No disagreement here. As to your last sentence, I think it would be difficult to argue that automated and ongoing bulk data exports could ever fit with any def

No disagreement here. As to your last sentence, I think it would be difficult to argue that automated and ongoing bulk data exports could ever fit with any definition of whistle-blowing. If he had legitimate concerns, and evidence of those concerns existed in electronic form, he could have simply walked the specific evidence out of the building on a thumb drive. That being said, we don't know exactly what data was exported, so any speculation (including my own) is rather pointless...