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ABSTRACT
Edward Snowden’s revelations ignited public discourse on whistleblowing and whistleblower protection legislation. Given the polemics over whistleblower distinctions throughout mediated exchanges between US officials and the press, this manuscript constitutes a synchronic ideographic analysis of pertinent, recognized ideographs as they were operationalized in relation to whistleblowing within the Snowden discourse. While news media and the public agreed that Snowden operated as a whistleblower, the US government adamantly denied this classification. Instead, US officials manufactured a media trial, and in three distinct phases, purged whistleblowing from the public forum, rhetorically criminalized Snowden as a threat to national <security>, and utilized whistleblowing as a means to propagate the war on <terrorism> and defend covert surveillance. These processes afforded US officials the ability to funnel whistleblowers through private channels, effectively neutralizing the public power of whistleblowers. It is argued that removing whistleblowers from the public forum, while packaged as a protective measure for whistleblowers, operates as a defensive measure for state officials and authoritarianism writ large as it disarms a democratic populace of a foundational tool of free speech and dissent.
Notes
1. Greenwald, “Verizon Ruling.”
2. Greenwald, “Top Secret Rules.”
3. Greenwald, “US Spying.”
4. MacAskill and Borger, “US Bugging Allies.”
5. Savage, “NSA Broke Rules.”
6. Gellman, Barton, and Markon, “Snowden Explains Secrets.”
7. Greenwald, MacAskill, and Borger, “Snowden Emerges.”
8. Ibid.
9. Guitar, “The <Snowden> Ideograph,” 61.
10. Ibid., 94.
11. Connelly, “State Secrets and Redaction.”
12. Al-Sumait, Lingle, and Domke, “Terrorism’s Cause and Cure.”
13. See note 11 above.
14. McGee, “The “Ideograph.”
15. Ibid.
16. Winkler, Name of Terrorism.
17. See note 14 above.
18. Winkler, Name of Terrorism, 12.
19. Ibid., 35.
20. Hamilton, “The Ideograph of Patriotism.”
21. Cloud, “Threat of Terror.”
22. Winkler, Name of Terrorism, 13.
23. Lee, “Ideographic Criticism,” 318.
24. See note 14 above.
25. Foss, Rhetorical Criticism, 238.
26. Ibid., 239.
27. Eagleton, Ideology, 223.
28. Condit and Lucaites, Crafting Equality, xiv-xv.
29. Cloud, “Rhetoric of <Family Values>,” 283.
30. Mansbach, “Whistleblowing as Fearless Speech,” 12–13.
31. Foucault, “Discourse and Truth.”
32. Sauter and Kendall, “Parrhesia and Democracy,” 13.
33. Lewis and Vanderkerckhove, “Introduction,” 5.
34. Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox.
35. Simone, “Give Me Liberty.”
36. Collins and Glover, Collateral Language, 19.
37. See note 35 above.
38. Prior, “Democracy Is Watching You,” 47.
39. Hall and Patrick, The Pursuit of Justice, 77.
40. Howlett, “Espionage Act, 1917,” 276.
41. Caso, Censorship, 25.
42. Ibid.
43. See note 40 above.
44. Ball, USA Patriot Act, 146.
45. See note 41 above.
46. See note 40 above.
47. Caso, Censorship, 27.
48. Ibid.
49. Hall and Patrick, The Pursuit of Justice, 78.
50. See note 40 above.
51. Caso, Censorship, 265.
52. See note 40 above.
53. Caso, Censorship, 265.
54. Currier, “Charting Obama’s Crackdown.”
55. Pohlman, Terrorism and the Constitution, 20.
56. Ball, USA Patriot Act, 15.
57. Ibid.
58. Ibid., 17.
59. Prior, “Democracy Is Watching You,” 54.
60. Christensen, “A Decade of Wikileaks”; Sangarasivam, “Cyber Rebellion”; Cammaerts, “Networked Resistance”; Stone, “Wikileaks and First Amendment”; Ottosen, “Wikileaks”; McNair, “Wikileaks, Journalism and Consequences”; Sauter and Kendall, “Parrhesia and Democracy”; and Rosner, “Can Wikileaks Save Democracy.”
61. Nelson, “Whistle-Blowers Defend Snowden.”
62. Nakashima, “Public Advocate.”
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Joshua Guitar
Joshua Guitar received his B.A. from Adrian College, and completed his M.A. and Ph.D. at Wayne State University. All degrees were in communication where Joshua focused on rhetorical studies and democracy. Joshua is currently serving as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Christopher Newport University.