Example Of Whistleblowing

According to Merriam-Webster, the legal definition of Whistleblower is: an employee who brings wrongdoing by an employer or other employees to the attention of a government or law enforcement agency and who is commonly vested by statute with rights and remedies for retaliation. In some cases, whistle blowing against the government can be seen as an act of treason; and in other cases, the whistle-blower is rewarded for coming forward with the information they possess. In this essay, I will describe two examples of whistle blowing to exploring the distinction between these outcomes. FBI Associate Director Mark Felt was a Whistleblower against President Richard Nixon’s involvement in the Watergate scandal. Felt went to the Washington Post and provided information that connected President Nixon to the break-in at the Watergate hotel. Felt’s whistleblowing resulted in the greatest Presidential scandal in US history and President Nixon’s resignation as President of the

In this example, Snowden, an employee of a government contractor used his government-issued clearance to gain access to, steal and release classified documents. Many people viewed this act as treason because the documents Snowden leaked held classified information protected by federal law and policies Snowden signed to gain access in the first place. Snowden continued to make himself look guilty of treason by fleeing to Russia.
In both of the above examples someone knew information about the federal government and decided the public needed to know the “truth.” However, in Felt’s case he was rewarded by the public for the release of information; while Snowden was accused of treason by the public and has yet to be able to return to the country in which he grew up. If both cases involve the unwanted release of government information, why were they treated so