WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Whistleblowers help members of Congress overcome incomplete information provided by intelligence agencies, US Congresswoman Jackie Speier said on Thursday at the first annual celebration of Whistleblower Appreciation Day.
“Especially as members of Congress, the information that agencies provide to us is sanitized and scrubbed,” Speier said of her experience serving on the House Intelligence Committee.
She added that to the extent US lawmakers are given selective information, “means that whistleblowers become incredibly powerful oracles of information.”
On Thursday, the US Senate declared July 30 as National Whistleblower Appreciation Day, to pay honor to US citizens who expose waste, fraud and abuse often at a high personal expense.
Following the 2013 intelligence leaks by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, Speier criticized the intelligence community for violating citizens’ privacy rights.
Snowden’s revelations of the massive, warrantless government surveillance program triggered an ongoing debate in the United States over the intelligence community’s overreach, and the protection of civil liberties.
