The Ethics of Whistleblowing: Creating a New Limit on Intelligence Activity

One of biggest challenges facing modern societies is how to monitor one’s intelligence community while maintaining the necessary level of secrecy. Indeed, while some secrecy is needed for mission success, too much has allowed significant abuse. Moreover, extending this secrecy to democratic oversight actors only creates another layer of unobserved actors and removes the public scrutiny that keeps their power and decision making in check. This paper will therefore argue for a new type of oversight through a specialised ethical whistleblowing framework. This includes, first, outlining what intelligence wrongdoings justifies whistleblowing; second, if whistleblowing is the correct remedy – something not necessarily clear with intelligence; and finally what form the whistleblowing should take. This framework will examine the Snowden case to determine if he was correct leaking NSA data and whether the means were appropriate; and second, whether those involved in the CIA use of torture should have blown the whistle and if they now face blame for failing to act.