The ACLU and others have been trying to redefine the term whistleblower to include Snowden. [View all]

[ProSense]

This was posted during the initial stages of the leak.

Michael Calderone

AP Editor: Do Not Describe Edward Snowden As A 'Whistleblower'

The Guardian has labeled Edward Snowden a whistleblower after the NSA contractor revealed himself Sunday as the source for several recent surveillance scoops.

But some news organization have been less quick to describe Snowden as a "whistleblower," opting instead for terms like "source" or "leaker."

Associated Press standards editor Tom Kent told staff Monday that "whether the actions exposed by Snowden and (WikiLeaks source Bradley) Manning constitute wrongdoing is hotly contested, so we should not call them whistle-blowers on our own at this point."

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The AP's style guidelines are often followed in newsrooms, where discussions about Snowden -- and his motivations -- are surely taking place today among editors and reporters. The full memo is below:

Colleagues, With two secret-spilling stories in the news -- NSA/Snowden and Wikileaks/Manning -- let's review our use of the term "whistle-blower" (hyphenated, per the Stylebook).

A whistle-blower is a person who exposes wrongdoing. It's not a person who simply asserts that what he has uncovered is illegal or immoral. Whether the actions exposed by Snowden and Manning constitute wrongdoing is hotly contested, so we should not call them whistle-blowers on our own at this point. (Of course, we can quote other people who call them whistle-blowers.)

A better term to use on our own is "leakers." Or, in our general effort to avoid labels and instead describe behavior, we can simply write what they did: they leaked or exposed or revealed classified information.

Sometimes whether a person is a whistle-blower can be established only some time after the revelations, depending on what wrongdoing is confirmed or how public opinion eventually develops.

Tom

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-calderone/ap-snowden-whistleblower_b_3416380.html

The ACLU and others have been trying to redefine the term whistleblower to include Snowden.

There whistleblower protections in place, and the notion that anyone should simply be able to decide to leak classified information is absurd. The ACLU has been trying to redefine who qualifies as a whistleblower to include Snowden. Leaking classified information is a crime. Should anyone simply be allowed to leak classified information?

'Chicago Trib' Editorial: Reporters Should Testify in Plame Case

by: E&P Staff
Is the media now of two minds on press freedoms tested by the current Valerie Plame probe? The Chicago Tribune, in an editorial, argued today that certain reporters in the Plame case should be compelled to reveal confidential sources. The editorial also mentions that a leading First Amendment authority, and an advisory board member of the American Civil Liberties Union, feels the same way.

Special prosecutor, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald of Chicago, has issued subpoenas to several journalists, including Matt Cooper of Time magazine, who co-wrote an article reporting that "some government officials" had revealed Plame's CIA identity to the magazine. "If so, that would make the recipient of the leak -- Cooper, a veteran Washington journalist -- a witness to a serious federal crime," the Tribune editorial declared. "When Cooper refused to appear before a grand jury to answer questions about the identity of his sources, a judge held him in contempt. Time was ordered to pay a fine of $1,000 a day and Cooper was ordered to jail, although these sanctions have been suspended pending an appeal of the judge's ruling.

"News organizations invariably resist subpoenas to name confidential sources, and with good reason," the Tribune editorial continued. But the piece concluded: "It would be hard to find a stronger case than Cooper's for demanding that a reporter identify a confidential source than when he has been an actual witness to a serious crime. University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey Stone, a member of the advisory board of the American Civil Liberties Union and a renowned First Amendment scholar, says Fitzgerald had every reason to subpoena Cooper, and that Cooper should testify.

"Should he refuse, it's only appropriate that he face the same consequences as any other citizen. If someone in the federal government knowingly outed Valerie Plame despite the danger it might create for her, that person deserves to feel the full force of the law. If any ordinary citizen had valuable information about the crime, he or she would have a duty to turn it over. In this instance, it's hard to see why Matt Cooper or any reporter should be excused from that duty."

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/Archive/-Chicago-Trib-Editorial-Reporters-Should-Testify-in-Plame-Case

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Continuing the analogy to the attorney-client privilege, that privilege is absolute for confidential communications made by a client to an attorney "for the purpose of receiving legal advice." If the client speaks with a lawyer not to receive legal advice, but to learn how to commit a criminal offense, whether the lawyer knows this or not, there is no privilege. The reason is obvious. The purpose of the privilege is to encourage clients to have certain kinds of conversations with lawyers -- those that further the goals of the legal system. The privilege is not intended to encourage clients to use lawyers for the purpose of learning how better to commit criminal offenses. Those communications are unprotected by the privilege and a lawyer can be compelled to disclose them.

The same logic holds true in the reporter-source context. The purpose of the reporter-source privilege is to encourage sources to disclose information of legitimate public concern to reporters so they can then inform the public. There is no public policy of encouraging sources to leak information when the leak itself is a crime and when the purpose and effect of the leak are to use the reporter to facilitate a criminal act.

The disclosure of Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA operative by White House offcials violated federal law. In "leaking" this information, those officials were attempting to enlist reporters in a criminal act. Even under the most expansive conception of the journalist-source privilege, those sources have no privilege to do that, and thus Miller and Cooper are protecting no one but themselves. They are not Woodward and Bernstein.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/geoffrey-r-stone/deep-throat-redux-are-mil_b_1947.html

Hre's a recent statement by the ACLU.

