'Drake followed the Intelligence Community Whistleblower law to a вЂTвЂ™,' McClellan said in January 2014. In 2010, NSA staffer Thomas Drake tried to use proper channels to report allegations of improper contracting but wound up the target of an investigation, said Kathleen McClellan, the national security and human rights counsel for the Government Accountability Project, a whistleblower advocacy group. And Goitein added, neither that directive nor the whistleblower law 'bars the government from criminally prosecuting whistleblowers.'

But that order did not explicitly address the rights of contractors such as Snowden. Goitein said President Barack Obama helped matters slightly when he issued a presidential order preventing retaliation against federal employees. The Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act, for instance, does not prohibit agencies from retaliating against employees, said Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Brennan CenterвЂ™s Liberty and National Security Program at New York University School of Law. Others familiar with this legal landscape echoed the view Snowden would have been vulnerable to prosecution if he went public through government channels.

Tellingly, Thomas Gimble, the acting inspector general for the Army, said in 2006 House testimony that the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act was 'a misnomer.' It 'does not provide statutory protection from reprisal for whistleblowing for employees of the intelligence community,' Gimble said.ДЄn assessment in the Boston University Law Review concluded that the 1998 law 'arguably fails to provide any real protection to national security whistleblowers.' At the time, the NSA could reasonably assert that it was following the law, which would undercut SnowdenвЂ™s case, DвЂ™Isidoro said. But he also said it was unclear if the issues Snowden raised would have fallen under the guidelines of that law.Д«riefly, SnowdenвЂ™s complaints would need to meet the definition of an 'urgent concern.' That term specifically doesnвЂ™t cover policy disagreements. Army judge advocate, argued in the Harvard Law School National Security Journal that Snowden did have a legal pathway to voice his concerns. The 1998 law aimed at intelligence community workers specifically includes contractors such as Snowden. The National Security Agency has released a single email from Snowden in which he asked for clarification of the laws that govern the agency. Snowden claims that he did raise his concerns with a legal division at the National Security Agency but was rebuffed. (A separate federal law protects whistleblowers more generally, but that only applies to sharing unclassified information, not the secret materials that Snowden had in hand.) Under that 1998 law, Snowden could have raised his concerns with the Inspector GeneralвЂ™s Office at the NSA or spoken to congressional intelligence committees. And it's not clear they could have saved Snowden. That law includes some protections, but they're not as strong as Clinton lets on. What Snowden could have relied on, experts say, is the 1998 Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act. That law has no specific whistleblower protection. He also let the world know that the United States was listening in on the private calls of the leaders of its closest allies. That law makes it a crime punishable by death or imprisonment to share 'information relating to the national defense' with anyone who might want to do harm to the United States.ДЄmong other details, Snowden showed that under a federal court order, Verizon was providing the National Security Agency with the phone records of nearly all its customers, and on similar terms, giants such as Google and Facebook were turning over user data. Snowden was charged withВ two counts of unauthorized communication under the 1917 Espionage Act. While American law does shield government whistleblowers, it wouldn'tВ necessarily apply in Snowden's case. And I think there would have been a positive response to that.' He could have raised all the issues that he has raised. He could have gotten all of the protections of being a whistleblower. 'He broke the laws of the United States,' Clinton said. Hillary Clinton said Snowden shouldnвЂ™t come home 'without facing the music.' 13, CNN moderator Anderson Cooper pressed the candidates to offer their view of Snowden. He found asylum in Russia but would like to return home.ДЄt the first Democratic debate Oct. government charged Snowden, an employee of a government security contractor, with violating the Espionage Act. Edward SnowdenвЂ™s decision to reveal the existence of massive national security databases of AmericansвЂ™ email and telephone data remains a flashpoint for debate among Americans.

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