Both Philby and Hanssen were agents of their respective governments, with a sworn duty to protect their country's secrets, as was the alleged leaker. People wh

Both Philby and Hanssen were agents of their respective governments, with a sworn duty to protect their country's secrets, as was the alleged leaker. People who work in these organizations, who hold top secret security clearances and handle sensitive information, are understandably expected to adhere to standard of personal behavior which does not include making personal judgments about government policy (in Philby's case, it is questionable whether he was motivated by money). Surely we agree that government agents (in their many forms) cannot choose which directives to obey based on their personal beliefs about the rightness/wrongness of the policy, although they must disobey unlawful commands/orders. This is admittedly a fine line to draw, but most government organizations offer avenues to report concerns without releasing sensitive information to the public. With respect to your examples of "whistleblowers", I'll accept that designation for Carpenter and Buxtun, but in both cases I think they were reporting something that was clearly illegal (Carpenter) or at odds with accepted standards (Buxtun). And both Carpenter and Buxtun did report their concerns through appropriate channels before "leaking".