Teggel20

Serious question, although I'll no doubt get down voted to oblivion, but how can the revelations detailed in the list below (from here) be defended as whistle blowing?

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The classified portions of the U.S. intelligence budget, detailing how much we spend and where on efforts to spy on terror groups and foreign states, doesn’t deal with Americans’ privacy. This leak revealed the intelligence community’s self-assessment in 50 major areas of counterterrorism, and that “blank spots include questions about the security of Pakistan’s nuclear components when they are being transported, the capabilities of China’s next-generation fighter aircraft, and how Russia’s government leaders are likely to respond to ‘potentially destabilizing events in Moscow, such as large protests and terrorist attacks.’” The Pakistani, Chinese, and Russian intelligence agencies surely appreciate the status report.

Our cyber-warfare capabilities and targets don’t deal with Americans’ privacy. The revelation that the U.S. launched 231 cyber-attacks against “top-priority targets, which former officials say includes adversaries such as Iran, Russia, China and North Korea and activities such as nuclear proliferation” in 2011 has nothing to do with Americans’ privacy.

The extent and methods of our spying on China have nothing to do with Americans’ privacy.

British surveillance of South African and Turkish diplomats has nothing to do with Americans’ privacy.

The NSA’s successful interceptions of communications of Russian President Dimitri Medvedev has nothing to do with Americans’ privacy. This is not a scandal; it is literally the NSA’s job, and now the Russians have a better idea of what messages were intercepted and when.

Revealing NSA intercepts and CIA stations in Latin America — again, nothing to do with U.S. citizens.

Revealing a U.K. secret internet-monitoring station in the Middle East — nothing to do with U.S. citizens. EDIT - as per Privarchy's comment below this one may not be from Snowden

The extent and range of NSA communications monitoring in India. . . .

The fact that the United States has “ramped up its surveillance of Pakistan’s nuclear arms,” has “previously undisclosed concerns about biological and chemical sites there,” and details of “efforts to assess the loyalties of counter­terrorism sources recruited by the CIA” . . .

The U.S.’s spying on Al-Jazeera’s internal communication system. . . .

What we know about al-Qaeda efforts to hack our drones. . . .

The NSA’s ability to intercept the e-mail of al-Qaeda operative Hassan Ghul. . . .

The NSA’s ability to read the e-mail of the Mexican president. . . .

The U.S.’s electronic intercepts of communications to French consulates and embassies in New York and Washington. . . .

The existence of NSA surveillance teams in 80 U.S. embassies around the globe . . .

NSA’s spying on OPEC . . .

NSA’s collecting data on the porn habits of Muslim extremist leaders in order to discredit them . . .

After your excellent googling on his background and the few economist articles that have his name on them - perhaps you could read this - http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2010/12/anonymity_0

Its quite telling that the loudest critics on here are attacking him personally but have no rebuttals for the serious points he makes in his book, articles and answers.

But Glen Greewald, who a year ago didn't know about email encryption, is qualified?

How about just leak the bits that were of genuine concern - wouldn't that have worked?

But it doesn't really matter since I don't think Glenn Greenwald calls himself a "cyber-security expert".

No, but he controls access to a tranche of documents and feels able to judge which will and won't damage national security. Be nice if he was some kind of expert.