is (not) a whistleblower: Ideographs, whistleblower protections, and restrictions of speech

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 , and utilized whistleblowing as a means to propagate the war on 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.