The intelligence community is establishing an award to recognize whistleblowers, according to a report on open government released last week by the White House.
Intelligence officials will now be recognized for “effectuating change by speaking truth to power, by exemplifying professional integrity, or by reporting wrongdoing through appropriate channels,” according to the paper.
As Steven Aftergood noted in Secrecy News on Monday, there are already more than a dozen awards regularly given out to members of the intelligence community, but none are for flagging malfeasance.
“Professional integrity may be welcome everywhere, but ‘speaking truth to power’ is rarely welcomed by ‘power,’” Aftergood said, citing regular retaliatory measures taken against whistleblowers. “Often it is not even acknowledged as ‘truth.’”
The White House report also noted that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is working on implementing a new whistleblower protection “training curriculum.” ODNI, it said, will work with “the relevant government departments and agencies” to establish the program.
As The Intercept noted on Friday, the House Intelligence Committee said that it receives “dozens” of whistleblower complaints every year. It would not, however, comment on the outcome of those complaints.
Earlier this month, the committee had released a report condemning NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, claiming the panel “routinely” receives complaints, and could have taken his.
Snowden has said that he attempted to raise complaints through official channels, but decided to leak secrets to journalists, because he was concerned that internal waves would only lead to his punishment.
“If there hadn’t been a Thomas Drake, there couldn’t have been an Edward Snowden,” Snowden told Al-Jazeera in 2015.
Drake, a former NSA analyst, saw his home raided by the FBI in 2007, after he had raised concerns internally, about mass surveillance. Similar raids were also executed against other analysts and a congressional staffer who, alongside Drake, had relayed privacy concerns to the Pentagon Inspector General.
In 2010, the Obama administration decided to charge Drake under the Espionage Act. The Justice Department, however, eventually cut a deal with Drake, allowing him, in 2011, to plead to a single misdemeanor count of exceeding authorized use of a computer.
