Silencing the whistle-blowers

In one of his last acts as president, Barack Obama commuted the prison term of Chelsea Manning, who was sentenced to 35 years in prison for transferring a huge cache of secret documents to WikiLeaks. Manning, an army intelligence analyst, was convicted in 2010 for the leak of documents that exposed both US military and diplomatic activities across the world. These leaks caused much anxiety within the American administration, and propelled WikiLeaks to worldwide fame and recognition.

Her sentence, as much as her conditions in prison, which were by any standards extremely harsh, drew attention to the vindictive manner in which whistle-blowers who reveal state secrets are treated. Are they heroes or villains? Are they motivated by a desire to expose arbitrary behavior and failures of governments, or by their own craving for fame and greed? It would be rather impossible to come up with one definitive answer, though there is a need to strike a very delicate balance between the benefits and the damage caused to national security and interests by revealing confidential information. The proposed legislation in the UK to increase punishment for those who leak information from inside the government and those who disseminate it, as well as the severe punishment in other countries, suggests that the pendulum swings toward silencing whistle-blowers.

Whistle-blowers are not confined to state secrets. They exist in many other walks of life where wrongdoings, neglect or mismanagement is covered up. Unless someone is courageous enough to speak up, none of these occurrences would be exposed, rectified or even punished. Nevertheless, things are becoming more complicated when whistle-blowers expose some of the most guarded state secrets. In most cases it is regarded as treachery and treason which could lead to lengthy jail sentences or the death penalty.

There is a dangerous trend to label all whistle-blowers as enemies of the state, and consequently also deter those who act out of genuine concerns in the interest of their countries. In many cases they expose governments’ incompetence, abuses of power, or even illegal activities that the public has the right to know about.

The phenomenon of whistle-blowers raises unquestionably deep moral dilemmas, especially when the security of the country is involved and when the lives of people are endangered. In these cases, putting such information in the public domain should be avoided. Nonetheless, many times these reasons are cynically abused by politicians to prevent revelations that compromise their own reputations and integrity.

The case of Edward Snowden epitomized some of these dilemmas. He is an enigmatic character, who was employed as a computer analyst in the CIA and the National Security Agency. He leaked hundreds of thousands of classified US, British and other countries’ documents, before managing to find refuge in Moscow. His leaked files confirmed what many had previously suspected — that advances in technology brought with them the Orwellian danger of mass surveillance by the state. He revealed that both the US and the UK governments forced Internet providers to allow them access to private e-mail accounts, text messages and phone calls worldwide. Although secret agencies would claim they did it in the name of security in their efforts to avert terrorist attacks, their surveillance activities end in rendering privacy non-existent.

Snowden maintains his innocence from his Russian hideout, claiming that his only motivation was to expose the constant and persistent violation of ordinary people’s privacy, which goes well beyond the pretext of combating terrorism. His revelations that the US eavesdropped on dozens of leaders of friendly countries caused embarrassment and tensions with those countries.

Governments obviously would not like these details to be exposed to the public, but they must be naive or deluded to think that in the digital age such embarrassing information would never become public. This begs the questions whether there is room within the system for those who are critical of it to express their concerns in the confines of government without being side-lined, or even punished? Is it possible for governments to design a reflective mechanism of self-examination and correction which encourages dissenting voices?

Unfortunately, in most cases the answer to this is categorically no. Those who interfere with organizational “harmony” are labelled troublemakers and end up being ostracized, their names smeared, quite frequently losing their jobs and are sometimes prosecuted. It leaves leaking to the media as almost the only path open to those who would like to improve a government’s functioning and make it transparent and accountable.

Tightening legislation in its most punitive form may deter some future whistle-blowers; nevertheless, it will not stop the phenomenon completely. Witnesses to wrongdoings and injustices will still have the urge to report them for the country’s greater good and sometimes for other ulterior motives. For those who do so for pure reasons, not out of greed or wishing harm upon the country, there must be a channel which enables them to express their concerns confidentially without negative repercussions and ensures that these concerns are taken seriously.

• Yossi Mekelberg is professor of international relations at Regent’s University London, where he is head of the International Relations and Social Sciences Program. He is also an associate fellow of the MENA Program at Chatham House. He is a regular contributor to the international written and electronic media.