Whistleblower as activist and exile: The case of Edward Snowden

Abstract

Whistleblowing is an important form of radical political activism, influencing social reform by fundamentally changing the way we see our world. This article contributes to understandings of whistleblower-activism in cases of wrongdoing on the part of state institutions. Extant theorizations of organizational whistleblowing fall short in explaining such instances. In contrast, this article develops four key dynamics of state whistleblower-activism: disclosures radically outside both organization and state, extreme dependence on supporters, democratic activism through alternative loyalties, and parrhesia revealing a crisis in Western democracy. These insights are elaborated through in-depth exploration of the exemplar case of U.S. national security whistleblower Edward Snowden. We argue that the emergent concept of “exilic whistleblowing,” inspired by Hannah Arendt’s work on exile, offers novel insights. Contributions extend understandings of whistleblowing theory and practice highlighting critical aspects of exilic whistleblowing as activist resistance: how it can be used strategically as part of activist critique aimed at changing the status quo, and how the exiled whistleblower acts as a vanguard helping to bring about a new political consciousness concerning the state of modern democracy and its capacity to uphold constitutional and international human rights.

Introduction

Whistleblowers play a crucial role in revealing corruption and human rights abuses by governments and corporations. Whistleblower-activism, in which disclosers go beyond simply revealing information, and work to bring about radical systemic change, is on the rise (Contu, 2014; Kenny and Bushnell, 2020; Munro, 2017; Weiskopf, 2023). In the case of state institutions, people like Edward Snowden, and national security disclosers Jesslyn Radack, Bill Binney, and Daniel Ellsberg, UK intelligence whistleblower Katharine Gun, and defense whistleblowers Ian Foxley and Mordechai Vanunu, spoke out highlighting wrongdoing on the part of state organizations that had significant impacts on citizens worldwide, with many engaging in subsequent human rights-based activism to ensure their disclosures brought about much-needed change (Ellsberg, 2002). Yet, intelligence services, government and national security whistleblowers are among the least-supported workers, worldwide, in terms of legal whistleblower protections (Terracol, 2019). Meanwhile, organizational scholarship on whistleblowing—while shedding light on many aspects of whistleblowing disclosures by workers in public, private and third sector organizations, is limited in its capacity to account for and understand the experiences of such whistleblowers. It is to this nascent field of inquiry that this article contributes, guided by the specific question: how can we conceptualize whistleblower activism in cases of state wrongdoing ¹ ?

Edward Snowden’s case offers an exemplar. His revelations about the U.S. National Security Agency’s (NSA) system of global mass surveillance fundamentally changed the public debate concerning issues of privacy and security, and the nature of modern democracy more generally. Moreover, his was no ordinary organization but rather the U.S. government’s intelligence services, famous for their singular intolerance of whistleblowers and sustained retaliation against those who speak out (Mistry and Gurman, 2020). Some have called for Mr Snowden’s capture and execution, particularly in the US, but others have demanded that he be recognized for his work as a whistleblower and human rights activist. Mr Snowden has received numerous whistleblowing, human rights and journalism awards. ² Organization scholars have used his case to theorize aspects of organizational whistleblowing more broadly (Weiskopf, 2023). In this article we specifically explore the implications of Mr Snowden’s case for our understanding of the nature of whistleblowing on state institutions in a world in which retaliation against such whistleblowers and their social ostracism is commonplace and where whistleblower support networks continue to seek new ways to address this concern and support their clients.

Edward Snowden has been described as the “emblematic whistleblower of our age” (Pozen, 2020: 328). As a whistleblower, as well as an activist, his case is critical to analyze. According to Flyvbjerg (2006: 230) extreme cases are valuable because they allow us to: “obtain information on unusual cases. . .” and through this, understand more mundane instances. This case provides insights into an extreme case of state whistleblowing which although unique—as are all individual cases—reveals much about the dynamics of other cases and scenarios. ³ To develop our arguments, this article presents four key dynamics of Mr Snowden’s state whistleblower-activism. These comprise: disclosures radically outside both organization and state, extreme dependence on supporters, democratic activism via alternative loyalties, and parrhesia revealing a crisis in Western democracy. Analysis is based on evidence from materials published in the public domain (Fidler, 2015; Hertsgaard, 2016; Mueller, 2019; Pozen, 2020; Snowden, 2013, 2019). Our aim is to develop progressive coherence to address incompleteness of extant research (cf. Locke and Golden-Biddle, 1997). In each section, for sake of clarity and brevity, discussion of extant organizational and business ethics whistleblowing theory intertwines with progressive theoretical development of our emergent conceptualization. In so doing we emphasize the importance of deriving theory from practice, echoing Gloria Steinem’s observations of feminist struggles in the 1970s and 80s in which, she notes, robust theory can only emerge from activism (Kramer, 2015). Emerging from our thematic presentation, the novel concept of exilic whistleblowing is introduced and discussed, along with its potential for greater understandings of whistleblower-activism and its role in democratic reform. Theoretical contributions are next outlined: how positions of exile can be used strategically as part of activist critique aimed at changing the status quo, and how an exiled whistleblower can represent a vanguard both bearing witness to specific corruption instances but also working to surface a new political consciousness. Practical implications include an elaboration of critical aspects of exilic whistleblowing as activist resistance, both in terms of human rights activism and the need for increased whistleblower protections.

