> Snowden isn't a whistle blower. He didn't report any wrongdoing to his superiors
Yes he did[0].
> Whistle blowing is seeing something wrong and reporting it
So, like Snowden did?
> not pulling as much information as you can get and handing it off to reporters
After following the internal process failed multiple times.
> Regardless of whether or not you think there was benefit to the NSA leaks, what Snowden did is not whistle blowing.
According to your own definition it is. Also he received the biennial German "whistleblower prize." The New York times described him as a Whistleblower and talks about why contractors aren't granted the same legal protection[1]. He also appears on Wikipedia's "List of Whistleblowers[2]."
> Joe Darby
He wasn't blowing the whistle on the US Government. He was blowing the whistle on other soldiers. Not comparable to someone going against a large and powerful organisation.
These are Snowden's actual words on the subject[1]:
"What did you report?" Williams asked. "What was the response?"
"So," Snowden said, "I reported that there were -- real problems with the way the NSA was interpreting its legal authorities. And I went even further in this -- to say that they could be unconstitutional -- that they were sort of abrogating our model of government in a way that empowered presidents to override our statutory laws. And this was made very clear. And the response more or less, in bureaucratic language, was, 'You should stop asking questions.' And these are — these are recent records. I would say one of my final official acts in government was continuing one of these — one of these communications with a legal office. And in fact I'm so sure that these communications exist that I've called on Congress to write a letter to the NSA to — to verify that they do. Write to the office of general counsel and say, "Did Mr. Snowden — ever communicate any concerns about the NSA's interpretation of its legal authorities?"
and[2]:
When you go to the legal bosses, typically what they’ll do is they’ll not respond or they’ll give a general response, or they will say basically ‘call me… don’t go through this in writing but call me, let’s do this verbally.’
Now go and read the actual e-mail he sent: [3] It's clear he's referring to the same one in those two interviews. It was one of last acts - right before he took off to Hong Kong and five months after he first contacted Glenn Greenwald. It does talk about interpretations of legal statutes. The response was general and did tell Snowden to call if he wanted to discuss it further. The only thing missing is any actual report of wrongdoing. If Snowden really did sent dozens of e-mails to report wrongdoing, why hasn't he produced one yet?
> So, like Snowden did?
Depending on whose numbers you go by, Snowden took between 50 thousand and 1.7 million documents. He said in an interview that he "carefully evaluated every single document [he] disclosed to ensure that each was legitimately in the public interest"[4]. According to the NSA, he began taking the documents from NSA servers in the summer of 2012. Assuming he started on June 1st, stopped on May 19th (he arrived in Hong Kong on May 20th) and is getting 8 hours of sleep a night, that means if he was working non-stop over the course of those 352 days he would have to have fully evaluated each document within the span of 10 minutes (if he only took 50k) or one document every 17 seconds (if he took 1.7m). This is something that dozens of reporters (some dedicated exclusively to the Snowden documents) haven't been able to fully evaluate over the course of two years, but Snowden did all this while simultaneously working his 9-5 job, eating, commuting to work, living in general, etc. Of course, we don't even really need to go over how ridiculous his claim is anymore since he finally admitted in his interview with John Oliver that he didn't actually read all of them.[5] So how exactly can you blow the whistle on something you haven't even read?
> After following the internal process failed multiple times.
As far as I can tell, he never even tried the internal process. He claims that he sent dozens of e-mails, but has yet to produce a single one to back up his claims.
> Not comparable
You're right - Joe Darby, while already in a war zone, reported the illegal treatment of prisoners at the hands of people working for the US Government. He was already in dangerous place, and he faced physical retaliation from other soldiers and disciplinary action from his superiors. His family was put in physical danger when angry citizens learned his identity. Snowden risked losing his job at worst. Darby risked significantly more. Instead of following Darby's example, Snowden decided to flee to another country, almost immediately hand over details of NSA offensive operations against China in order "ingratiate himself to the people of Hong Kong and China"[6], and is now apparently living a quaint little dacha with his girlfriend under the protection of the Russian government.
> He claims that he sent dozens of e-mails, but has yet to produce a single one [...]
He hasn't tried to placate people like you for the same reason Obama didn't both answer the birth-cerificate Truthers even if it would have been easy - you're trolling. Don't feed the trolls.
You couldn't write so many words and quote so many articles without reading about previous NSA whistleblowers and knowing how they were treated. And to know that it's not the whistleblowers duty to change the system from inside - when they're rebuffed by a broken and hostile system they're advised (by past whistleblowers, lawmakers, etc) to stop trying.
> Depending on whose numbers you go by, Snowden took [...] finally admitted in his interview with John Oliver that he didn't actually read all of them.
You're mad someone gathered the NSA's data in bulk?
Because he's never claimed he "read every word of" every document, he said he carefully evaluated - which in my mind is looking at the grep context and skipping the file if it's a false positive. I've scanned literally hundreds of thousands of torrent links, carefully selecting individual ones to download...
You know, I'd have been happy to have the leaks even if Snowden had to bulk post everything on 4chan to get it out. That he seems to have done an actual good job is a bonus since he's the one doing us the favor.
Yes he did[0].
> Whistle blowing is seeing something wrong and reporting it
So, like Snowden did?
> not pulling as much information as you can get and handing it off to reporters
After following the internal process failed multiple times.
> Regardless of whether or not you think there was benefit to the NSA leaks, what Snowden did is not whistle blowing.
According to your own definition it is. Also he received the biennial German "whistleblower prize." The New York times described him as a Whistleblower and talks about why contractors aren't granted the same legal protection[1]. He also appears on Wikipedia's "List of Whistleblowers[2]."
> Joe Darby
He wasn't blowing the whistle on the US Government. He was blowing the whistle on other soldiers. Not comparable to someone going against a large and powerful organisation.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden#NSA_contractor [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/02/opinion/edward-snowden-whi... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_whistleblowers