Information security

Mouths Wide Shut: Obama’s War on Whistleblowers

All governments engage in leaks. They do it to control how the media reports a story. For the same reason, all governments hate unauthorized leaks, because suddenly they lose control of the story.

There’s a crucial difference between a whistleblower and a leaker. A whistleblower identifies a problem— an act of questionable legality — notifies a supervisor of the impropriety, and only provides information to Congress or the press if going through the normal chain of command fails to rectify the problem.