Outside the organization, outside the state: Whistleblowing from exile

Mr Snowden’s case exemplifies external whistleblowing, in that he disclosed information to parties outside the organization. His actions were more extreme than typical instances of external whistleblowing for two reasons: he directly disclosed externally thus bypassing internal channels, and he not only left his organization, but he also left the state.

Alongside the emergence of a dystopia of total control in which everyone has become a subject of surveillance, in his published memoir Permanent Record (2019), Mr Snowden explains a key turning point when working for the NSA; he read a report that had been classified as “Exceptionally Controlled Information.” He reflects, “The activities it outlined were so deeply criminal that no government would ever allow it to be released unredacted.” (Snowden, 2019: 175–176). These included not only the surveillance of potential terror suspects but journalists, human rights activists and even politicians, such as the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, who was spied on by the NSA to provide the US with an unfair and illegal advantage during international trade negotiations. Reflecting on the historical emergence of these practices, Snowden (2019: 204) highlights how, since the attacks on the US in 9/11, the so called “War on Terror” served as a justification for U.S. abuses of human rights and the repudiation of basic constitutional laws, “resulting in ‘counterterror’: the panicked actions of a country unmatched in capability, unrestrained by policy, and blatantly unconcerned about upholding the rule of law.” The level of illegal surveillance and, relatedly, corruption in the intelligence services revealed by Mr Snowden is extreme- but as he explains, its widespread nature contributed to silence on the part of workers: “that was how you knew you could trust each other: you had shared in one another’s crimes.” (Snowden, 2019: 281). Professional complicity in corruption and emergent cultures of silence represent serious problems facing whistleblowers contributing to retaliation against them (Kenny, 2019).

Mr Snowden’s account can be read as a self-positioning as a classic whistleblower. Alford describes this as an experience of being “cursed with a terrible knowledge” (Alford, 2001: 138): terrible both in its awareness of the significance of what is known, but also terrible in that it drives the person to do something about it. For Alford this knowledge emerges because whistleblowers are, more than others, disposed to what Hannah Arendt describes as a compulsion toward “thought,” where thought represents a continual dialog with the self: an ongoing questioning of one’s values and actions and the impact of these on the world beyond the organization (Alford, 2001: 12). In Thinking and Moral Considerations Arendt describes how periods of withdrawal from the world, and reflection on one’s role and practices, can feed back into moral actions. Thought and reflection play a significant role in Mr Snowden’s narrative where he contrasts his own disposition toward critical reflection with the norms of the Washington D.C. government intelligence community in which he grew up and later worked, and in which blind obedience to authority and complicity dominated.

Where Mr Snowden’s case differs from many others is that he decided to “blow the whistle” externally as a first step; he eschewed the in-house channels available to him within the NSA and worked with journalists to make his information public. This was an unusual choice: in nine out of ten cases, whistleblowers will attempt to speak first within the organization (Vandekerckhove and Phillips, 2019). To understand Mr Snowden’s decision, two critical issues emerge from the perspective of whistleblower-activism: the importance of securing support for one’s disclosure, and ensuring protection for one’s own person given the likelihood of lengthy detention and isolation. Mr Snowden’s memoir clarifies the peculiarities of his own situation and why he chose to blow the whistle in the way that he did. He remarks that, “in my case, going up the “chain of command” which the IC (intelligence community) prefers to call the “proper channels” wasn’t an option. . . My superiors were not only aware of what the agency was doing, they were actively directing it - they were complicit.” (Snowden, 2019: 235). Mr Snowden was forced to move outside the formal internal channels provided for raising his concerns because he was aware that these channels were comprised by managers who were themselves complicit in wrongdoing. He had observed previous attempts to “internally” blow the whistle on this system by Thomas Drake and others within the intelligence and security communities. Despite having followed correct procedures, and revealed wrongdoing that subsequently emerged as true, Drake faced imprisonment and financial ruin, while the corruption he revealed remained hidden (Hertsgaard, 2016). In this respect, Pozen’s (2020: 329) observation is instructive, “To be effective, disclosures of classified information generally need concealment before the fact. The NSA may well have shut down Snowden [as in the Drake case] if they had gotten any wind of what he was contemplating.” Ensuring effective disclosure of information meant going outside the organization first.

