Imagine that! Whistleblowers that were imprisoned by ............. Obama. Kinda blows your mind doesn't it?
Well, Julian Assange, and Eric Snowden, technically, aren't whistleblowers. IIRC, Chelsea Manning's stuff was limited to the information that she was familiar with (meaning--not a blind, un-vetted dump of everything, like with Assange and Snowden.)
There's a significant difference in how people handle this information--and it usually requires them attempting to go through the proper channels (superiors), and then acting after being rebuffed.
I mean...Assange. That fuck is no hero. It's no secret that he's nothing more than one of the propaganda arms for Putin, and that he's only in it for Assange. The co-founders of wikileaks have long been estranged from that shithole, because he never had a mission to "Expose government lies and increase transparency." Assange only ever cared about Assange, and you only need to listen to the people that know him best....oh and also cursory observation of Assange and his actions.
Snowden, I think is important and we're all better off after his dump, but the real issue with him is that he also never did anything for any kind of ideology beyond "being famous"--this is actually how he explains it in his own words. He didn't take the contract at the NSA because he believed int he work, but because he had a personal mission to find anything that he thought was bad, and to expose it. That instantly invalidates him as a whistleblower, and from seeking any kind of whistleblower protections. He didn't seek any kind of appropriate channels to raise his concerns. That was never his goal. He never personally vetted anything. He just copied and dumped everything he could find. His case is more complicated than his acolytes would like to accept.
thehill.com
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