Wherein Glenn Greenwald throws Snowden under the bus...

[truebluegreen]

27. You should climb down from your ivory tower, "Professor" and get out in the real world.

There's laws and there's laws, aren't there? I mean, these are on the books: it is illegal to fish for whales in Nebraska; it is illegal to serve beer and pretzels at the same time in North Dakota, you can be arrested and fined for harassing Bigfoot in Washington.

But those are just some of the silly ones right? Real laws are what we're talking about, real laws that actually impact our society, our security agencies, our business climate in modern life. Real laws like, say, the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. It is still on the books but since the 1970s the courts have construed it very narrowly, requiring a plausible conspiracy before allowing discovery--which makes it hard to show a plausible conspiracy.

And then there's the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act of 1998, which has also been construed very narrowly: "In 2006 Thomas Gimble, Acting Inspector General, Department of Defense, stated before the House Committee on Government Reform that the ICWPA is a 'misnomer' and that more properly the Act protects the communication of classified information to Congress. According to Michael German with the Brennan Center for Justice, the ICWPA, “provides a right to report internally but no remedy when that right is infringed, which means that there is no right at all.”

And the Espionage Act of 1917, of which you are so fond. From an article in the Guardian, "Only ten people in American history have been charged with espionage for leaking classified information"...these prosecutions (have) "chosen to ignore the legal definition of whistleblower – any person who brings to light evidence of waste, fraud, abuse or illegality *– and has prosecuted truthtellers."
*How odd: same definition as mine.
True, the author has an ax to grind, specifically with Obama, but it is a fact that of the 10 (at the time) prosecutions, 7 of them were under Obama. You can read up on the details and draw your own conclusions.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/06/obama-abuse-espionage-act-mccarthyism

So I urge you, Professor, to investigate the real world aspects of your whistleblower protection laws before simply assuming that they actually provide "protection." I suggest you start with the three individuals I named above, and which you have pointedly ignored: William Binney, Russ Tice and Thomas Drake.

correction: you are right, Snowden has been charged under the Espionage Act, which is not the same as being a traitor, accept in some people's minds--I would have thought a professor would be more precise but there you go. We will just have to disagree on whether he is a coward.