EOTO #2

WHISTLEBLOWING

    The concept of whistleblowing is one that has progressed over the 20th and 21st centuries due to the advancement in digital media. Simply, whistleblowing is the act of someone who has the knowledge and releases insider information about illegal activities inside of a workplace or organization. Whistleblowers could be anyone including employees, contractors, suppliers, or customers that report on sketchy behavior by the business in question. There are several people that would compare whistleblowing to snitching, however the act of whistleblowing is protected by the government through programs created by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Federally, all employees are protected through law by the Whistleblower Protection Act of 2012. 

    The origins of this term dates back to the early 19th century where it originally had a negative connotation behind it until famous political activist Ralph Nader shifted its tone to a positive one. The term is conjoined by the words "whistle", which is used to alert someone, and "blower" which is the person sending out the message. One may have a misconception of this term as it's used in other aspects including sports. When someone hears the word 'whistleblower', the most assumption is that they're referring to a referee at a sporting event. However, both contexts of the term make sense because a referee is meant to call out illegal plays which is a direct mirror of whistleblowing in politics or sketchy businesses. 

The most infamous of whistleblowing in our American history is that of the Watergate scandal involving former President Richard Nixon. The man that can be seen on the left is W. Mark Felt, also known as "Deep Throat" for his role as a whistleblower. Felt was the second-in-charge in the FBI at the time, and was constantly leaking information to Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein who reported the alleged scandal in their book "All the President's Men". Felt would not let Woodward and Bernstein directly quote him even after Nixon had resigned two months after the burglars were arrested on June 17, 1972. The entire situation was full of corruption and collusion between the Nixon administration and the FBI, as the director of the FBI was hired by Nixon then fired shortly after information came out that Gray was attempting to cover up recordings of one of the co-conspirators of Watergate. Mark Felt went under the alias of "Deep Throat" until 2005 which is truly astonishing. Felt even denied the truth to his friends and family for 30 years until he was quoted in a Vanity Fair article saying "I'm the guy they used to call Deep Throat".

    Another memorable whistleblower was Sherron Watkins, who was an employee at Enron, an energy-trading and utility company. Watkins came out and exposed Enron for their fraudulent accounting practices which ultimately put them out of business. This incident led to new legislation including the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 which created stricter regulations for a businesses' record-keeping and invoked criminal punishments for any violators. Lots of companies have measures put in place for employees to report sketchy activities, which leads to rewards for those whistleblowers. Some whistleblowers are given a percentage of the government's recuperation funds which gives incentive for those to report on these issues. However, lots of these whistleblowers use illegal methods to obtain and report such information, it has become a lot less common to give out rewards for whistleblowing.