Public-interest defense
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Public-interest defense is the affirmative defense the Espionage Act does not permit. John Kiriakou explains that courts have ruled for a century that a defendant cannot get up and say "I did it, but I did it in the public interest", as Judge Leonie Brinkema put it, "you either did it or you didn't." He says Edward Snowden told him he was willing to come home and serve 10 or 20 years if he could explain his actions to a jury; Snowden hired Kiriakou's attorneys, who raised it with the Justice Department, and were told "absolutely not."

Kiriakou credits whistleblower attorney Jesselyn Radack, former head of ethics at the Justice Department, with teaching him the legal definition of whistleblowing: bringing to light evidence of waste, fraud, abuse, illegality, or a threat to public health or safety.

Advice to would-be whistleblowers

Given the reverse order of what he himself did, he hired an attorney only after he had already blown the whistle, Kiriakou now advises would-be whistleblowers to hire the best whistleblower-protection attorney they can find first, then take their concerns to the relevant oversight committees, and only go to the media, with the attorney present, if the oversight committees fail to act. He has also worked with the Australian organization Blueprint for Free Speech, which helped pass whistleblower-protection legislation in countries including Canada, Zambia, Jamaica, and the Czech Republic, and offered model legislative text to the Greek SYRIZA government in 2015.

See also

- Espionage Act
- Edward Snowden
