It isn't merely a hand wave. She appeals to her own authority in the linked piece and thus it's legitimate to question that authority. Neither of those books a

It isn't merely a hand wave. She appeals to her own authority in the linked piece and thus it's legitimate to question that authority. Neither of those books addresses whistleblowing or the NSA in any detail. e.g.: the word whistleblower appears precisely once in The End Of America. Neither the acronym "NSA" nor the phrase "National Security Agency" appears at all. So if Wolf does have some sort of authority in this very specific domain, it doesn't come from those books as you claim.