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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

The national security establishment is more or less exempted from the whistleblower statutes.

Going to NSA IG or the PSCI's in Congress are protected (the whole point of NSA IG is internal malfeasance, it's not just for stealing cafeteria trays...). The problem is that route of reporting may be ineffective, and once you start, you'll lose all future access, come under suspicion, and may actually still be charged (the whistleblower stuff helps more with not getting convicted).

I was originally thinking "he should have gone to IG/Congress rather than the press", but seeing the Binney/Drake/Wiebe interview where they all had gone through the IG/Congress process themselves, recognized they'd accomplished fuck-all, and supported Snowden's decision to go directly to the press/public, kind of convinced me.

I personally might have considered going to someone else in government, other than IG or H/SPSCI -- like to Udall or Rand Paul or maybe even a judge or governor -- as more effective than the "official" channels, but less illegal than a journalist.

"Going to NSA IG or the PSCI's in Congress are protected"

Protected and utterly pointless. Congress already knew what was happening. The NSA's IG is not an unbiased observer.

Unfortunately, the official channels are broken here. You have members of Congress talking about how these revelations are just the tip of the iceberg. That means that they know more, that they know details that will shock people, and that they are doing nothing about it. What good would it do to go to them with this information?

Do we know for sure that the charges he is alleging are actually illegal? That I think is the crux of this whole situation. Many people in Congress might know about it and not be doing anything because like we've seen with 'enhanced interrogation techniques', is that the law has been interpreted such that all of this is technically lawful. That looks to be the real problem here.

> Do we know for sure that the charges he is alleging are actually illegal?

No. We don't know their legality. As far as I can tell, there have been pseudo-legal rulings on the subject. But the existence, never-mind the substance, of those rulings are classified. Some people have a problem with that.

Not everyone in Congress knows everything; nor do all federal judges.

I agree the NSA IG and PSCI's are essentially insiders, but "deal with this or I will go public" would give the minority members some cover.

That didn't work out very well for Thomas Drake. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Andrews_Drake

Well, sort of. All the charges against him were dropped except a single misdemeanor. He got one year probation and community service. A very different set of circumstances than Snowden, though.

And loss of pension (he was 5 years away), is now working in an Apple retail store, etc. Given that he was about as morally upstanding and cautious a whistleblower as I can imagine, it was still a pretty harsh punishment.

Most of the regular statues, yes. But the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act specifically covers the national security establishment.

I will grant you that it's not the greatest law and I'm not sure I would avail myself of it if in his shoes. It does exist, though.

And all other laws, if they choose to be.

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