What is a Whistleblower? If the first person’s name who comes to mind is Edward Snowden, then his personal sacrifices coming forward about certain cyber-security truths were not in vain.
A whistleblower is a person who comes forward with the truth without the intent to achieve personal gain. Motivation is key when discussing whistleblowers, as “tattletales” are not the same.
Most are unjustly shunned and left socially isolated, victims of smear campaigns, and targeted relentlessly for personal and professional blacklisting (locally, nationally, as well as worldwide). A fortunate few, such as Snowdon, are taken in by other humanitarians who are in positions of wealth, social status, or power.
Edward Snowden’s name is one associated in a negative context related to whistleblowing because he broke NSA confidentiality rules. His Empath ideals led him to break his employment contract while he advocated in a humanitarian sense for the common global collective good.
According to the National Whistleblowers Center, whistleblowers are people who feel socially accountable to disclose hidden or covertly camouflaged truths to the general public or within a peer group for no reason other than to promote the common good.
The source both says and subsequently implies that a person who has and reports knowledge of illegal activities (or activities that can and should be seen as against the greater good and immoral in intent) is oftentimes targeted for retaliation by the person, organization, or a mobbing group of contemporaries he or she has publicly outed or let leak information that leaves them unable to hide.
Whistleblowers in corporate environments are often fired, blacklisted, and suffer serious financial and social harms. The same pattern rings true for whistleblowers in domestic violence settings, on playgrounds around the world where children bully in the schoolyard, and/or any time Narcissistic Abuse is identified.
Whether reporting waste, illegal activities like crime or fraud, mismanagement, con artists, abuse of power and authority roles, general wrongdoing, or that there exists something or someone who by nature of its or their own essence represent a “substantial danger or threat to public safety”, the person who blows the whistle is oftentimes the target of much wrath from guilty parties or those who choose to engage in acts of mobbing while acting like Flying Monkeys.
Reporting bad conduct of other people is the origin of the pithy catchphrase, “Please don’t kill the messenger!” It’s an age-old historical problem all human beings have dealt with throughout history.
Famous examples of whistleblowers include men and women like Edward Snowden. Noting he’s guilty of being an American who reported the NSA is spying unlawfully on Americans and abusing their power, he’s been called a traitor.
The following list of people are famous whistleblowers:
- Karen Silkwood — died in 1974 under mysterious circumstances after challenging Kerr-McGee about the safety of their nuclear facility
- Frank Serpico — NYC police officer attempted to confront rampant corruption within the police department; he was played by actor Al Pacino in the 1973 movie called “Serpico” if you are interested in learning more about what whistleblowers go through after revealing the truth about corrupt organizations socially and politically speaking (he left the force after being “accidentally” shot in the face during a botched drug raid)
- Mark Felt — FBI figure known as “Deep Throat” in the Watergate scandal that brought down U.S. President Richard Nixon
- Daniel Ellsberg — State Department employee who leaked Pentagon papers that revealed how the United States came to fight in the Vietnam War (here’s a clue — nobody was there for the right reasons)
- Jeffrey Wigand — Former Tobacco company executive who went on the television show “60 Minutes” and claimed back in 1996 that tobacco companies were and remain fully aware they are packing their products with cancer-causing agents and highly addictive amounts of the drug known as nicotine
- Colleen Rowley — FBI special agent who alleged that the agency failed to act on known “intel” (intelligence) related to the attacks on September 11, 2001; she alleged the agency could have prevented life loss but purposefully and knowingly did not
- Sherron Watkins — Enron executive blew the whistle on corporate fraud and financial abuse of shareholders as well as all citizen paying tax dollars in the United States
Snowden is reportedly living in Russia under the protection of Vladimir Putin. He still appears to be an American patriot, but one who sees past nationalism in such a way that preserves, protects, and prevents those claiming to be good citizens from enacting gross human rights violations.
Rebel children in toxic families are persecuted socially and emotionally much the same way as corporate whistleblowers, only attacks tend to be more “in your face” and personal.
Children who refuse to conform to toxic parents’ rituals are the most likely to become whistleblowers both in the home and once they are old enough to seek psychological and spiritual help in order to recover from the abuse they have witnessed or personally suffered.
