The ethics of whistleblowing: Creating a new limit on intelligence activity
| DOI | 10.1177/1755088217712069 |
| Author | Ross W Bellaby |
| Date | 01 February 2018 |
| Published date | 01 February 2018 |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1755088217712069
Journal of International Political Theory
2018, Vol. 14(1) 60 –84
© The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/1755088217712069
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The ethics of whistleblowing:
Creating a new limit on
intelligence activity
Ross W Bellaby
The University of Sheffield, UK
Abstract
One of the biggest challenges facing modern societies is how to monitor one’s
intelligence community while maintaining the necessary level of secrecy. Indeed, while
some secrecy is needed for mission success, too much has allowed significant abuse.
Moreover, extending this secrecy to democratic oversight actors only creates another
layer of unobserved actors and removes the public scrutiny that keeps their power and
decision-making in check. This article will therefore argue for a new type of oversight
through a specialised ethical whistleblowing framework. This includes, first, outlining
what intelligence wrongdoings justify whistleblowing; second, whether whistleblowing
is the correct remedy – something not necessarily clear with intelligence; and finally,
what form the whistleblowing should take. This framework will examine the Snowden
case to determine whether he was correct leaking intelligence data and whether the
means were appropriate, and second, whether those involved in the Central Intelligence
Agency use of torture should have blown the whistle and if they now face blame for
failing to act.
Keywords
Whistleblowing, intelligence, oversight, obligation, Snowden, torture
Introduction
One of the most important sets of security questions facing modern societies is how
much power should be allowed to the intelligence community and how can we ensure
that this power is being used correctly. Reports of abuse at detention centres such as
Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, the pervasive growth of technological surveillance
Corresponding author:
Ross W Bellaby, Department of Politics, The University of Sheffield, Elmfield, Sheffield S10 2TU, UK.
Email: r.bellaby@sheffield.ac.uk
712069IPT0010.1177/1755088217712069Journal of International Political TheoryBellaby
research-article2017
Article
Bellaby 61
and the increased attention on the use of torture for intelligence collection have all high-
lighted not only the power of the intelligence community but also the likelihood of that
power being abused. Information about these events, however, was not revealed by intel-
ligence organisations themselves. Rather the information was either leaked – such as the
Snowden and Wikileaks’ revelations – or was the result of a legislative investigation
prompted by media claims that took years in writing and was subjected to fierce political
wrangling (Baldino, 2010: 62; Finn, 2009; Mazzetti, 2015). The problem is that the intel-
ligence community is allowed and needs a great deal of secrecy in order to carry out its
function. Yet, this secrecy can also hide actions that would not necessarily meet the
expected ethical or social standards. Moreover, excessively secretive environments actu-
ally promote abuses of power by creating an insider mentality that blurs the lines between
the need to get results and what is acceptable behaviour towards those on the outside.
This has significantly eroded the trust that people have in the intelligence community,
and given its inherently secretive nature this is something that will be difficult to re-
establish. This is not to say, however, that intelligence should be made utterly transpar-
ent. Intelligence does play an important and indeed ethical role in protecting the political
community, and a key part of that involves using secretive methods to detect, locate and
prevent threats. However, it is clear that being allowed carte blanche freedom is not
workable.
The problem is that ensuring correct intelligence behaviour is especially difficult,
given the need for some secrecy coupled with a complete reliance on existing democratic
institutions. By relying on elected officials to act as the main allowed oversight mecha-
nism means simply extending the sphere of secrecy and creating another layer of unob-
served actors. In other areas of government, the power of these officials is kept in check
through elections whereby the public have the opportunity to examine decisions made
and evaluate the consequences. However, with intelligence this ring of protective secrecy
surrounds and limits outside observation of those authorising its activity; information is
therefore not available to the electorate and so the authorising political community are
not kept in check through the normal mechanisms. Furthermore, the current oversight
structures are themselves too passive and often rely on the intelligence community to
bring things forward for authorisation rather than penetrating their protective shield and
investigating their actions. Therefore, this article will argue that whistleblowing can offer
an additional form of oversight to act as a release valve by having those on the inside
reveal harmful activities and opening them up to greater degrees of external examination.
This will include the argument that not only there is a right to whistleblowing, but there
also exists a duty to do so when witnessing unjustified harm, and those who fail to act –
and blow the whistle – can be blamed and punished as a result. The article will first
outline some of the limits of only relying on democratic structures, followed by the argu-
ment for a new framework that will outline not only when someone is right to blow the
whistle but where they are obliged to. This framework will then be applied to the
Snowden case in order to determine whether he was justified in blowing the whistle and
whether the means he used were correct. Finally, it will be applied to the US Senate
Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) Report ‘Committee Study of the Central
Intelligence Agency’s (CIA’s) Detention and Interrogation Program’ (henceforward
referred to as the SSCI Report) to determine whether those involved in the CIA’s
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