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Looking up the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989 [1] even more closely, it appears it won't apply to Snowden here. If the material is protected from disclosu
by mpyne 13y ago
Looking up the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989 [1] even more closely, it appears it won't apply to Snowden here. If the material is protected from disclosure by law or E.O. (like this was) then you can only report it to the Office of Special Counsel or the agency I.G. and receive whistleblower protection.
It's in fact arguable that things like PRISM even violated any of those provisions, which makes it risky (on a legal basis) to leak even if he wasn't in the intelligence community.
[1] http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c101:1:./temp/~c101m8SiB7:e10062 http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c101:1:./temp/~c101m8S...:
- rdl 13y agoThere is a difference between full protection (not being allowed to be fired) and not being convicted for 25-life under espionage act. It would be insane to retain Snowden in his former role. He is an untrustworthy SCIF sysadmin. He might be worthwhile in the IG office or some public facing role, but I am fine if he is fired, clearance revoked, etc pre trial, even if his disclosures ultimately are positive and lead to legal changes and he isn't convicted.
- mpyne 13y agoGood point, though that does make me wonder if he might have technically fallen under Whistleblower Protection (technically an HR thing) and still been liable to imprisonment based on the Espionage Act. Seems weird they'd be orthogonal, but then we're in a weird situation.