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posted by cmn32480 on Saturday September 24 2016, @09:13AM   Printer-friendly
from the what's-that-tune-you-are-whistling? dept.

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.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 24 2016, @01:50PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 24 2016, @01:50PM (#405933)

    Weakness is strength. Please report for your hour of Hate. We will properly re-educate you after a brief visit at the Ministry of Love.