For Mr Snowden, protecting himself from prosecution also meant going outside: not only leaving the organization to disclose but crossing the border and departing the U.S. Having eschewed the official channels, and helped to make public classified information, his decision to whistleblow externally placed him in a legally-exposed position. From studying other cases, he knew he was likely to be detained under the Espionage Act of 1917, and sentenced without the opportunity to argue a public interest defense in front of a jury, should he remain in the U.S. A public interest defense is critical for whistleblowers who feel compelled to breach laws or policies in order to serve a higher good, because, in the absence of legal validation, their vindication depends upon explaining and defending the reasons for the breach to a group of their peers (Benkler, 2014; Jaffer, 2021). Mr Snowden’s revelations endangered his well-being, his relationships and his ability to continue living life as he knew it. With this in mind, immediately upon leaving his organization with the information he had taken, Mr Snowden flew to Hong Kong, a place he considered relatively safe. In summary, the typical impulse of whistleblowers to try and “fix the organization” by disclosing inside was, for Mr Snowden, simply impossible. More than external disclosure, his actions involved a radical move of leaving the organization, leaving the state and going into exile for a time period with an unknown end point.

Extreme dependence on supporters

A crucial aspect of Mr Snowden’s case after he had made the decision to speak out from this radically external position was his need to develop allies and a network of support, given the severe retaliation that whistleblowers can face, the danger of social isolation and the need to ensure that their message is heard. His case thus highlights the critical nature of state whistleblower supporters who disclose from a radically external position: both for ensuring the effectiveness of disclosures but also for protecting the whistleblower. It is to this poorly-understood area of research (Devine and Maassarani, 2011), that we now turn, where the extreme nature of Mr Snowden’s case can provide important insights into the dynamics involved in generating such support networks.

Mr Snowden’s aim was to blow-the-whistle in a very public manner from a position of exile, beyond the control of the NSA and his superiors. He needed significant support to make his disclosure public, and overcome the inevitable smear campaigns that would seek to discredit his claims. An important and often neglected aspect of Mr Snowden’s story is the crucial role that his network of supporters in exile played: in the dissemination of his message to the global public, in his search for asylum in Hong Kong and, later, his escape from Hong Kong. Pozen (2020) has observed that due to the sensitivity of Mr Snowden’s concerns about the human rights violations that he had witnessed which were part of the everyday operations of the organization for which he was working, he did not attempt to build a network of allies until after he had blown the whistle. Mr Snowden might have followed other whistleblowers who have used the opportunities provided by social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook, to persuade audiences of the veracity and importance of their claims (Lam and Harcourt, 2019; see also Munro, 2016; Nayar, 2010), but he chose otherwise. He booked a room at Mira Hotel in Hong Kong. After ensuring basic security, he attempted to communicate with a select group of national security journalists with links to internationally-respected news publications. These journalists, he believed, had the reach, the legitimacy and the skills to decide which aspects of his information to redact, which to publish and the timeline that would yield the most impact on a global audience. He also educated the journalists about the details of his disclosures to enable them to adequately assist him, explaining that, “for my disclosures to be effective, I had to do more than just hand some journalists some documents - more even than help them interpret the documents. I had to become their partner, to provide technological training and tools to help them do their reporting accurately and safely.” (Snowden, 2019: 249).

Extant studies show that the framing of a whistleblowing disclosure, and of its discloser, is a “make-or-break” factor and can shape public perceptions in ways that can either secure or negate public support (Park et al., 2020; Perry, 1998). The perceived legitimacy and credibility of both the speaker, and those to whom they have initially disclosed and who then speak out on their behalf, are critical dimensions in the acceptance of a whistleblower’s disclosure (Near and Miceli, 1995; Vandekerckhove and Phillips, 2019). In addition, the “fit” of a whistleblower’s claim with popular political views is a key factor in whether or not they are believed and supported by the wider public, thus an ideal ally is one who can make those links as convincingly as possible (Kenny and Bushnell, 2020). Where this is achieved, and support for a whistleblower’s claims gains momentum, a tipping point emerges that sees attempted cover-ups of wrongdoing by organizations halted through the mobilization of public, political, and institutional support (Vandekerckhove and Phillips, 2019). Studies have shown how a temporary alliance can form between a whistleblower and a range of different allies, all concerned with a common cause—stopping identified wrongdoing (Kenny and Bushnell, 2020; Munro and Kenny, 2023). Support can include lawyers, academics, colleagues, prosecutors, media, local community leaders, public interest groups, politicians of opposing persuasions and even competing organizations. Convincing the public is challenging in external whistleblowing cases: people who go outside the organization tend to be treated with more suspicion than those who try to go internally first (Mansbach, 2009; Rothschild, 2013). In Mr Snowden’s case, this challenge was heightened exponentially. To counter this, his alliances with journalists from well-regarded international broadsheet newspapers and online news sites ensured legitimacy, credibility, and meaningful linkages with debates in the news cycles of the day.

