Constraints on the Efforts of Government Intelligence Whistleblowers Barak Bullock | University of Texas, Austin

Barriers to Transparency: Constraints on the Efforts of Government Intelligence Whistleblowers Barak Bullock | University of Texas, Austin Edward Snowden’s disclosure of secret National Security Agency documents in 2013 was the most monu- mental leak of classified intelligence files in history. In the process of leaking the documents and sustaining their relevance in the public’s eyes, Snowden was faced with constraints on his ability to max- imize the reformative power of the leak. These constraints were rhetorical and nonrhetorical, meaning they could be changed through discourse, or could not. Concepts from rhetorical scholarship, such as rhetorical situation and topoi, can help define these various constraints. The main analysis of this essay is an application of these concepts to editorials and news articles related to Snowden and other whistleblowers, such as Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange, Daniel Ellsberg, William Binney, and Thomas Drake. Snowden encountered the same constraints as these previous whistleblowers, suggesting they are per- sistent barriers that future whistleblowers will also have to confront. On June 5th, 2013, British daily newspaper interview identifying the leaker of the docu- The Guardian published a classified top-se- ment as Edward Snowden, an employee of cret intelligence document taken from the NSA contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Three National Security Agency. It was a secret weeks prior, Snowden secretly left his job, court order drafted by the Foreign home, and long-time girlfriend in Hawaii for Intelligence Surveillance Court, which Hong Kong, where he leaked an enormous revealed that the US telecommunications cache of classified documents to journalists giant Verizon was being forced to hand over Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, and Ewen the metadata of millions of US customers to MacAskill. In the interview, Snowden stated the NSA. With their metadata collection the power to spy on others afforded to him as program, the NSA could identify callers’ a senior analyst disturbed him, and declared numbers, locations, the time and duration that the public should decide whether they of calls, and other unique identifiers of any approve of the NSA’s activities (Greenwald, American customer. The document proved Poitras, and MacAskill). In an article posted that under the Obama administration, the June 11th, Snowden told The Guardian, “My phone records of millions of Americans sole motive is to inform the public as to that were “being collected indiscriminately and which is done in their name and that which is in bulk—regardless of whether they [were] done against them” (Greenwald, Poitras and suspected of any wrongdoing” (Greenwald, MacAskill). In little less than a week, the exis- “NSA”). This was only one of dozens of tence of the most powerful digital surveillance high-impact documents that were pub- apparatus on Earth—and the story behind lished in the following weeks and months. the man who exposed it—had been brought Then, on June 9th, The Guardianposted an to light. 32 | Young Scholars in Writing The Snowden leak—which officials asserted in divergent ways. To their supporters, they to contain approximately 1.8 million docu- were whistleblowers—“people who revealed ments from American, British and Australian wrongdoing within an organization to the spy agencies—was called “the biggest theft of public or to those in positions of authority” US secrets in history” by the Pentagon (Strohm (“Whistleblower”)—and therefore were to be and Wilber), and “the most catastrophic loss protected. To their opponents, the leakers’ to British intelligence ever” by UK security efforts to unveil government secrets jeopar- expert Sir David Omand (“Snowden Leaks”). dized precious lives or costly operations, and It unleashed a whirlwind of blockbuster they deserved to be criminally prosecuted as headlines, commanded the attention of gov- traitors or terrorists. So are these people ernments, news agencies, and citizens all whistleblowers or not? This is an important around the world, and engendered dramatic question with far-reaching ramifications for debates on the ethics of whistleblowing, sur- how leakers like these are treated by the law. veillance, and national security. Public Whistleblowers in all kinds of occupations discussion born from the leaks focused on the are ostensibly protected from retaliation by massive global surveillance program built by their employers, since the act of whistleblow- the US government, and on Snowden himself. ing is, at its core, an ethical decision to But Snowden was not the first to leak sensi- disclose illegal or unethical conduct by an tive intelligence documents to the public in agent or