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Comment by pope_meat | Hacker News Reader

If he'd gone through the official channels first, he wouldn't have gotten the chance to do it another way when inevitably official channels did nothing.

They'll ruin your life either way, at least this way the info makes a splash.

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You mean he wasn't capable of gaming out the consequences of the Government reacting poorly to the use of official whistleblower mechanisms and wouldn't therefore be able to go to the press in the manner in which he did?

He would have lost access to all the files, and been shown the door. Without proof no one cares what you claim.

You believe that the Government could hide/destroy all archival Target Development packages, SIGINT Reporting, Full Motion Video, Tactical Reports, Collateral Damage Estimates, Judge Advocate and other leadership decisional communications, Battle Damage Assessments, Political Communications, and other material about any particular strike in question to prevent the investigation of a whistleblowers claims?

https://www.npr.org/2014/07/22/333741495/before-snowden-the-...

Working within the system to blow a whistle is... risky, you'll end up like Bill Binney, or Thomas Drake, and almost no one will hear about you.

I disagree. He could have taken copies of the files as insurance before whistleblowing, allowing him to then go public if nothing resulted from the official inquiry.

Taking the files is already committing a crime, so the moment he tried the proper channels they could have arrested him preventing his insurance.

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