In addition, support and protection was also needed for the whistleblower himself. An exiled whistleblower facing potential charges of treason, Mr Snowden was in a vulnerable position requiring significant support at key points in his disclosure journey. From when he departed the U.S., support was offered by a diverse range of people including other refugees, human rights lawyers, activists, journalists and diplomats. After connecting with journalists upon arriving in Hong Kong, Mr Snowden contacted lawyers based in the city, Robert Tibbo and Jonathan Mann, who volunteered to work pro-bono on his asylum application. Mr Tibbo also helped secure Mr Snowden a safe place to hide in Hong Kong after leaving the Mira Hotel. Mr Tibbo already had a good reputation for working for asylum cases in Hong Kong; Mr Snowden (2019: 296) has characterized him as “an idealist and a crusader, a tireless champion of lost causes.” ⁴ In addition to working on his asylum request, Mr Tibbo secured his departure when it was deemed too risky for him to stay.

Another important part of Mr Snowden’s rapidly evolving support network were the other refugees in Hong Kong who helped him. “These unfailingly kind and generous people came through with charitable grace,” he reflects in his memoir. “The solidarity they showed me was not political. It was human, and I will be forever in their debt. They didn’t care who I was, or what danger they might face by helping me, only that there was a person in need. They knew all too well what it meant to be forced into a mad escape from mortal threat, having survived ordeals far in excess of anything I’d dealt with and hopefully ever will: torture by the military, rape and sexual abuse. . .. they didn’t falter. . . They fed me, they let me bathe, they let me sleep, they protected me.” (Snowden, 2019: 296). A further aspect of Mr Snowden’s support network was the key role that the staff of WikiLeaks played in his escape from Hong Kong and the reach of the CIA, particularly Sarah Harrison who accompanied him on his flight from Hong Kong. Mr Snowden explains their role in the following way, “People have long ascribed selfish motives to Assange’s desire to give me aid, but I believe he was genuinely invested in one thing above all - helping me evade capture. . .There was nothing he could have done to save (Chelsea) Manning, but he seemed through Sarah [Harrison], determined to do everything he could to save me” (Snowden, 2019: 301). The work of Sarah Harrison and “the extraordinary courage of the Ecuadorian consul in London, Fidel Narvaez” (p. 302) helped secure a laissez passer for Mr Snowden and his escape from Hong Kong, onward to Ecuador—although this was interrupted midway when the U.S. withdrew his passport, stranding him in Moscow airport. It is clear that Mr Snowden was extremely vulnerable, and a range of people supported and protected him. While the help of partners is important for the success of a disclosure—as described above—both solidarity and practical supports are also essential for the well-being of a whistleblower who has been publicly named (Devine and Maassarani, 2011), and to maintain some semblance of a decent life.

Whistleblowing scholars have a tendency to focus on the courage of one individual—the discloser—to the neglect of (often many) others who put themselves at great risk in aiding the whistleblower’s attempts to be heard (Contu, 2014). Scholarly research into these support networks is limited. Yet whistleblower lawyers and advocates describe how successful cases they have encountered involve support from a diverse range of parties, who are concerned about the wider cause to which the disclosure refers, and about the well-being of the whistleblower (Devine and Maassarani, 2011; Mueller, 2019). A sense of “affective recognition” can emerge in the relationships between disclosers and allies, through an awareness that whistleblowers are acting to protect the common good (Kenny, 2019). But allies are often difficult to secure, where potential partners including lawyers and journalists can experience stigmatization and reputational risk when they work with whistleblowers. What Mr Snowden’s case shows is the extent and breadth of support required by exiled whistleblowers: both for an effective disclosure of information but also for protection against extreme reprisals. We also see the extreme risk faced by supporters.

Democratic activism though alternative loyalties: The role of human rights

Mr Snowden’s case shows how activist civil disobedience whistleblowing involves action fueled by a sense of loyalty to a state—a loyalty based on the original principles of the polity and to human rights—even where action requires transgressing the laws of the state. Mr Snowden positions his whistleblowing as upholding rights of citizens worldwide, where these have been put in jeopardy by the rule of law that prevents critical speech by insiders. In Permanent Record, he provides an original reworking of the history of the practice of whistleblowing, firmly rooted in the tradition of the US founding fathers. He directs our attention to an incident in 1778 during the American War of Independence, when two navy officers, Richard Marven and Samuel Shaw, reported their commanding officer, Commodore Hopkins, for the torture of British prisoners of war. As a consequence, Hopkins was relieved of his command and the first U.S. whistleblower law was passed. Mr Snowden quotes the relevant law directly which asserts, “the duty of all persons in the service of the United States as well as all other inhabitants thereof, to give the earliest information to Congress or any other proper authority of any misconduct, frauds or misdemeanours committed by officers or persons in the service of these states, which may come to their knowledge.” (Snowden, 2019: 234–235). In this respect he outlines his own definition of whistleblowing: “A ‘whistleblower’ in my definition, is a person who, through hard experience, has concluded that their life inside an institution has become incompatible with the principles developed in - and the loyalty owed to - the greater society outside it, to which the institution should be accountable.” (Snowden, 2019: 239, see also Ceva and Bocchiola, 2019).

