Whistleblowing vs.

Leaking

...a secret is a secret, but why it's a

secret or who says it's secret is a
secret, and we can't tell you
because that's secret.
-From Alice in Wonderland

It can and should be argued that information that

threatens national security should be kept secret.
However, when secrets are designed to protect
government incompetence and political views,
democracy is threatened.
Whistleblowing was intended to legally protect
those who expose illegal and immoral activities.
An example of leaking is bringing to light
protected corporate or government information.
For example, exposing trade secrets. Few would
argue that this is not necessary in today's world.
Thus, leaking is illegal.
The problem arises when the line between
whistleblowing and leaking is intentionally blurred
to a point that whistleblowing becomes an illegal
offense that can mark you as a kind of domestic
terrorist or "enemy of the state" -- categories for
which there can be almost no legal protection.

The incredible levels of invectiveness vented

against people like Julie Davis, a customs boarder
security officer, and Sibel Edmonds, a FBI
translator, are cases in point.
It can easily be argued that these women were
simply doing their jobs, which in each case was to
protect the United States.
They got in major trouble because they revealed
that the agencies they worked for were not doing
their jobs and were thereby endangering the
country.
Arguably, both should be classified as
"whistleblowers," but those whistleblowers made
the mistake of putting national security ahead of
protecting the reputations of the agencies they
worked for, and as a result they suffered severe
retaliation.
So now instead of being exemplary tales of how
the idea of whistleblowing should work, they
become cautionary tales about the problems you
can create for yourself by trying to do the right
thing -- by doing the job you are supposed to do.
We don't have the room here to go into these
cases, but the book, Classified Woman, by Sibyl
Edmonds, which reads like a modern spy novel
and has received mostly five-star reviews on
Amazon.com, provides a good example.
The book is so damning that the U.S. Congress --
the ultimate agency that's supposed to address
and fix such things -- has been prevented from
even discussing the case.
A Seattle Post editorial summarized trying to
legally defend yourself from the government's
charges by likening it to Alice's frustration at her
tea party where "a secret is a secret, but why it's a
secret or who says it's secret is a secret, and we
can't tell you because that's secret."
Thus, evidence that might help you is illegal to
bring up or talk about. In fact, it's even illegal to
reveal that you've received a subpoena from the
government.

Even widely available Internet information can

suddenly become classified.

And if the information predates a classification

stamp, the Justice Department can retroactively
classify it, as it did in the case of Sibyl Edmonds.
Today, providing evidence to refute the legitimacy
of state secrets in court remains difficult, because,
as we've mentioned, the evidence, itself, is often
deemed secret.
Allowing essential facts surrounding issues to be
kept secret or classified opens the
door to cover-ups and promulgating
fake stories.
This was alleged in the Jessica Lynch
(Iraq War) and Pat Tillman
(Afghanistan War) cases
where facts were
suppressed until the real stories
eventually surfaced.
However, sometimes the "real story"
is successfully kept from the public in
the name of state secrets when the
real reason (if leaked) would simply
be an embarrassment to the military or the
Washington administration.

A major issue here is that the threat or possibility

of legal reprisal for exposing is government
corruption and malfeasance now keeps people
from reporting it.
It is only when the story somehow breaks and
becomes public knowledge, and then impossible
for those in power to deny that things change.
However, the government is now using every
means at it disposal to stop the media from
exposing what they don't want the public to know.
We now know this has included hacking into
computers at The New York Times, The
Washington Post, the Associated Press, and Fox
News.

 The further a society drifts from truth the

more it will hate those who speak it. -
George Orwell

In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth

is a revolutionary act. - George Orwell