Understanding Secrecy, Upholding the Public Interest: National Security Whistleblowing, Civil Society and Support Networks

When the AHRC research project began to investigate the long history of U.S. national security whistleblowing (AH/P00461X/1), the fate of Edward Snowden, who had revealed warrantless surveillance programmes, was uncertain. It anticipated he would not be the last whistleblower. Three years later Snowden's situation remains precarious while several other whistleblowers have emerged and been charged for disclosing national defense information. European whistleblowers, while generating fewer headlines, have also made disclosures and face prosecution. The twenty-first century has marked a new era of national security whistleblowing around the world, but our understanding of the phenomenon has not kept pace with these developments.

This is also true for the whistleblowing advocacy organisations that provide the essential protection for individuals crossing the secrecy Rubicon to make disclosures in the public interest. The Follow-on Funding for Impact and Engagement looks to bring academic and advocacy groups into sustained dialogue to better understand the past, present, and future of national security whistleblowing. The activities explore how historical approaches can inform, assist, and enhance the work of third sector groups providing whistleblower support and protection today. In sharing research findings and best practises, this project addresses well-defined needs to expand the knowledge base, strengthen links with scholarship, and increase collaboration between organisations working in different national jurisdictions. In a practical sense, a historical perspective can assist advocates in their efforts to inform legal cases, shape legislation, propose reforms, and comprehend the stories behind today's unfolding headlines.

The original research on U.S. national security whistleblowing uncovered a vast, diverse advocacy world. Furthermore, it extended beyond the United States. The proposed activities build on unforeseen impact opportunities to engage this wider whistleblowing advocacy community in the UK and Europe. The proposal seeks to share expertise and skills across national borders. Debates around whistleblowing and national security frequently concentrate on individual states and their respective legal frameworks, but there is a need to address themes that cut across national and regional divides. The questions facing advocates in the United States are similar to those facing counterparts in the UK and Europe. This project aims to bring those voices into conversation with one another and with scholars working on the subject.

This is a particularly opportune moment for closer academic-advocacy collaboration. State prosecutions are on the rise. Whistleblower protection is a live political, legal, and social issue, with legislative bodies in the U.S., UK and Europe debating the adequacy of existing policies and mechanisms. Advocates have made progress in recent years but continue to confront powerful secrecy establishments and expansive national security states. A historical perspective is essential to understanding the present, but also exploring future protection strategies that go beyond legal justice matters to include the civic and social factors behind individuals speaking truth to power.

The impact plans have been developed alongside leading whistleblowing organisations in the U.S., UK, and Europe to reach other stakeholders in the advocacy community. Through a series of innovative workshops and open-access outputs, the activities foster sustained scholar-practitioner engagement to promote historical approaches in advocacy work. They will explore the political, legal, and cultural contexts in which disclosures in the public interest emerge and state responses to whistleblowers unfold. The project offers important impact for present-day whistleblowing protection debates and support networks. The activities address common questions and bridge the gap between scholars and advocates with the aim of better understanding secrecy and upholding the public interest.

The activities meet well-defined needs by addressing three strands of concern for advocacy groups: understanding the histories of national security and whistleblowing that have shaped the modern legal, political, and social terms of debate; integrating historical findings and methods in protection work; sharing expertise and knowledge to foster more effective long-term protection strategies. The impact has been formulated in close collaboration with four world-leading whistleblowing organisations as Project Partners: Whistleblowing International Network (UK); Government Accountability Project (U.S.); Protect [formerly Public Concern at Work] (UK); and Fundación Internacional Baltasar Garzón [Garzón International Foundation for Human Rights and Universal Jurisdiction] (Spain).

Three interactive workshops will bring academics and advocates together for a series of peer-to-peer roundtable discussions. Topics for discussion include: the legal and philosophical history of public interest defence; the policing of national security information and personnel; the de-criminalisation of disclosures; secrecy cultures in democracies and the challenge of acknowledging whistleblowing. The activities focus on common themes and issues across the international advocacy community. There will also be opportunities for distinct conversations that explore specific cases and regions. For instance, Spain is one of the few member states in the European Union with no legal protection for individuals making public interest disclosures.

Two outputs will be produced: i) a practical 'How To' Guide on researching histories of national security whistleblowing and state secrecy; ii) Report on how scholarly-advocacy collaboration can facilitate more effective whistleblowing protection efforts across national jurisdictions. The outputs will be informed by workshop discussions and comments from Project Partners and an Advisory Board. They will both be open-access PDF documents, available for download as per a CC-BY license. The key target audience is the international advocacy community, although the outputs will also be of interest to academics, journalists, and policymakers dealing with whistleblowing topics.

The short-term impact opportunities include informing current advocacy work and legal cases in the U.S., UK, and Europe. Long-term impact includes reforming whistleblowing protection legislation in the three locales, with possibilities for further academic-practitioner partnerships that extend activities to other geographic regions and areas. Finally, building on the original research project that offered the first comprehensive analysis of the phenomenon in the United States, impact plans encourage new and comparative histories of national security whistleblowing.