[nmfisher]

Snowden disclosed programs that were unsavoury to some. But that doesn’t mean they’re illegal (even if only by reason of black letter law technicality). That’s not to mention all the other unrelated classified information. It’s not surprising that he has zero defence under whistleblower laws.

To take advantage of whistleblower laws (or at least, gain public sympathy as one), the criminality you’re uncovering would need to be far, far worse.

[dgellow]

The NSA has been revealed to gather and store crazy amount of US citizens data with zero oversight.

That was completely illegal at the time, and I hope that it still is.

[nmfisher]

We may want that to be true, but some US courts have disagreed.

https://www.lawfareblog.com/second-circuit-rules-united-stat...

See this for one recent decision indicating that the NSA bulk collection program was both constitutional and legal.

The unfortunate reality is that it falls into a legal grey area and has, in fact, been held by certain courts to be legal.

Which comes back to my original point - any whistleblower who wants to exit with a clean slate really needs to be uncovering unambiguously and horrendously illegal activity. “Possibly illegal” PRISM just wasn’t bad enough for Snowden to get the political or legal protection of public sympathy.

[dgellow]

Damn, that’s crazy. Thanks for sharing this article.

> Which comes back to my original point - any whistleblower who wants to exit with a clean slate really needs to be uncovering unambiguously and horrendously illegal activity.

The issue here is that nothing will ever be “unambiguous and horrendous illegal” enough regarding NSA behaviors, given that the goal post is always moving.