Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Blow the Whistle!

Blow the whistle!

 (1)
Telling the truth is a hard thing to do. Have you ever been in a situation where it was hard to tell the truth? The truth hurts sometimes, but telling the truth means you are honest. When you tell the truth, someone might be hurt, but when you tell the truth you are able to tell reality from fiction. When we are informed about what is true and what is false, we can make informed decisions about what happened. This helps us figure out what is right and wrong, what we call 'ethics'. Sometimes when you tell the truth in school, you are called a tattletale. You might also get a lot of attention or make people talk about what happened. Adults get called mean names and even worse when they tell the truth about bad things that happen at their job, like corruption or wrongdoing. When adults tell the truth about illegal or bad things in their work, we call them whistleblowers. Whistleblowers who you might have heard of are Edward Snowden, Upton Sinclar, and even Benjamin Franklin. They are truth tellers who make a LOT of noise telling the truth, just like when you blow a whistle!


What exactly is a whistleblower?
According the Government Accountability Project, a whistleblower is "an employee who discloses information that s/he reasonably believes is evidence of general wrongdoing or a specific danger to public health and safety" (4). A whistleblower does the same job you do when you tell the truth to your teacher or parent. Some whistleblowers, like Upton Sinclair, wrote a book telling people about the food factories in Chicago. He drew attention to the wrongful treatment of workers and helped make the working conditions better. Other whistleblowers like Edward Snowden illegally leaked files, but did it for the public. Whistleblowers do not always choose to become whistleblowers. Most do it because of their ethics, or their judgement of right and wrong, because they know know inside them what their bosses did was unethical. Whistleblowers help us Americans and voters to know facts from fiction.

What happens to whistleblowers?
(2)
When a gym teacher or a coach blow the whistle, they do it to get everyone's attention. Whistleblowers try to do the same thing - build attention tell the public (me and you!) about an injustice or wrongdoing. A few things happen to someone after they blow the whistle. The person who blew the whistle is often treated by their friends and coworkers like a tattletale! Telling the truth for adults is just as hard as telling the truth in the classroom! However, for adult whistleblowers, telling the truth can mean loosing their career or even jail time. Edward Snowden faces both after showing the world about mass surveillance, but says "I may have lost my ability to travel... But I've gained the ability to go to sleep at night and put my head on the pillow and feel comfortable that I've done the right thing even when it was the hard thing" (5).   Even though whistleblowers pursue the truth, they still face backlash. Despite the many consequences to whistleblowing, whistleblowers do it for the greater good.

What happens after someone blows the whistle?
(3)
When a whistleblower discloses corruption or wrongdoing, the consequences for a company or the government are high.  First, they face the people, or the public. If it is a company, then people might stop buying their products. The company might also face fines or protests. Many companies take whistleblowing seriously, but in the company they might seem like a tattletale! However, laws help protect private whistleblowers (companies) and public whistleblowers. There are many ways to legally report whistleblowing to the government. In addition to legal whistleblowers, some like Edward Snowden illegally leaked information. The government has classified (or secret) documents that he leaked (or uploaded to the internet) to journalists. For people like him, The Courage Foundation says they receive charges under the 1917 Espionage Act, a law that is very harsh (6). Some people who leak classified files like Chelsea Manning get 35 years in jail under this law (7). While what they did was illegal, they say it is the right (or ethical) thing to do. In every case from, after someone blows the whistle, it draws a LOT of attention!


A search for Truth
The goal of almost every whistleblower is to show the truth. Without the truth, we can't separate fact from fiction and make informed decisions. Telling the truth may be a hard thing to do, but it is the right thing to do when unethical choices are made. From the classroom to the the newsroom, we need to always search out the truth! 

 References 




(3) Government Accountability Project. (2016). What is a Whistleblower?

(4) Cole, M., Esposito R., Dedman B., Schone M. (2014, May 28). Edward Snowden's Motive 
Retrieved from
(5) The Courage Foundation. (n.d.) Threats overview.
(6) Pilkington, E. (2015, December 24). Chelsea Manning Spends Sixth Christmas in Prison with No End in Sight. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/24/chelsea-manning-christmas-prison-whistleblower-wikileaks 
 
 

 


 











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