The National Security State and the Whistleblower

A major problem in the United States is not there are too many whistleblowers…there are too few.  Where were the whistleblowers when the Central Intelligence Agency was operating secret prisons; conducting torture and abuse;  and kidnapping individuals off the streets in Europe and the Middle East and turning them over to foreign intelligence agencies that conducted torture and abuse?  Where were the whistleblowers when the National Security Agency violated the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution against “unreasonable searches and seizures” and conducted widespread warrantless eavesdropping?  Where were the whistleblowers when the State Department permitted the use of a consulate to serve as a cover for an inadequately protected intelligence platform in Benghazi?  Where were the whistleblowers when the Pentagon was building secret facilities in North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula in order to conduct military strikes in countries where the United States was not at war?

President Barack Obama, a Harvard-trained lawyer and former professor of constitutional law, has made it particularly difficult for whistleblowers and has displayed a stunning disregard for the balance of power and the need for oversight of foreign policy decision making.  He has pursued more leak investigations than all previous presidents combined since the passage of the Espionage Act in 1919.  Several press disclosures have been referred to the Justice Department for investigation, and in May 2013 the department subpoenaed two months of records for twenty telephone lines used by Associated Post reporters and editors.  This was the most aggressive federal seizure of media records since the Nixon administration.  Attorney General Eric Holder even departed from First Amendment norms by approving an affidavit for a search warrant that named a Fox News reporter as a possible co-conspirator in violations of the Espionage Act, because the reporter might have received classified information while doing his job.

President Obama has also inexplicably contributed to the need for whistleblowers by weakening the traditional institutions for oversight in the national security process, the Office of the Inspector General.  Inspectors General are not popular institutions within the federal government, but they are essential for keeping the government honest by unearthing fraud, abuse, and other illegal activities.  The Obama administration from the outset focussed on weakening the OIG at the CIA by taking more than a year and a half to replace an outstanding IG, John Helgerson, whose staff had exposed the improprieties linked to extraordinary renditions as well as torture and abuse.

The most outrageous pursuit of a whistleblower was conducted against Thomas Drake, who determined that NSA eavesdroppers were squandering hundreds of millions of dollars on failed programs while ignoring privacy issues.  Drake took his issues to the IG at NSA, the IG at the Pentagon, and to the congressional intelligence committees. ...