ABSTRACT
Proponents of a legal rights-based defense of whistleblowing argue that the legal right to freedom of expression – understood broadly as a right to seek, receive, use, and impart information – covers acts of whistleblowing. This chapter argues an individual legal rights-based defense of whistleblowing, because there can be no such thing as a legal right to break the law; the conception of rights involved in the defense deviates significantly from the common understanding of rights. It considers whether David Lefkowitz’s argument for a moral right to civil disobedience can be applied to the case of classified public whistleblowing. The chapter also argues that the degree of wrongdoing involved in wrongful exercises of a supposed moral right to whistleblowing forces to reject such a right. An individual legal rights-based defense does not, therefore, accurately explain the importance of whistleblowing, and it misrepresents reasons for wishing to offer justified cases of whistleblowing some protection.
