Government whistleblowers also have to strongly consider attempting to run things up the pole internally first in a Snowden-type situation. You may be allowed to skip internal procedures for whistleblowing if you have a good reason for believing internal reporting channels are compromised or ineffective. You’d still have to report it to some government entity that could hold the NSA accountable (like sending the info to members of Congress or your agency’s Office of Inspector General) rather than run straight to the news media.
Running straight to the media first like Snowden did generally strips you of whistleblower protections. Especially if its not even something illegal in the first place (like spying on Angela Merkel).
Biggest Snowden disclosures which would have been supposed to receive whistleblower protections (unsanctioned / illegal NSA activity):
- Domestic phone record metadata collection (actually was approved by FISA/FISC courts under section 215 but federal courts determined the program exceeded the authority granted by 215)
- PRISM program (was authorized under section 702 and received annual certifications from FISC, ostensibly focused only on foreign spying but scope of collection ability included all domestic content as well)
- XKeyscore (authorized under Executive Order 13333 and FISA, similar concerns as PRISM)
Neither XKeyscore or PRISM were ever determined to “systemically” exceed their legal authority, but disclosure of these programs did lead many politicians to work towards better oversight of NSA activities given their “shocking” (at the time) scope of collection.
Biggest Snowden disclosures which were clearly not eligible for whistleblower protection because there was no doubt it was legal:
- Spying on Angela Merkel and other foreign leaders (of course we spy on other nations, duh. That’s what spying is.)
- Lots of operational details and techniques used for legitimate spying. Tailored Access Operations, Quantum Insert, ANT catalog, BULLRUN, MYSTIC, SOMALGET, Dishfire and Prefer, DEWSWEEPER, SECONDGET, etc.
- Economic Espionage: Spying on Petrobras, Belgacom, Trade Negotiation surveillance, IMF, World Bank, German economic targets (variety of industries), French Ministry of Economy, Mexican energy sector, EU trade negotiations
Nobody thought any of these exceeded the NSA’s authority. Spying on other nations is generally considered fair game.
The most iffy disclosure (hard to tell if program was entirely legal) never got much followup. These were details on the MUSCULAR program, which siphoned data going between Google and Yahoo datacenters outside of the USA (but obviously still would have ended up “spying” on many Americans).