"As I continue to see the reference of leaks repeatedly in the media and the White House Communications Director... pledge to fire the leakers, I began to wonder if a leak was the same thing as a whistle-blower. According to an article written by Wayne Lee of VOA a leak is defined as a voluntary disclosure of classified information. The information is usually provided by an unidentified source whose objective is to make the information public. A whistle-blower, on the other hand, has the right to disclose information to anyone as long as this information is not classified... To make this leak vs. whistle-blower question even more confusing, when you research top whistle-blowers you get a list of whistle-blowers many of whom fall under the leaker classification than the whistle-blower classification because the individuals leaked classified information. So, I am back to my original question; are leakers and whistle-blowers the same? Legally no, but socially maybe they are."