Please read the Issue section: “Patriots or Traitors?” at the end of Unit 8. Then read Item # 5 in the “Try It” section on the next page which discusses anonymous vs public postings of classified information. Please answer the questions at the bottom of the second paragraph about whether you think you could under certain circumstances become a whistle-blower. If so, would you use a public or an anonymous venue, and why?
Issue: Patriots or Traitors?
Julian Assange. Edward Snowden. Thomas Drake. Do these names bring to mind heroes or villains? All three of these men are modern, digital-age whistleblowers who have been accused of espionage.
Julian Assange is an Australian who, in 2006, co-founded the international nonprofit WikiLeaks organization, which he heads today as editor in chief. WikiLeaks is dedicated to “providing an innovative, secure and anonymous way for sources to leak information to our journalists.” WikiLeaks’ mission is to encourage transparency and ensure an avenue for freedom of speech and of the press.
WikiLeaks has released several significant documents in recent years, ranging from video footage of alleged civilian massacres to secret files about detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
Assange has been under investigation by the United States government since 2010, when WikiLeaks published information leaked by U.S. Army soldier Chelsea Manning. The leaked information included 400,000 classified military and diplomatic documents.
“You can’t wait around for someone else to act. I had been looking for leaders, but I realized that leadership is about being the first to act.”
Edward Snowden
Army investigators tracked the leaks to Manning. In sectors marked for deletion on Manning’s computer, investigators found chat sessions between Manning and a person at WikiLeaks suspected to have been Julian Assange. They also found an SD card containing the leaked files. Manning was convicted in 2013 for violations of the Espionage Act.
Thomas Drake was a high-ranking senior executive for the NSA who was also accused of violating the Espionage Act. Drake was a member of an intelligence team evaluating two information-gathering tools: Trailblazer and ThinThread. Drake favored ThinThread because it was less likely to violate the privacy of U.S. citizens.
When the NSA rejected ThinThread, Drake pursued his concerns using prescribed channels. When those channels proved fruitless, Drake released unclassified information about the two projects to the media. Drake insisted that any information that he released was not classified or sensitive information.
In 2010, a grand jury indicted Drake on several counts, including violations of the Espionage Act. He had apparently collected evidence about project TrailBlazer and was accused of “willful retention of National Defense Information.” Under the Espionage Act, it is a crime to possess classified documents, even if they are not distributed. The charges were eventually dropped in 2011.
A whistleblower named Edward Snowden made headlines in 2013. Snowden was a contractor who worked for Dell and Booz Allen Hamilton, which supplied computer services for the NSA. Snowden became aware of the NSA’s global surveillance programs and decided to collect and release thousands of related classified documents that revealed how the NSA, foreign governments, and telecommunication companies worked together to secretly monitor computer and cell phone communications.
Snowden believed that it was his duty to make the public aware of what amounted to unauthorized and unconstitutional surveillance of innocent U.S. citizens. His revelations have led to discussion and debate about government surveillance and the appropriate balance between national security and privacy. Shortly after the documents were released, Snowden was charged by the U.S. Department of Justice with violations of the Espionage Act.
Today, digitization makes it possible for whistleblowers to collect an unprecedented number of documents and leak them globally. Consumers may applaud when whistleblowers reveal corporate misbehavior, but opinions vary widely about the appropriateness of whistleblowing that reveals classified government information. Can whistleblower revelations do more harm than good? Who makes that decision? Where is the balance between transparency of information and public security?
Try It!
Digital whistleblowing is a relatively recent issue. With the proliferation of the Internet and digitally stored information, whistleblowers can not only gain access to covert information, but can also easily spread this information over the Internet. Ironically, much of the recent prosecution against digital-age whistleblowers is based on the Espionage Act of 1917.
1
Since 2008, seven defendants have been charged with violating the Espionage Act of 1917. What are the names of the defendants? What type of information is each defendant accused of revealing? How many of the defendants were convicted?
2
Visit the WikiLeaks site at www.wikileaks.org. Select an article and read it. Considering the date, source, and content of the article, explain why it is or is not significant.
3
Go to the WikiLeaks About page at wikileaks.org/About.html to find out how WikiLeaks editors verify material that is submitted anonymously. What are the steps of the verification procedure? How does WikiLeaks protect anonymous sources?
4
Look up Aldrich Ames, who was convicted of espionage in 1994. What type of information did Ames reveal? What was his motivation? Would you classify Ames as a whistleblower? Why or why not?
5
Whistleblower Edward Snowden made sure to identify himself as the person who was responsible for the release of NSA documents, and he publicly explained his reasons. Drake was also careful to identify himself and his sources and also explain why he released classified information. In contrast, WikiLeaks publishes material that has been submitted anonymously, so neither the source of the material nor the motivation for releasing it is known.