To honor this loyalty, he adopted a position of civil disobedience based on fidelity to human rights principles, rather than local legal structures (Scheuerman, 2015). Mr Snowden referred to international human rights frameworks as well as the U.S. Constitution to justify his whistleblowing. Writing as an asylum seeker stranded in Moscow airport, he cited both the UN Declaration of Human Rights and the Nuremberg Charter in support for his decision, where “Individuals have international duties which transcend national obligations of obedience. . . citizens have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring.” (Nuremberg Charter, quoted in Snowden, 2013). Mr Snowden’s whistleblowing-activism can therefore be understood as moving beyond purely national concerns and instead affirming a transnational concern for human rights in the struggle for a “greater society.”

Mr Snowden cast himself in the role of a principled reformer, explaining that whistleblowing, “. . .marks the disclosure not as a radical act of dissent or resistance, but a conventional act of return. . .[ to the original principles of the institution in question]” (Snowden, 2019: 239). Whereas Julian Assange developed his whistleblowing network in an effort to enable others to radically transform society, Mr Snowden, believes that not only his own act, but whistleblowing as a whole, is an act of reforming democratic institutions. Despite this, the reaction of the political class against both has been similar, in terms of visceral and violent attempts to silence them, alongside judicial mistreatment forcing them to live as exiles. de Lagasnerie (2016: 104) has argued that even if these whistleblowers see themselves as reformists, “the attack that Snowden, Assange, and Manning have mounted aims at the heart of the judico-political system.” Human rights lawyers have also pointed out that retaliation and attacks against such activist whistleblowers in the West have become increasingly extreme in nature (Jaffer, 2021; Melzer, 2019; Mendez, 2012). Against this backdrop, Mr Snowden’s stated aim was one of reform.

In organizational scholarship, critics have accused whistleblowers of being disloyal because they violate the norms that hold institutions together, seeing real loyalty as equating to secrecy and complicity in the face of wrongdoing, for the sake of the institution’s survival (Drucker, 1981; Thomas, 2005; see Rothschild and Miethe, 1999 for discussion). For others, whistleblowers in corrupt organizations have chosen an alternative loyalty: they are faithful to the interests of wider society and will fight to defend them against the actions of their own employers (Grant, 2002). While Mr Snowden’s leaking of classified material and his life in exile may have—in some accounts—been portrayed as a disloyalty to his home country, numerous commentators point to the errors in this reading for the reasons outlined here, depicting Mr Snowden’s leaks and whistleblowing in reformist terms, albeit taken as a last resort necessitated when other forms of democratic oversight failed (Benkler, 2014; Cate, 2014; Fidler, 2015; Pozen, 2020). Mr Snowden’s disclosures were, he notes, in the service of “the greater society” outside of the increasingly corrupt institution in which he was working. Mr Snowden tells how the functionaries to whom he acted “disloyally” are systematically flouting the principles of the US constitution and undermining basic democratic freedoms, a desperate situation Mr Snowden has sought to remedy, not only to protect the citizens of his own country but also other democracies around the world. In his positioning of his whistleblowing as upholding citizens’ rights, what we see in Mr Snowden’s case is the development of a loyalty that stretches both beyond the organization in its commitment to fundamental human rights.

In sum, Mr Snowden’s whistleblowing was more than mere disclosure of information but was activist in nature: specifically it was an attempt to challenge and reform secretive and increasingly oppressive practices of U.S. intelligence organizations. Thus, we argue, Mr Snowden’s whistleblowing is a form of “democratic activism” aiming at democratic reform through making public the problems with the current status quo.

Crisis in parrhesia and crisis in democracy

The experiences of the state whistleblower forced into exile offer privileged insight into the workings of the institutions about which he discloses. Mr Snowden’s disclosures—and particular the reprisals these attracted—highlight a crisis in democracy in terms of its capacity to foster or even tolerate robust critique of ostensibly democratic nation states.

Benkler (2014: 326) has explained that whistleblowers such as Mr Snowden are not simply important for good organizational governance but are also “critical for our open, democratic society to utilize its greatest power to continuously learn about our failures and improve on them.” This is particularly true for organizations which are powerful and extremely secretive such as national security organizations, which he states have proven themselves incapable of self-regulation time and time again. Jaffer (2021: 12) has explained the relationship between whistleblowing and democracy in a similar terms explaining that “Whistleblowers’ disclosures enabled more informed public debate, and ordinary citizens used what whistleblowers disclosed in order to press for reforms that were in many cases adopted. It was whistleblowers’ disclosures, in other words, that allowed the democratic process to work.”

At the same time, protections for these democracy-enabling truth-tellers are limited and flawed. Organizations engaged in retaliation can use a variety of tactics, including, in cases of state whistleblowing, strategies of lawfare by deeming organizational whistleblowers liable for prosecution under official secrets and espionage laws without a public defense. Both Benkler (2014) and Jaffer (2021) have highlighted the need for increased legal protections for national security whistleblowers in the light of clear public interest of their disclosures and the increasing severity of retaliation whistleblowers are facing including death threats, torture and exile (see also Terracol, 2019). Thus, while democratic nation states often benefit from disclosers offering essential critique and improving governance processes, these same institutions punish and silence whistleblowers.

