WHISTLEBLOWERS
THE BOTTOM LINE
There is a huge spectrum here, so it's critical to distinguish between the different levels of whistleblowing.
Here is where it gets complicated: THE RIGHT Of Americans TO KNOW VERSUS NATIONAL SECURITY.
In 1971, Daniel Ellsberg released the Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force – otherwise known as the Pentagon Papers – a top-secret, seven-thousand-page Pentagon study of the U.S. government's decision-making process during the Vietnam War. The Pentagon Papers detailed massive policy and leadership failures. The revelations proved that the Johnson Administration lied to the public and the U.S. Congress about the scope of activity in Vietnam. Ellsberg disclosed information that the American people needed – and indeed had the right – to know.
This is where, in our mind, the line should be drawn. The line is discretion. Ellsberg's leak DID NOT include everything in the Vietnam report. For example, he omitted everything concerning ongoing diplomatic efforts, including those underway to safely release prisoners of war.
Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, and Julian Assange failed to use this discretion, and that is when they all crossed the line.
We believe comparing and contrasting the Pentagon Papers with Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, and Julian Assange's leaks is the best way to illustrate our position on this topic. Read more below.
When it comes to "whistleblowing," we are dealing with a huge spectrum of activities, so let's distinguish between the different levels of whistleblowing!
There is, of course, straightforward whistleblowing – much of which is protected by federal law. For example, the False Claims Act (a.k.a. the "Lincoln Law") is a law that targets individuals and/or companies who defraud governmental programs. The law includes something called a qui tam provision, which allows private individuals to file suit on behalf of the government (the person bringing the action is officially called a “relator” but they are really just a whistleblower). Under the False Claims Act, the U.S. Department of Justice collected over $2.8 billion in settlements/judgments involving fraud/false claims against the U.S. government in FY2018 alone. This brings the total collected to over $59 billion since 1986.
The Occupational Safety & Health Administration's (OSHA) Whistleblower Protection Program "enforces the whistleblower provisions of more than twenty whistleblower statutes protecting employees who report violations of various workplace safety and health, airline, commercial motor carrier, consumer product, environmental, financial reform, food safety, health insurance reform, motor vehicle safety, nuclear, pipeline, public transportation agency, railroad, maritime, and securities laws. Rights afforded by these whistleblower protection laws include, but are not limited to, worker participation in safety and health activities, reporting a work-related injury, illness or fatality, or reporting a violation of the statutes herein."
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) believes that people "who know of possible securities law violations can be among the most powerful weapons in the law enforcement arsenal of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Through their knowledge of the circumstances and individuals involved, whistleblowers can help the Commission identify possible fraud and other violations much earlier than might otherwise have been possible. That allows the Commission to minimize the harm to investors, better preserve the integrity of the United States' capital markets, and more swiftly hold accountable those responsible for unlawful conduct." And this can be super lucrative! "The Commission is authorized by Congress to provide monetary awards to eligible individuals who come forward with high-quality original information that leads to a Commission enforcement action in which over $1,000,000 in sanctions is ordered. The range for awards is between 10% and 30% of the money collected."
Ordinary people blowing extraordinary whistles include Mark Felt, or Deep Throat, who brought the Watergate scandal to light and ended Richard Nixon's presidency. Sherron Watkins, whose infamous memo to Enron founder Ken Lay warned of the company's nefarious accounting practices and the ultimate destruction of the company. Also Jeffrey Wigand, an American biochemist and former vice-president of research and development at tobacco company Brown & Williamson, who blew the whistle on the tobacco industry and its attempts to cover-up the documented link between cigarettes and lung cancer. In 2015, an anonymous source leaked what are known as the Panama Papers – 11.5 million documents that disclosed the financial information for over 214,000 offshore entities. The documents were taken from Mossack Fonseca & Co. which, at the time, was the fourth largest offshore financial services provider in the world.
The documents – which reveal how wealthy clients of Mossack Fonseca hid billions of dollars in tax havens – were originally given to the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, but eventually ended up in the hands of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which said of the papers: "The Panama Papers is one of the biggest leaks and largest collaborative investigations in journalism history. The Papers are a massive leak of documents that exposes the offshore holdings of 12 current and former world leaders and reveals how associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin secretly shuffled as much as $2 billion through banks and shadow companies. The records reveal a pattern of covert maneuvers by banks, companies and people tied to Russian leader Putin. The records show offshore companies linked to this network moving money in transactions as large as $200 million at a time. Putin associates disguised payments, backdated documents and gained hidden influence within the country’s media and automotive industries."
So, these whistleblowers all sound pretty defendable, right?!? But here is where it gets more complicated: THE RIGHT TO KNOW VERSUS NATIONAL SECURITY.
1787 believes comparing and contrasting the Pentagon Papers with Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, and Julian Assange's leaks is the best way to illustrate our position on this topic.