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dénonciateur
throughout much of the twentieth century, until the word’s WWII-era association
with being a “denouncer” or “informant” for the Germans led to a preference for
lanceur d’alerte
(“one who launches a warning”). German, a language that has
struggled with its culture’s Nazi and Stasi past, evolved beyond its own
Denunziant
and
Informant
to settle on the unsatisfactory
Hinweisgeber
(a “hint-
or tip-giver”),
Enthueller
(“revealer”),
Skandalaufdecker
(“scandal-uncoverer”),
and even the pointedly political
ethische Dissidenten
(“ethical dissident”).
German uses few of these words online, however; with respect to today’s
Internet-based disclosures, it has simply borrowed the noun
Whistleblower
and
the verb
leaken
. The languages of regimes like Russia and China, for their part,
employ terms that bear the pejorative sense of “snitch” and “traitor.” It would
take the existence of a strong free press in those societies to imbue those words
with a more positive coloration, or to coin new ones that would frame disclosure
not as a betrayal but as an honorable duty.
Ultimately, every language, including English, demonstrates its culture’s
relationship to power by how it chooses to define the act of disclosure. Even the
nautically derived English words that seem neutral and benign frame the act
from the perspective of the institution that perceives itself wronged, not of the
public that the institution has failed. When an institution decries “a leak,” it is
implying that the “leaker” damaged or sabotaged something.
Today, “leaking” and “whistleblowing” are often treated as interchangeable.
But to my mind, the term “leaking” should be used differently than it commonly
is. It should be used to describe acts of disclosure done not out of public interest
but out of self-interest, or in pursuit of institutional or political aims. To be more
precise, I understand a leak as something closer to a “plant,” or an incidence of
“propaganda-seeding”: the selective release of protected information in order to
sway popular opinion or affect the course of decision making. It is rare for even
a day to go by in which some “unnamed” or “anonymous” senior government
official does not leak, by way of a hint or tip to a journalist, some classified item
that advances their own agenda or the efforts of their agency or party.
This dynamic is perhaps most brazenly exemplified by a 2013 incident in
which IC officials, likely seeking to inflate the threat of terrorism and deflect
criticism of mass surveillance, leaked to a few news websites extraordinarily
detailed accounts of a conference call between al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-
Zawahiri and his global affiliates. In this so-called conference call of doom, al-
Zawahiri purportedly discussed organizational cooperation with Nasser al-
Wuhayshi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Yemen, and representatives of the Taliban
and Boko Haram. By disclosing the ability to intercept this conference call—that
is, if we’re to believe this leak, which consisted of a description of the call, not a
recording—the IC irrevocably burned an extraordinary means of apprising itself
of the plans and intentions of the highest ranks of terrorist leadership, purely for
the sake of a momentary political advantage in the news cycle. Not a single
person was prosecuted as a result of this stunt, though it was most certainly
illegal, and cost America the ability to keep wiretapping the alleged al-Qaeda
hotline.
Time and again, America’s political class has proven itself willing to tolerate,
even generate leaks that serve its own ends. The IC often announces its
“successes,” regardless of their classification and regardless of the
consequences. Nowhere in recent memory has that been more apparent than in
the leaks relating to the extrajudicial killing of the American-born extremist
cleric Anwar al-Aulaqi in Yemen. By breathlessly publicizing its drone attack on
al-Aulaqi to the
Washington Post
and the
New York Times
, the Obama
administration was tacitly admitting the existence of the CIA’s drone program
and its “disposition matrix,” or kill list, both of which are officially top secret.
Additionally, the government was implicitly confirming that it engaged not just
in targeted assassinations, but in targeted assassinations of American citizens.
These leaks, accomplished in the coordinated fashion of a media campaign, were
shocking demonstrations of the state’s situational approach to secrecy: a seal that
must be maintained for the government to act with impunity, but that can be
broken whenever the government seeks to claim credit.
It’s only in this context that the US government’s latitudinal relationship to
leaking can be fully understood. It has forgiven “unauthorized” leaks when
they’ve resulted in unexpected benefits, and forgotten “authorized” leaks when
they’ve caused harm. But if a leak’s harmfulness and lack of authorization, not
to mention its essential illegality, make scant difference to the government’s
reaction, what does? What makes one disclosure permissible, and another not?
The answer is power. The answer is control. A disclosure is deemed
acceptable only if it doesn’t challenge the fundamental prerogatives of an
institution. If all the disparate components of an organization, from its mailroom
to its executive suite, can be assumed to have the same power to discuss internal
matters, then its executives have surrendered their information control, and the
organization’s continued functioning is put in jeopardy. Seizing this equality of
voice, independent of an organization’s managerial or decision-making
hierarchy, is what is properly meant by the term “whistleblowing”—an act that’s
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