He wasn't a whistleblower: he was a leaker. He permitted national-security information to fall into the hands of someone not cleared to handle it.
Moreover, he shows not one whit of repentance for his crime.
Moreover, he shows not one whit of repentance for his crime.
Moreover, he shows not one whit of repentance for his crime.
I haven't looked into Sterling's own statements about the matter; but I would imagine that it had to do with his assessment that the operation he was exposing was so reckless (not just in execution; but in the very conception of the idea of attempting to spoof the Iranians with flawed weapon design plans that they can easily cross-reference with other sources) that he felt the general public had a right to know about it, which trumped the proscriptions of the various statutes which he is alleged to have violated.
You don't have to agree with with this stance. But arguably the public does benefit greatly from having this information become generally known.
We will probably never know if anyone responsible for this program actually intended to arm Iran, but intentionally arming our enemies is not an unheard of tactic used by covert elements of our government to later justify use of force.
He doesn't try to protest his innocence.
No, but neither does he seem to have any real recognition that he did wrong.
Indeed, reading his article I get the sense that he's a narcissist.
That's not what the article is about. He provides enough information to establish where he is and why.
You're looking for something that the author is apparently not interested in writing about. Why? No idea, but it's not terribly pertinent to the remainder.
So were Manning and Snowden.