Abuse terminology? Apply the label of civil disobedience incorrectly?
I'm unsure if you read the post or not, but I specifically address this. There is a long-standing recognition of indirect civil disobedience--e.g., violating law A to bring attention to the unjust nature of law B because you cannot, or choose not to, directly violate law B. You're thinking inside the box of only direct civil disobedience--e.g., refusing to give up your seat on the bus to a white man even though the law requires you to do so.
It is still civil disobedience, and I think far more civil disobedience than whistleblowing, yet another label that has been used to label Snowden.
Fair enough -- I did miss that comment about indirect civil disobedience. I don't really have a perspective on that, because I can't think of any examples of it, but it seems like a stretch to apply that specific label; thereby diluting (in my mind) the meaning of the term Civil Disobedience. If we add the qualifier of "indirect", then it seems that the scope becomes unnecessarily large. But I think I would need more examples of this to that aren't similar to whistleblowing to understand why we need to introduce the term "direct civil disobedience" where "civil disobedience" seems to suit fine. You give a concrete example for "direct" civil disobedience, but not one for "indirect".
Why don't we like "whistleblowing"? It seems that this exactly describes what he did. Is there a connotation associated with whistleblowing that I'm not aware of? I thought whistleblowing was considered an admirable thing in and of itself. I mean, you have to acknowledge that what he did was _at least_ whistleblowing, even if it was more than "just" whistleblowing.
I'm unsure if you read the post or not, but I specifically address this. There is a long-standing recognition of indirect civil disobedience--e.g., violating law A to bring attention to the unjust nature of law B because you cannot, or choose not to, directly violate law B. You're thinking inside the box of only direct civil disobedience--e.g., refusing to give up your seat on the bus to a white man even though the law requires you to do so.
It is still civil disobedience, and I think far more civil disobedience than whistleblowing, yet another label that has been used to label Snowden.