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I don't know if he was asked about this text, by any journalist. However, read the text from Obama's perspective, and you'll easily find the answer he'd give:
by sergiosgc 13y ago
I don't know if he was asked about this text, by any journalist. However, read the text from Obama's perspective, and you'll easily find the answer he'd give: Snowden did not use the official channels for whistleblowing. Snowden commited a crime, and should be handled as a criminal.
That text can be read as having the intention to neuter whistleblowers by providing a sanctioned escape valve as much as the interpretation you're giving it (that of general protection of whistleblowers).
- jasonkolb 13y agoThe proper channel is the press. That's why we have free speech. What Bradley Manning did is much more questionable, Snowden gave the information over to the Fourth Estate and let professional journalists sound the whistle. You would rather have him blow the whistle to the same people who are benefiting from The Way Things Are? What incentive do they have to do anything about it?
- mpyne 13y agoObama also mentioned that he signed an E.O. giving IC members whistleblower protections for the first time in history, protections which Snowden declined to pursue. I still don't really think that the debate we're having would have occurred in quite that same way, but Obama certainly took steps to comply with that 2008 policy paper.