An organization’s (or in this case, a nation state’s) response to its whistleblowers tells us much about the entity itself. Reprisals against truth-tellers signal intolerance for challenge and critique (Alford, 2001). Inspired by Foucault, Alford describes how whistleblowers sometimes bring out the most violent and intractable responses from the institutions and organizations they critique. Seeking total control over its internal environment, an “autarkic” organization perceives the whistleblower as a dangerous threat (Alford, 2001: 99). In speaking out, whistleblowers step outside of the prescribed and normatively accepted “moral order” that requires silence and acquiescence in order to maintain this control (Kenny, 2018). In terms of Mr Snowden, the U.S. government’s position appears to have been a lack of protections against the reprisals levied against him by his former organization, and the threat of prosecution.

To understand this dual role of truth-telling as both essential and also vilified, it is useful to draw on parrhesia, a concept from Ancient Greece highlighted by Foucault in his later work on genealogy of ethics. Existing research on whistleblowing has characterized whistleblowers as being courageous “parrhesiasts” who speak truth to power despite the risk of a violent response (Foxley, 2021; Munro, 2018; Weiskopf, 2023; Weiskopf and Tobias-Miersch, 2016). A important although neglected aspect of this work is Foucault’s discussion of parrhesia in terms of the limitations of democratic governance. Reflecting on ancient Athenian democracy, Foucault (2019) observed that “parrhesia is one of the characteristics of a democratic city” (p. 9). Certain citizens were given a right to publicly criticize the powers-that-be, a right extended by virtue of their bloodline. Foucault charts how, with the subsequent rise of the Hellenistic monarchies, this changed. Public parrhesia, truth-telling by those with a special privilege, diminished in status because, as democracy strengthened, every citizen was given the right to equal speech, not just a special few. This led to a proliferation of shallow speech, and public persuasion under the guise of truthtelling, while the formal role of parrhesia shifted to the dyadic relationship between the sovereign and his advisors. Thus as Foucault (2001, 2011, 2019) notes, the democratization of truth-telling led to idle talk and talking about “the most stupid and most dangerous things for things for the [democratic] city.” (Foucault, 2019: 41). Foucault termed this as “bad parrhesia”. So-called “bad parrhesia” emerged from democracy where everyone had the right to speak their truth, in contrast to the prior era of “good parrhesia” where “only the few can tell the truth.” (Foucault, 2010: 183). So called “bad parrhesia” could also been seen as being a threat to the state. Decrees of exile were made against some parrhesiastes because they were considered to be such a threat. The parrhesiast’s virtue was also seen as a threat to the social order and thus deserving of ostracism and exile. The truth teller “stands out rather too much above the others” (Foucault, 2011: 50). This led Foucault (2011: 46) to reflect on the fundamental paradox of democracy and to conclude that, according to the ancient system of ethics, “in a democracy there cannot be parrhesia in the sense of courageous truth telling”. Foucault (2001, 2019) explained this problematic as a “crisis in parrhesia” where parrhesia was understood as being a necessary aspect of the democratic state, but sometimes posed a threat to that state. As such, Foucault (2001: 73) did not offer parrhesia as the solution to democratic governance, but instead observed how the practice of parrhesia became “split within itself.”

In this sense we might understand Mr Snowden’s attempts to frame his disclosures in defense of human rights and democracy, his expertise in the issues he disclosed, and his frank speech regardless of the consequences as being “good parrhesia” rather than as a betrayal and a subversive act of “bad parrhesia”, a position in which he was placed by US government critics who dismissed him as “just a contractor” who happened to be working at the NSA, whose disclosures were rash and endangering others and, in short, a person who was saying “stupid and dangerous things” for the US as a democratic state.

The irony described by Foucault is reflected here. Mr Snowden’s “good parrhesia” was aimed at upholding and defending the ideals of democracy, which he saw being undermined by the current system of government. The irony is that—in order to defend his position as truth-teller—he draws on an idealized and romanticized version of the United States, its history and its constitution. In his memoir he positions himself as a loyal, albeit exiled, U.S. citizens and subject, insisting on his pride in the country and his loyalty to its constitution. Thus his whistleblowing can be read as an attempt to both restore and defend the very polity that seeks to banish and punish him. That the current system of so-called democracy has given rise to this situation in which his critique cannot be tolerated, clearly poses serious questions to the integrity and efficacy of the system itself, echoing Foucault’s observations concerning truth-telling and democracy. We see therefore the contradictions in this kind of whistleblowing; the tensions surrounding the role of truth-telling and the limits of democratic political community, where the exemplary truth-teller may continue to live only in a position of exile.

