IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Winter 2014 - 37

COMMENTARY

BRIAN MARTIN

Snowden's Lessons
for Whistleblowers

n June 2013, Edward Snowden burst onto the
world media scene. He had worked as a contractor for the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA)
and collected a vast quantity of top-secret documents. Snowden leaked the documents to the Guardian, a well-known British newspaper and media group,
revealing that the NSA had been secretly carrying out
extensive spying on electronic communications.
Snowden quickly became one of the world's best
known whistleblowers. As well as extensive commentary in the mass and social media, several major books
have been published about him and his revelations
[1]-[3].

Lessons for Whistleblowers
I have been studying suppression of dissent since the
late 1970s and have talked with hundreds of whistleblowers, seeking to provide practical advice [4]. So
naturally I was impressed by Snowden's efforts and
especially by his success in raising public awareness
about surveillance.
Whistleblowers are people, typically employees,
who speak out in the public interest, and most of the
time they reveal their identity immediately, such as
when they report a problem to the boss or some internal body. Unfortunately, this is disastrous much of the
time: the whistleblowers are attacked-for example
ostracized, denigrated, reprimanded, sometimes dismissed-and furthermore their access to information
is blocked. As soon as their identity becomes known,

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MTS.2014.2367953
Date of publication: 1 December 2014

IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

WINTER 2014

they have limited opportunities to collect more information about wrongdoing.
For these reasons, it is often advantageous for
whistleblowers to remain anonymous, and to leak
information to outside groups, especially to journalists or action groups. The leaking option reduces the
risk of reprisals and enables the leaker to remain in
the job, gathering information and potentially leaking
again. Furthermore, stories based on leaks are more
likely to focus on the information, not the leaker.
Although few whistleblowers reveal information
warranting international headlines, every effort at
speaking out in the public interest is important and
hence worth doing as well as possible. Snowden's
experiences provide several valuable lessons for other
whistleblowers.
Lesson 1: Be Incredibly Careful
Snowden leaked the most top-secret information of
anyone in history, but it wasn't easy. The lesson from
his experiences is that to be a successful leaker, you
must be both knowledgeable and extremely careful.
Snowden had developed exceptional computer skills.
He was leaking information about state surveillance,
and he knew the potential for monitoring conversations and communication. He took extraordinary care
in gathering NSA documents and in releasing them.
When he contacted journalists, he used secure email.
When meeting them, he went to extreme lengths to
screen their equipment for surveillance devices. For
example, before speaking to journalists, he had them
put their phones in a freezer, because the phones might
contain monitoring devices.

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