At the time of Snowden blowing the whistle, U.S. Law provided no whistleblower protection to employees of national security agencies. Which were the exception as whistleblower protections were in place for employees of most other federal agencies. Even after President Obama's signing of PPD-19, the directive failed to protect whistleblowers in the CIA, NSA, and DNI. To quote the directive: “This directive is not intended to and does not create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law.” Which essentially means that any of the federal agencies previously listed can violate the rights established by PPD-19 with the whistleblower being unable to oppose it. Procedues for the directive were not practiced until July of 2013, already after Snowden blew the whistle.

Unfortunately, whistleblowers in the intelligence community still can face retaliation and have no provided protection from superiors in both their respective agency and in the federal government. The only observed effect of the Espionage Act and PPD-19 was that of preventing whistleblowers from being able to relay information to relevant channels.