When whistleblowing is good
I keep seeing comments about how the people who are upset about ex-CIA agent Valerie Plame’s cover being blown are apparently not upset about the leak of information about the NSA’s wiretapping. That, say these people, is hypocricy!
But there is a fundamental difference between the person who “outed” Plame, and the person or people who leaked the information about the President and the NSA and the wiretapping of Americans. Trying to lump them together as “whistleblowers” doesn’t work.
What Plame was doing was legal. What the NSA was doing was probably not legal. It’s troubling that someone would reveal classified information about a perfectly legal operation (or in this case, operative). It’s much less troubling that someone would blow the whistle on government activities that could be illegal, unconstitutional, or both.
