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National Whistleblower reports
House Intel Claim that Snowden Had Whistleblower Protection Is False and Misleading
In a brief 3-page report[PDF] dated September 15, 2016, the House Intelligence Committee concluded that Edward Snowden "was not a whistleblower" because there were "laws and regulations in effect at the time" that "afforded him protection" and he failed to exercise those whistleblower rights. The Committee report specifically cited the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act of 1998 (IC WPA) that does permit employees, like Snowden, to make disclosures of wrongdoing to Congress if certain other conditions are met.
However, the House Intel Committee failed to state the obvious. That the IC WPA contains no whistleblower protections whatsoever if an employee were to exercise the right to disclose information about agency wrongdoing to Congress.
To make matters worse, the House Intel Committee report made the unsupportable claim that the IC WPA "affords" national security whistleblowers "with critical protections". Indeed, it is well known that claim is not true. As a result, the House Intel Committee's claim of whistleblower protection for national security employees, like Snowden, is knowingly false and entirely misleading.
U.S. News & World Report says
Snowden-Slamming Lawmakers Accused of Embarrassing Errors in Report
A three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist says the House Intelligence Committee made surprisingly erroneous claims in the three-page executive summary of a report that denounces exiled whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The summary asserts that Snowden caused "tremendous damage to national security" and is "a serial exaggerator and fabricator." The full and unreleased report, 36 pages, was unanimously adopted last week after two years of work, says a committee release.
Barton Gellman, the former Washington Post journalist who first reported some of the most explosive 2013 Snowden revelations about mass surveillance, says two details in the committee summary are demonstrably false and others arguably so.
"A close review of Snowden's official employment records and submissions reveals a pattern of intentional lying", the committee summary says before detailing alleged lies.
Mike Masnick at TechDirt says
House Intelligence Committee's List Of 'Snowden's Lies' Almost Entirely False
So, last week, I wrote up a long analysis of the House Intelligence Committee's ridiculous smear campaign against Ed Snowden, highlighting a bunch of misleading to false statements that the report made in trying to undermine Snowden's credibility as he seeks a pardon from President Obama. The Committee insisted that it had spent two years working on the report, but it seems like maybe they just needed all that time because they couldn't find any actual dirt on Snowden.
[...] Barton Gellman, one of the four reporters who Snowden originally gave his documents to, and who has done some amazing reporting on the Snowden leaks (not to mention, who is writing a book about Snowden) has responded to the report as well, and highlights just how incredibly dishonest the report is.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Saturday September 24 2016, @11:15AM
I wasn't going to comment on this story because I know Snowden is a hero, and many regular Soylentils know where I stand on the issue of NSA police state surveillance. But silence can be mistaken for apathy, too, and bolster arguments that nobody cares about his fate or the deep crimes he uncovered. I do care, deeply. For me, whether Obama pardons Snowden before he leaves office is directly connected to whether his own back will be put against the wall when the revolution comes.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Saturday September 24 2016, @03:04PM
My basic take on Obama: His biggest problem is that he largely accepted constraints from people who had no real right to put those constraints on him (including, but not limited to, the spooks from the TLAs). For example, I'm reasonably certain that candidate Obama really did intend to free everybody in Gitmo, but then the CIA said, in essence, "but not these 30 guys, they're really really really bad for these classified reasons", fed him whatever they wanted about why they were really really really bad (which of course he can't independently verify because it's classified), and now he's been doing this dance for years about why he can't free them. Plus I wouldn't be surprised if they scared him into inaction with blackmail (possibly with manufactured evidence) or threats.
Hillary Clinton will have the same problems if elected. A friend of mine worked in her senate office for a little while, and she was neither the monster the right-wing noise machine says she is, nor the heroine the left-wing noise machine says she is. She completely accepts the shackles that various unelected forces place on our politicians. This is what they mean when the various powers that be and media outlets say a candidate is "electable" and "realistic".
Donald Trump will have different problems if elected: His ego and stupidity means he won't listen to anybody at all, even those who he should listen to. And it will get incredibly difficult for him when he gives the civil service bureaucrats or the military illegal orders (probably not intentionally, he just won't know what is and isn't a legal order), and those government people correctly refuse to follow those orders. Trump will then try to fire them, and find out he can't because neither the civil service nor the military work that way.
Also, both major party candidates have probably committed impeachable offenses. Fun!
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 24 2016, @11:45PM
I don't buy it. All signs point to Obama being a typical unprincipled politician who will lie to obtain more power, and then reveal himself as an authoritarian once he actually does obtain power.. Even his voting record from before he ever became president indicated this.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 25 2016, @02:45AM
Geez. If you are going to make comments like this at least back it up with facts.
I say Obama is the greatest leader we have ever had.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday September 28 2016, @06:17AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 24 2016, @05:48PM
If Snowden comes back, a pardon ain't gonna save him. He'll end up floating in the lake just like William Colby.