Exiled activist whistleblowers: Toward a conceptual framing

We have examined four critical dimensions of state whistleblower-activism in Mr Snowden’s case, interrogating extant literature and drawing out conceptual insights. We learned: how disclosures are often radically external to the organization and state, by necessity, how they come with unusual levels of dependency on supporters relative to other instances of whistleblowing, how democratic reform underscores activist whistleblowing practice albeit that frameworks such as human rights emanating from outside the jurisdiction uphold alternative loyalties, and finally how the reprisals resulting from this kind of activist whistleblowing illustrate an underlying intolerance of critique, on the part of democratic nation states. Bringing these together, and returning to our initial question, we develop a novel concept of “exilic whistleblowing,” building upon these insights and representing fruitful new theoretical directions.

The concept of exile can refer to a long absence from ones native country, but is more usually understood as a punitive action and the result of “political banishment” (Mendes-Flohr, 2020; Thompson, 1995). Like Snowden, other state whistleblowers have sought voluntary exile after being subject to retaliation including for example Israeli Mordechai Vanunu who spoke out against his country’s nuclear weapons programme. ⁵ Other than the death sentence, exile is one of the harshest punishments that can be imposed on a person by the state. It is a form of social death; one not only loses one’s right to speak but all those rights associated with citizenship (Foucault, 2010, 2019).

As is clear by now, the idea of the exiled refugee plays a prominent role throughout the Snowden case; he was himself a refugee being protected by other refugees in Hong Kong, and now lives in exile in Russia, having been thwarted by the US government in his attempt to travel to Ecuador. The figure of the refugee is thus formative of the new identity of Mr Snowden, and the support network of refugees who helped him and his lawyers Mr Tibbo and Mr Mann, who both work on behalf of refugee clients. The struggle of Mr Tibbo to get asylum status for the “Snowden refugees” has also continued, where most have now been successfully granted asylum in Canada, but one remains a refugee stranded in Hong Kong. Mr Tibbo himself was forced to flee his practice in Hong Kong with the help of Lawyers Without Borders after being subject to death threats and other forms of harassment.

Mr Snowden’s status as an exile refugee can be explained with reference to the work of Hannah Arendt, who was herself a refugee during the Second World War. We are very aware of the stark differences in context but we propose there are important theoretical parallels. Arendt (1943) argued that the status of refugee is not only one of suffering and social exclusion but also has a positive valence. Arendt describes the development of a new political consciousness: “Those few refugees who insist on telling the truth, even to the point of ‘indecency’, get in exchange for their unpopularity one priceless advantage. . .[they] represent the vanguard of their peoples.. . .” (Arendt, 1943: 274). Arendt described those refugees who refused to be assimilated as being “conscious pariahs,” an epithet that is an apt description of the exilic whistleblower. Following Arendt we can conceive of the status of exile that has been imposed on whistleblowers like Mr Snowden and their supporters in terms of activist work toward the development of a new political consciousness. Although Arendt was referring to a refugee crisis during the Second World War, there are some important comparisons in terms of the state’s responses to activist whistleblowers, including extreme and unprecedented denial of citizenship rights and universal human rights, and also in the important role of those subject to such measures who “insist on telling the truth.”

Saïd (1993: 44) has made similar observations concerning the exile who occupies a unique position from which to witness the contingency of the prevailing social order, and develop a “more universal idea of how to think, say about a human rights issue, in one situation by comparison with another.” Like Arendt, Saïd lent a positive valence to the figure of the exile where, “Exiles cross borders, break barriers of thought and experience.” (Saïd, 2001: 147). In the same vein as Arendt and Saïd, Mr Snowden has re-affirmed the importance of transnational human rights, beyond national borders. He acts as a vanguard in revealing how these human rights are being routinely violated by governments. Mr Snowden also acts as a vanguard highlighting the limits of truth-telling within contemporary democracies, where whistleblowers have often had their rights violated and have been subjected to social exclusion, imprisonment and in extremis, torture and exile. The “exilic whistleblower” can thus be understood as acting as vanguard both in revealing the crimes of the state and in highlighting the extreme measures that the state will take against those who reveal these crimes. As we see, this position can emerge from necessity in the face of limited options given the dangers inherent to following prescribed official channels and remaining within a legal jurisdiction. Moreover this position of exilic whistleblowing is only survivable within a network of supportive others.

This conception represents our first contribution to debates on organization studies. Beyond whistleblowing scholarship, while research within the field of organization studies has acknowledged the importance of social exclusion as a form of organizational sanction (Alford, 2001; Curtis et al., 2021; Kenny, 2019; Spoelma et al., 2021), the role of exile as a mechanism of punishment has received little scholarly attention (de Vaujany et al., 2021; Hafermalz, 2021). A notable exception is Hafermalz’s (2021) analysis of power dynamics in platform organizations, which concludes that while employees fear exile as a sanction, this can also encourage new forms of worker resistance.