organization. These kinds of laws, an act of political protest. There is a lineage of such as the Whistleblower Protection Act of leakers that precedes Snowden in the realm of 1989, recognize the tremendous value that American government secrets. Among them whistleblowers can offer in precipitating cor- is Chelsea Manning, who released thousands rective measures, since problems no one of military reports, State Department cables, knows of are not often solved. Ellsberg’s leak and assessments of detainees from of the Pentagon Papers, which facilitated a Guantanamo Bay to the publishing site massive erosion in support for the Vietnam WikiLeaks, and is currently serving a 35-year War, is emblematic of the political impact prison sentence (Tate); Julian Assange, the that whistleblowing can have. lead editor of WikiLeaks, who has been Legally speaking, defining someone like trapped in London’s Ecuadorean embassy Snowden as a whistleblower or traitor has since 2012 under the threat of extradition to important consequences. Calling someone the US for his involvement in Manning’s who leaks secrets a “whistleblower” explic- leak; Daniel Ellsberg, the leaker of the itly praises their actions, and calls any Pentagon Papers in 1971, who escaped a sen- retaliation against them into question. tence of over 100 years when the government’s Those against the leaker’s actions may give case against him was undone by the him or her a condemnatory title like “trai- Watergate scandal. And lastly, Thomas Drake tor,” “spy,” or “terrorist,” which denounces and William Binney, two NSA employees their intentions as malicious, and their who were punished for speaking out against disclosures as dangerous. Even the seeming- an intrusive and costly spying program ly-neutral “leaker” can be detrimental to a named Trailblazer. whistleblower’s case, since it does not con- In the energetic discourse that surrounded note legal protection. This makes the their leaks, these five people were characterized attribution of “whistleblower” an important Bullock | 33 point of contention in discourse surround- disclosures are still at stake. Because this pat- ing leak events, as it supports either the tern of rhetorical constraints effectively leaker’s legal protection or punishment. targets the ability of the leaker—and poten- But the consequences of these discussions tial future leakers—to be defined as extend beyond the fates of the leakers them- whistleblowers (along with the attendant selves. As mentioned earlier, the potential protections of that term), it should not only chance that foreign governments or terrorists be studied closely by the public, but should will take advantage of leaked information, be examined within the purview of rhetoric. and that harm will come to innocents as a Rhetorical scholarship gives us tools to result, often accompanies the charges of analyze the effects of different definitions of betrayal. Conversely, if a government whis- terms and to identify a pattern of recurrent tleblower reveals convincing evidence of arguments. If one is to observe how the defi- wrongdoing without endangering lives, nition of these leakers’ actions is manipulated attempts to destroy the whistleblower dimin- by a recurring collection of constraints, then ish the reformative power of those leaks, and it is surely a job for rhetoric. Specifically, may inhibit others from speaking out. It is these constraints can be unpacked with two clear, then, that the stakes involved in leaks of concepts from rhetorical theory, namely the government intelligence are high—not just rhetorical situation and topoi. I use these con- for leakers, but for the security of the nation cepts in tandem to identify the struggles of as well—and warrant the public’s under- these leakers as either rhetorical or nonrhetor- standing of these issues. ical constraints, of which the rhetorical One way to help the public reach this variations take the form of argumentative understanding is to analyze certain barriers topoi. The rhetorical situation is defined below, that Snowden and the other leakers faced and precedes an investigation of Snowden’s when attempting to bring attention to the nonrhetorical constraints, while topoi will be waste, irresponsibility, or illegality they introduced immediately before the section encountered. Many of these barriers are detailing Snowden’s rhetorical constraints. attacks on the leakers’ actions, while others My dichotomy of rhetorical and nonrhetori- are institutional or legal barriers. Surveying cal constraints is derived from a now-standard their experiences demonstrates that Snowden concept in rhetorical scholarship, the rhetori- and the others each faced a combination of cal situation. The rhetorical situation, these constraints, which essentially served to theorized by Lloyd Bitzer in 1968, consists of deprive

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