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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.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by FakeBeldin on Saturday September 24 2016, @02:44PM
(snowden-related but somewhat off-topic, admitted. Came across this and felt like ranting about it - this story provides a sufficient excuse).
The Washington Post recently ran an editorial [washingtonpost.com] calling for prosecution of Snowden.
They hold this view because they claim he published secrets that ought to have been kept (PRISM), in addition to secrets that were rightfully outed.
The thing is: not only did they publish on the mass-spying and were happy to accept a Pullitzer prize for that, they *also* reported on PRISM [washingtonpost.com] thanks to Snowden.
So yeah, Snowden should totally be prosecuted because of that story. Note that nowhere in the editorial they consider the role of the WaPo in revealing PRISM. So the guy who specifically decided he shouldn't be deciding what goes public and what doesn't, but put that in your hands, that guy should be prosecuted. Because one of the stories you chose to publish revealed things that you now think shouldn't be revealed.
Irrespective of how you see Snowden's actions, the hypocrisy is so thick you can stir it with a wooden spoon.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday September 24 2016, @05:55PM
Just to make it clear: the editorial is by The Editorial Board of the Washington Post, allegedly representing "The Post's View". Yeah, that is nice and fucked up.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Informative) by GungnirSniper on Saturday September 24 2016, @06:02PM
When media outlets change hands, as the WaPo did in the second half of 2013, editorial stances can change. Jeff Bezos may have them cheering for the establishment on some things so he can hammer them on issues that would hurt Amazon. It was alleged that GE bought RCA in the 1980s in part to gain control over NBC and thus improve the outlook for their offerings while decreasing coverage of their wrongs. Of course now Comcast owns NBC, so we are less likely to see Lester Holt "investigate" the negatives of media monopolies.
One of the more innocuous examples of ownership influence on journalistic ethics was when the NYT Co. owned part of the Boston Red Sox and increased coverage of them despite them being archrivals to the hometown Yankees. The number of stories about them was higher than the decade before.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]