's a non-starter to claim that they should have reported illegal activity. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Andrews_Drake#Drake_action_within_the_NSA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Andrews_Drake#Drake_act... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Binney_%28U.S._intelligence_official%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Binney_%28U.S._intelli...
canjobear 11y ago
This doesn't strike me as cognitive dissonance. From the government's perspective, Snowden didn't reveal illegal activity and so is not a whistleblower.
- jebblue 11y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistleblower https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistleblower "or threat to public interest" It doesn't have to be illegal.
- grey-area 11y ago
  Clapper and Alexander lying to congress is illegal.
- agd 11y ago
  The bulk collection of phone metadata (which he exposed) was subsequently ruled unlawful: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/07/nsa-phone-records-program-illegal-court http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/07/nsa-phone-rec...
  - NullCharacter 11y ago
    That's great and all, but what about the other one million+ documents he absconded with not related to the phone metadata record collection? At what point does he cease being a whistle blower?
    - comrh 11y ago
      I feel like this isn't a bad point. Anyone have a response because the whistlerblower tag gets used a lot but he did release a lot that seemed to be normal spying.
      - deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
      - pfg 11y ago
lern_too_spel 11y ago
Think about it from the prosecution's perspective. He revealed one program that was legal at the time but later ruled illegal, dozens of programs that are entirely legal, and thousands of documents that describe ongoing work on specific targets that were also perfectly legal and incredibly sensitive. What he did was equivalent to the SPE hack, where the attackers dumped emails without regard to whether what they contained was illegal in any way but were certainly harmful to SPE.

dragonwriter 11y ago

Law at both federal and state levels (in most states) has fairly strong protection for government whistleblowers in general; the Espionage Act specifically lacks whistleblower provisions, which certainly presents an issue when whistleblowing relates to the kind of defense-related information to which the Espionage Act applies, but that's not indicative of a general approach in law to government whistleblowers.

wtbob 11y ago

> I'm always struck by the strange cognitive dissonance US law has for corporate whistleblowers vs governmental whistleblowers. It doesn't: there are multiple different programs for reporting perceived illegal activity. Snowden never availed himself of any of these, but instead committed espionage.

throwaway7767 11y ago
> It doesn't: there are multiple different programs for reporting perceived illegal activity. Snowden never availed himself of any of these, but instead committed espionage. These programs had been used by multiple people before, with no results. They are for show, so that people like you can point to them to show that there's "oversight". Whistleblowing of the type done by Snowden is a last resort when there is no other option. The options you speak of are not credible avenues for change.
theandrewbailey 11y ago
He tried. He found out that because he wasn't a government employee, those programs treated him like shit.[0] > One of the things that has not been widely reported by journalists is that whistle-blower protection laws in the US do not protect contractors in the national security arena. There are so many holes in the laws, the protections they afford are so weak, and the processes for reporting they provide are so ineffective that they appear to be intended to discourage reporting of even the clearest wrongdoing. If I had revealed what I knew about these unconstitutional but classified programs to Congress, they could have charged me with a felony. One only need to look at the case of Thomas Drake to see how the government doesn't have a good history of handling legitimate reports of wrongdoing within the system. > Despite this, and despite the fact that I could not legally go to the official channels that direct NSA employees have available to them, I still made tremendous efforts to report these programs to co-workers, supervisors, and anyone with the proper clearance who would listen. The reactions of those I told about the scale of the constitutional violations ranged from deeply concerned to appalled, but no one was willing to risk their jobs, families, and possibly even freedom to go through what Drake did. [0] http://www.cnet.com/news/snowden-not-all-spying-bad-but-nsa-program-divorced-from-reason/ http://www.cnet.com/news/snowden-not-all-spying-bad-but-nsa-... Every time I've been a contractor[1], I've been treated likewise. [1]never been contracted out to a government agency of any level.
cryoshon 11y ago
The legality shouldn't even be part of the conversation. Government activity that is fascistic is usually going to be completely legal or made legal once revealed. We saw the government do this with the USA Freedom Act. Before that, they claimed to have authorization under the FISA and PATRIOT Acts. They do not want oversight, and the "abuses" are actually functioning exactly as intended. This is also why they endlessly lie to our faces about what is going on and don't get fired, even when they have been outed repeatedly. Also, there's the documented fact [0][1] that whistleblowers at the NSA who go through the "proper channels" ultimately gets you fired, ostracized, raided, and prosecuted. So really, it's a non-starter to claim that they should have reported illegal activity. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Andrews_Drake#Drake_action_within_the_NSA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Andrews_Drake#Drake_act... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Binney_%28U.S._intelligence_official%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Binney_%28U.S._intelli...

canjobear 11y ago

This doesn't strike me as cognitive dissonance. From the government's perspective, Snowden didn't reveal illegal activity and so is not a whistleblower.

jebblue 11y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistleblower https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistleblower "or threat to public interest" It doesn't have to be illegal.
grey-area 11y ago
Clapper and Alexander lying to congress is illegal.
agd 11y ago
The bulk collection of phone metadata (which he exposed) was subsequently ruled unlawful: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/07/nsa-phone-records-program-illegal-court http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/07/nsa-phone-rec...
- NullCharacter 11y ago
  That's great and all, but what about the other one million+ documents he absconded with not related to the phone metadata record collection? At what point does he cease being a whistle blower?
  - comrh 11y ago
    I feel like this isn't a bad point. Anyone have a response because the whistlerblower tag gets used a lot but he did release a lot that seemed to be normal spying.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - pfg 11y ago

lern_too_spel 11y ago

Think about it from the prosecution's perspective. He revealed one program that was legal at the time but later ruled illegal, dozens of programs that are entirely legal, and thousands of documents that describe ongoing work on specific targets that were also perfectly legal and incredibly sensitive. What he did was equivalent to the SPE hack, where the attackers dumped emails without regard to whether what they contained was illegal in any way but were certainly harmful to SPE.