Snowden's Dad: If Edward Would Have Stayed In the USA: "He would have been buried under the capital"

[ljm2002]

17. Thanks very much...

...very informative. From the link:

Instead, a separate law, the Intelligence Community Whistle-blower Protection Act, applies to people who held positions such as the one Snowden did as a contractor for the National Security Agency. Legal experts say, however, that it provides no protection to him for two reasons.

First, they say, he did not expose the kinds of actions covered by whistle-blower protections — illegal conduct, fraud, waste or abuse. Some people have argued that the programs revealed by Snowden are illegal or unconstitutional. For now, they are presumptively legal, given the assent of members of Congress and the special court known as FISA that oversees intelligence operations.

But suppose Snowden’s supporters are right, and what he exposed was illegal conduct after all.

Then he would face a second problem: The Federal Whistle-blower Protection Act protects the public disclosure of “a violation of any law, rule, or regulation” only “if such disclosure is not specifically prohibited by law.” In other words, Snowden could claim whistle-blower protection only if he took his concerns to the NSA’s inspector general or to a member of one of the congressional intelligence committees with the proper security clearances.

So according to the article, what Snowden chose to reveal would not fall under the cited legal protection, because he did not reveal "illegal conduct, fraud, waste or abuse". In other words, although he believed the NSA practices to be illegal / unconstitutional, they would not be deemed such because they are "presumptively legal". So he could have gone to Congress -- to the same Senators who have vigorously supported these activities -- and, even if they had given him any credence at all, even if they had not had him arrested on the spot -- his revelations would never have seen the light of day.