Sorry, I think I wasn't clear. I meant making the activities that people blow the whistle on legal/clearly defined as expected practice, rather than whistleblowing itself. If as a country we're OK with doing X and not with people whistleblowing about the country doing X, then we should make X clearly defined as legal.
I don't think we should make these things legal, personally, but I think they should either be legal so whistleblowing doesn't make sense or illegal and whistleblowing is encouraged.
We have made surveillance legal, and provided a framework of protections, under Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act.
Before RIPA we had a bunch of different public bodies using surveillance with little control over what they were doing. After RIPA they can still use surveillance if they follow the correct procedures, and some of the abuses were reigned in.
The police especially have strong powers to use surveillance.
And so something that falls entirely within both the letter and spirit of those regulations wouldn't be something a person would have protections for 'whistleblowing', right? Since it's not really whistleblowing in those cases.
I don't think we should make these things legal, personally, but I think they should either be legal so whistleblowing doesn't make sense or illegal and whistleblowing is encouraged.