Quotes & Sayings About Whistleblowers

One thing I learned as a journalist is that there is at least one disgruntled person in every workplace in America
and at least double that number with a conscience. Hard as they try, they simply can't turn their heads away from an injustice when they see one taking place. — Michael Moore

The world is not kind to whistleblowers - a term of art with particular resonance in football, the most hierarchical and repressive of organized sports, a world of 'systems' and 'programs' and scripted plays, where reading a medical report requires a security clearance, and practice fields are patrolled like Guantanamo Bay. — Jane Leavy

Most Swiss banks do have a whistleblower program, but they use it to punish those who avail themselves of it. — Herve Falciani

Based on Tor, which is what they all use. Which was written by the United States Naval Research Laboratory, ironically. To provide a safe haven for political dissidents and whistleblowers, all around the world. Which is the law of unintended consequences, right there, biting the world in the ass. Tor stands for The Onion Router. Because that's what we're dealing with here. Layers upon layers upon layers, like the layers of an onion, in the Deep Web itself, and inside all of its separate sites. — Lee Child

When whistleblowers come forward, we need to fight for them, so others will be encouraged. When they are gagged, we must be their voice. When they are hunted, we must be their shield. When they are locked away, we must free them. Giving us the truth is not a crime. This is our data, our information, our history. We must fight to own it. — Sara Harrison

Whistleblowers get fired and shot or crack up. You have to decide what you want to do. Do you want a career, or do you want to be an advocate? And where I've been an advocate, I do it not in my backyard. If I'm going to fight, I don't do it in the backyard. In other words, I can get more done by not doing it in the backyard. I can train my students in the right way to do things. — Robert Greene

Note well that investigative journalism springs mostly from two sources: whistleblowers' leaks and beat reporters' expertise. — Jeff Jarvis

Whistleblowers are typically rendered incommunicado, either because they're in hiding, or advised by their lawyers to stay silent, or imprisoned. As a result, the public hears only about them, but never from them, which makes their demonization virtually inevitable. — Glenn Greenwald

Curmudgeons speak up because they have to, because it's become critically important for them to tell the truth as they see it. Telling the truth is as natural to them once more as it was when they were children. The fact that no one cares to listen is inconsequential. Curmudgeons speak up, raise their voices, stand for something too right to be silent about anymore, whatever the cost, despite a world that deals with what it doesn't want to hear by crucifying the messenger.

Increasingly these days, they're being called by another name: whistleblower. — Lionel Fisher

The sad truth is that societies that demand whistleblowers be martyrs often find themselves without either, and always when it matters the most. — Edward Snowden

Dog's owners don't call me. It's their neighbors or family members. We call them the whistleblowers, but it's more like the pack. It's making sure that one pack member gets in line. Before it was the owners, now it's the community. — Cesar Millan

Often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government is an existing government employee committed to public integrity and willing to speak out. Such acts of courage and patriotism, which can sometimes save lives and often save taxpayer dollars, should be encouraged rather than stifled. We need to empower federal employees as watchdogs of wrongdoing and partners in performance. — Barack Obama

People don't realize that the Obama Administration has been, if anything, harder on whistleblowers than the Bush Administration. Part of the reason is that they know that the response will be more muted because the traditional constituency supporting whistleblowers just happen to be the same constituency as Obama's. — Jonathan Turley

The vast literature concerning whistleblowers shows that, far from weird extremists, they are really quite ordinary people: male and female, young and old, junior and senior, no more nerdy or obsessive than most hard workers. — Margaret Heffernan

I got more whistleblowers from the Secret Service than I do anywhere else. And if you look at that department and agency, it's the one place you can never, ever, ever make a mistake - ever. — Jason Chaffetz

It is afraid of an informed, angry public demanding the constitutional government it was promised - and it should be. — Edward Snowden

I wish all those involved in the Wikileaks matter in the spirit of truth (rather than as a cheap opportunity to screw with a .gov they dislike) the very best. I hope that they'll bear in mind that truth is not some pure thing that brings light and scatters rose petals wherever it goes. It can hurt people that don't deserve to be hurt. It has thorns. Treat it gently.
(From an open letter.) — Adrian Lamo

In the Enron scandal, whistleblower Sherron Watkins is now calling herself Enron Brokovitch. She testified Ken Lay was duped by the other executives. Oh, yeah. When is the last time you got duped and made $100 million? — Jay Leno

Senators from his own party soon began to warn that Obama was secretly expanding the government's surveillance powers even beyond those authorized by Bush. Obama allowed the civil liberties panel that was supposed to provide oversight of the government's war on terror to remain idle and only partially staffed for years. His administration launched a draconian crackdown on the press, spying on reporters while prosecuting more leakers and whistleblowers than all previous administrations combined. — James Risen

It's not everyday that a whistleblower is actually willing to be identified. — Laura Poitras

Edward Snowden: The Whistleblower Behind the NSA Surveillance Revelations — Glenn Greenwald

Whistleblowers is another aspect that needs to be addressed. We have to restore the protections of whistleblowers and also the encouragement and rewards. It shouldn't just be that they don't get crucified; it should be that they are again folk heroes, or celebrated for bringing critical matters to public attention, as opposed to traitors. — Ted Gup

I have another name for what they're terming whistleblowers, and that's righteous heroes. From Bradley Manning to Snowden. They're people of conscience who are unwilling to turn a blind eye to the crimes of our government. And thank goodness for them. — Tom Morello

Specific protection must be granted to human rights defenders and whistleblowers who have in some contexts been accused of being unpatriotic, whereas they perform, in reality, a democratic service to their countries and to the enjoyment of human rights of their compatriots. — Alfred-Maurice De Zayas

For future Snowdens, we want to show there is an organization that will do what we did for Snowden - as much as possible - in raising money for legal defense and public advocacy for whistleblowers so they know if they come forward there is a support group for them. — Sarah Harrison

If you expose what it is that we're doing, if you inform your fellow citizens about all the things that we're doing in the dark, we will destroy you. This is what their spate of prosecutions of whistleblowers have [sic] been about. It's what trying to threaten journalists, to criminalize what they do, is about. It's to create a climate of fear, so that nobody will bring accountability to them.
It's not going to work. I think it's starting to backfire, because it shows their true character and exactly why they can't be trusted to operate with power in secret. And we're certainly not going to be deterred by it in any way. The people who are going to be investigated are not the people reporting on this, but are people like Dianne Feinstein and her friends in the National Security Agency, who need investigation and transparency for all the things that they've been doing. — Glenn Greenwald

We're definitely in an era where the government wants to keep more secrets and it wants to come after anyone who's exposing those secrets and in many cases exposing government illegality. They're coming after the journalists and they're coming after the whistleblowers. It's not a good sign if the government is expending much energy trying to find out who journalists are talking to. — Laura Poitras

We have a way of dealing with information that has sort of personal - personally identifying information in it. But there are legitimate secrets - you know, your records with your doctor; that's a legitimate secret. But we deal with whistleblowers that are coming forward that are really sort of well motivated. — Julian Assange