Following from this, our second contribution is that of “tactical use of exile” on the part of whistleblower activists. A position of exile can be used strategically as part of activist critique aimed at changing the status quo. The way Mr Snowden has incorporated exile as an importance aspect of his practice of activist resistance is important to acknowledge. Building upon both Arendt and Said’s emphasis of the productive or positive valence attaching to the experience of the truth-telling exile, we see how Mr Snowden’s tactical responses to the unfolding events surrounding his disclosures enabled this valence to be realized. Whistleblowers often hold the initial expectation that their voice will be heeded within their organization; the full extent of retaliation and suffering that they subsequently experience is rarely anticipated. When serious reprisals ensue, they can have drastic consequences causing stress, financial difficulty and a desire to give up the struggle to disclose (Kenny and Fotaki, 2019). Silence results. In contrast, Mr Snowden’s case is unusual in his awareness from the outset that it would be necessary to put himself in great danger in order to achieve the intervention he sought in the public discourse, and it would be essential to secure help to survive the experience. It appears that he set out to disclose externally, and to deal with the consequences. When the reprisal he anticipated came, he worked to garner a range of diverse supporters to protect him an to help get his disclosures a wide hearing. Rather than passive response, we saw active execution of tactical responses to unfolding reprisal situations. His is today a household name. He has been celebrated for his work. Through his careful planning of both his disclosure—via legitimate international media companies—and public reception of his persona as whistleblower—through constant reiteration of his commitment to democratic reform, Mr Snowden has been able to avoid some of the more nefarious smear campaigning leveraged successfully against other state whistleblowers. In short, the “conscious” dimension of Arendt’s “conscious pariahs” as exiled truth-tellers is exemplified in such cases.

Theoretically, the role of exile as a potentially productive aspect of whistleblowing resistance is rarely examined. While Alford’s (2001) classic study of whistleblowing comes close by reflecting on the power of “exit” as a strategy, he emphasizes its limitations where the whistleblower is silenced upon being “exited” from their organization. The present investigation reveals how exit is not only a means of punishment, as Alford suggests, but can also be developed into a tactic of resistance, as Snowden and other recent cases have shown. In contrast to the ancient practice of parrhesia, where the exiled individual lost their right to speak truth to power (Foucault, 2011), the banishment of the whistleblower can also become a tactic of escape and the formation of new alliances in their struggle to be heard. The notion of the exilic whistleblower thus extends recent research within organization studies to account for the ambivalent role of exile: as a mechanism of punishment but also as a tactic of resistance (de Vaujany et al., 2021; Hafermalz, 2021) as well as developing the literature on whistleblower activism and whistleblower protection (Benkler, 2014; Jaffer, 2021; Munro, 2017).

Mr Snowden’s experiences prove fruitful in practical as well as theoretical terms. For activist whistleblowing practice, exilic whistleblowing highlights how—in some cases fidelity to one’s principles, exercising one’s duty to “greater society,” effective whistleblowing, and securing safety may only be achievable in exile. Flight and political asylum can be resorted to as a mechanism of protection when other whistleblower protections fail—or prove useless—and the government itself turns against the whistleblower. The critical role of whistleblower protection laws in this sector, and reform of current statutes that prosecute without public defense, is also evident.

In expanding the concept of exilic whistleblowing, we are conscious of the extreme and unique nature of our exemplar case. We acknowledge that cases of exile are relatively rare, but they do occur particularly when state whistleblowing results in a public naming and a formal threat of legal sanction as result of revealing classified information, as with many such instances, leading to the need to leave the country for one’s own safety. Moreover, exiled whistleblowers are illustrative of the changing dynamics of the treatment of whistleblowers, both in the increasing severity of retaliations and in the transnational aspect of the political dynamics involved.

We welcome future research into other cases of state institution whistleblowing. Future research might also examine the role of information and communication technology in the tactical aspects of exilic whistleblowing practice. Mr Snowden for example was particularly adept in making use of new information networks and encryption technology to conceal his location in exile, communicate with journalists and, later on, to appear online before mass audiences of human rights activists, lawyers, hacktivists, and members of the global public from a position in hiding.

Conclusion

The concept of exilic whistleblowing highlights how disclosers bear witness to the impacts of the actions of so-called democracies, for example those contributing to the perilous state of human rights. Their experiences emphasize: the internal contradictions of such democracies, how truth-telling disclosures of human rights issues come into conflict and tension with the practice of government itself, and how this contradiction is continued by the increased isolation and persecution of whistleblowers, challenging the feasibility in practice of the oft-cited role of whistleblowing as a celebrated mechanism for democratic oversight. In this respect, exilic whistleblowing may thus be understood not only as a mechanism for reform (Benkler, 2014) but also as a challenge to the hegemonic centers of power and the limits of modern liberal democracy. De Lagasnerie (2016: 40) has argued that whistleblowers, “contest the mechanism of democratic politics as we know it, as it is imposed on us. . .. They embody a challenge to the law itself.” The practice of exilic whistleblowing highlights the stakes involved in the limits of contemporary democracy, the ongoing criminalization of whistleblowing and attacks on transnational human rights. Directing attention to the limits of national and nationalist politics in this way, exilic whistleblowing acts as a vanguard for a new political consciousness.