“As we have said before, we believe that the information Mr. Snowden has disclosed about the nature, scope, and putative legal authorization of the NSA’s surveillance operations has generated a remarkable and long-overdue public debate about the legality and propriety of the government’s surveillance activities,” the ACLU statement read. “The ACLU has long held the view that leaks to the press in the public interest should not be prosecutable under the nation’s espionage laws.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/15/edward-snowden-media-misled_n_3764560.html?1376612797

Here's a previous statement:

Congress passed the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act in 1998, but it is no more than a trap. It establishes a procedure for internal reporting within the agencies and through the Inspector General to the congressional intelligence committees, but it provides no remedy for reprisals that occur as a result. Reporting internally through the ICWPA only identifies the whistleblowers, leaving them vulnerable to retaliation. The examples of former NSA official Thomas Drake, former House Intelligence Committee staffer Diane Roark and former CIA officer Sabrina De Sousa show too well.

This lack of protection means that when intelligence community employees and contractors – who take an oath to defend the Constitution – see government illegality they must turn the other way, or risk their careers and possibly even their freedom. The people we trust to protect our nation from foreign enemies deserve legal protection when they blow the whistle on wrongdoing within government.

http://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech-national-security/edward-snowden-whistleblower

The ACLU continues to advocate a position that isn't supported by law, and the last two paragraphs at the link indicate Snowden isn't a whistleblower.

Human Rights Watch (and this is from a piece critical of whistleblower protections - http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023187207) :

The federal Whistleblower Protection Act exempts from its protections whistleblowers in the intelligence community, including defense contractors. The most legal protection on which such employees can rely is the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act, which provides a channel for whistleblowers to take matters of “urgent concern” first to the inspector general of the Department of Justice and then to a congressional intelligence oversight committee. However, this law does not provide any legal right of action for such whistleblowers to protect themselves against retaliation for reporting their concerns in these ways, and in practice, even continuing access to congressional committees can be thwarted by agency heads, who usually can identify the whistleblower concerned.[11]In October 2012, the Obama administration released a Presidential Policy Directive (PPD-19) intended to bolster protection for national security whistleblowers; it requires agencies to establish a process by which whistleblowers can seek review of prohibited retaliatory actions. The directive was widely criticized as window-dressing, however, because it explicitly denies whistleblowers the ability to obtain legal enforcement of any rights or procedures set forth under the directive.

http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/06/18/us-statement-protection-whistleblowers-security-sector#_ftnref5

He has no protection under the WPA, and failed to use the channel available to him.
I simply don't buy that they believe people should simply be able to leak information based on their own subjective criteria. Given that Snowden his past comments and the fact that he started collecting information since his days at Dell (http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023468327), his excuse that he did this to expose "criminality" seems completely bogus.

Edward Snowden Reportedly Gives Interview To Chinese News Outlet

A Chinese news outlet said Wednesday that it landed the first interview with Edward Snowden since the 29-year-old former government contractor outed himself as the source the recent National Security Agency leaks.

"I'm neither traitor nor hero. I'm an American," Snowden said, according to the South China Morning Post.

The Morning Post said that Snowden confirmed he is still lying low in Hong Kong, and that he insisted he isn't hiding.

“People who think I made a mistake in picking HK as a location misunderstand my intentions. I am not here to hide from justice; I am here to reveal criminality," Snowden said, according to the outlet.

The report quoted him as saying his "intention is to ask the courts and people of Hong Kong" to decide his fate, adding: "I have been given no reason to doubt your system."

- more -

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/edward-snowden-reportedly-gives-interview-to-chinese-news

Remember this comment from Snowden's weird chat session:

Q: When did you decide to leak the documents?

A: "You see things that may be disturbing. When you see everything you realise that some of these things are abusive. The awareness of wrong-doing builds up. There was not one morning when I woke up (and decided this is it). It was a natural process.

"A lot of people in 2008 voted for Obama. I did not vote for him. I voted for a third party. But I believed in Obama's promises. I was going to disclose it (but waited because of his election). He continued with the policies of his predecessor."

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/09/nsa-whistleblower-edward-snowden-why

This from a guy who said....

Ed Snowden: Leakers “should be shot in the balls,” and "cut this Social Security bullshit"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023102239

Even if Snowden wasn't exempt from the WPA, his actions would still be called into question.

Those advocating Snowden's status as a whistleblower completely ignore the fact that he released U.S. state secrets to other countries (http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023481722). They try to focus completely on Snowden's domestic claims. Still, even with that focus, the defense of Snowden relies on excuses and attempts to redefine the criteria for whistleblowing.

Then there is Greenwald's implicit threats (http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023244823 http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023261520)

Look at where this is today: Back to being about Greenwald, not the NSA.

He's always misquoted...not really ("sorry" vs. "regret&quot

The reporting is always ends up being reporting about Greenwald walking shit back.

The Guardian fell prey to this with that bullshit John Lewis story.

Now, he's going to focus on the UK, that'll help the debate about NSA domestic surveillance, huh?

Another NSA "Bombshell" Starts to Fizzle Out, as Greenwald Pushes Government Conspiracy Theory
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023478767

The leak was an attempt to bolster the libertarian brand.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023481343

Snowden has no crediblity, and deserves no thanks.
http://upload.democraticunderground.com/10023288332