When reading about the prompt for this post, a lot of different sections caught my eye and really made me curious as to what they specifically are. But one term that I decided to roll with was the term "Whistleblowers." Personally I have never heard of this thing before, and I really wanted to investigate and see what I could find. So, here is the basic term: A whistleblower is a person who exposes secretive information or activity that is deemed illegal, unethical, or not correct within a private or public organization. Basically, it is a person that has certain information about a subject that is very illegal so that they group or organization who may be taking part in that act is charged and justice is put to it.
That term was the basic "google" term that first popped up when I went to the internet, however another website that I investigated into is the website: whistleblower.org. This is a website that has a timeline of all the famous incidents of people being "whistleblowers." They have events dating back to Benjamin Franklin's lifetime! For example, in 1773, confidential letters exposed by Benjamin Franklin himself proved that the governor of Massachusetts misled Parliament to promote a military buildup in the new world. The governor was dishonorably discharged and exiled for his actions. Another famous event was in 1977. Frank Camps who at the time was a senior principal design engineer with Ford Motor Company, warns Ford the design of the Pinto is unsafe. The vehicle is later withdrawn from the market after numerous accidents result in burn injuries due to the its flawed design. As well as that, in that same year, Frank Snepp, a CIA analyst at the US Embassy in Saigon, published "Decent Interval" about Operation Frequent Wind and failure to prepare for the fall of Saigon. Names, methods and sources were redacted from the book, but CIA Director Stansfield Turner had Snepp prosecuted for breach of contract, resulting in the loss of all income from the book's publication.
So when you think about it, I originally thought that this term would be someone who is doing harm, or doing something illegal. However, whistleblowers are real hero's in this sense. They are helping businesses, saving lives, and doing the right and noble thing by telling the truth. That is something that not a lot of people can do now a days, and it is truly a terrible thing. But I applaud everyone who has ever stood up and told to the truth about something that is not right. It is not easy, but it is definitely something that needs to be done more often.
Sources: https://whistleblower.org/timeline-us-whistleblowers/?gclid=Cj0KCQjw7qn1BRDqARIsAKMbHDYE5CcNzn8-kgcKduMTGa9W2skvB7FgK9YroHhvmMwyNz-RUGmbn-waAgOrEALw_wcB
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistleblower
No comments:
Post a Comment