[DennisP]

In a democracy, the voters, via their representatives, decide what's legal for the government to do. So if the government does things that are illegal and hidden, then I'd say anyone has the authority to reveal it. That authority was granted by the voters who made the activity illegal.

If the government's activity is legal, on the other hand, then it's harder to make a case. A whistleblower may still decide to reveal it as a matter of civil disobedience, but at that point he's trying to change the minds of the voters, rather than enforce their expressed wishes. He should expect more legal jeopardy, though if he succeeds in changing people's minds, then a pardon would be appropriate.

If our legal system doesn't make a distinction between revealing legal and illegal secrets, then I'd say our system is inconsistent.

[pdabbadabba]

This is a pretty good answer, but I think there are at least two problems with it:

* It is often (though not always) quite hard to tell whether something the government is doing is or is not illegal even for well trained lawyers. Manning, Snowden, et al. are not lawyers.

* The information released by Manning, Snowden, et al. was dramatically broader in scope that what would have been required merely to reveal illegal activity. Most of it, especially in Manning's case, does not reveal any illegal activity at all.

[DennisP]

Sure, it's a judgement call and whistleblowers have to do the best they can. If they make the wrong decision they're in the second category, so they have to decide if it's worth the risk. If they reveal the secrets to lawyers they're still breaking the law.

I agree that from what I've seen, Manning is on the civil disobedience side. I wish he had changed voters minds more than he apparently did.

Snowden had evidence of clearly illegal activity. There was a lot more mixed in, but it wasn't practical to separate it. Secret abuse of power is dangerous enough that I think that should be acceptable.

If we don't have practical protection for whistleblowers, we might as well not bother putting limits on government power at all. Based on what's happened to whistleblowers who went through official channels, it's clear that that approach doesn't work at all, and I don't know why anyone should expect it to work.