The internal mechanisms actually work, if you use them. Snowden has admitted in subsequent interviews to not even trying to report through any channel. Something most people that are not government don't realize about whistleblowing is that your options are not just your boss. We can report to any supervisor (given the proper clearance), a branch specifically designed for whistleblowing (including a 24 hour 1-800 number), or to any member of Congress. Do you really think all 600+ members of Congress would have turned him away? Being the Senator or Representative that brought that info forward would have guaranteed re-election... But instead, he handed thousands of pages of classified info over to a news organization and trusted them to sort through it (when he had probably never read through it in full). Now, he is begging for a pardon because it has been hinted that his stay in Russia will be up next year (when his status expires) since he decided to speak out against Putin.

>The internal mechanisms actually work, if you use them.

Seems there are numerous examples of people going through proper channels and then getting retaliation[1]. Also, Snowden was a contractor, so was not covered under the whistleblower protection act as government employees are, so could not talk to members of Congress.

Thomas Drake complained internally to the designated authorities: to his bosses, the NSA Inspector General, the Defense Department Inspector General, and both the House and Senate Congressional intelligence committees, was labeled a troublemaker and then charged with (of all things): willful retention of national defense information, obstruction of justice, and making false statements.

> Do you really think all 600+ members of Congress would have turned him away? Being the Senator or Representative that brought that info forward would have guaranteed re-election...

What about all the members of Congress that already knew about it? Why doesn't the same logic apply to them? that's 20+ members from both sides of aisle. At the end of the day, the proper channels have no obligation to do anything, it can go up the chain and decided things are better left unchanged, public non-the-wiser.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_whistleblowers [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Andrews_Drake

You think every IT person in the government should have the ability to disclose any Top Secret programs based only on their own personal opinions about their legality?

No, I think legality - in this case - should be pretty clear.

They (the three-letter agencies) could always try not breaking the law. See if that cuts down on the number of employees looking to sell them down the river.

Is it up to low level employees with no legal training to decide who is breaking the law?

Hello from sunny Nuremberg. Wish you were here.