How to trap a whistleblower [View all]

[Luminous Animal]

Tell them that going through "proper channels" will provide meaningful redress to their concerns, not injure them

Last week, President Obama misled the public when he told a comedian Jay Leno that protected legal channels exist that Edward Snowden could have used to challenge government misconduct:

I can tell you that there are ways, if you think that the government is abusing a program, of coming forward. In fact, I, through Executive Order, signed whistleblower protection for intelligence officers or people who are involved in the intelligence industry.

This message is false. And the President repeated it at his press conference a few days later. Obama is referring to Presidential Policy Directive #19. If the President had bothered to read his own Executive Order, he would have known that it was not implemented at all when Snowden blew the whistle on the National Security Agency. Further, it fails to provide protected legal channels to contractor positions such as Snowden’s.


Thomas Drake, a former senior executive at the NSA, is living proof of how insidious the “channels” argument is. Shortly after 9/11, he complained about NSA programs that were embryonic versions of what Snowden is now revealing. He complained that NSA foreign collection programs were being turned inward on Americans. One of those programs, Stellar Wind, stripped off data anonymization features, auditing trails, and other privacy protections that were available in a cheaper, effective, and non-intrusive program called ThinThread.

Drake complained to his boss, to the NSA Inspector General, and—with three other retired NSA colleagues and a former House intelligence staffer–to the Department of Defense Inspector General. The Inspector General substantiated their claims, but immediately classified its report to keep it out of public view. (Most portions are now unclassified and never had to be.)

Drake then served as a material witness in two key 9/11 investigations. He told Congress about multiple secret domestic surveillance programs, including Stellar Wind, and critical indications and warning intelligence about al Qaeda and associated movements pre- and post-9/11, which NSA did not share.

http://www.salon.com/2013/08/16/how_to_trap_a_whistleblower/