Over recent years, whistleblowers have come forward to tell us about corporate and state corruption on a wide range of issues, from the misuse of surveillance technology by corporations and our own governments, the creation of offshore networks for tax evasion by the wealthy, and practices of rendition, torture and other war crimes by our own soldiers and allies in the so-called war on terror.
The information revealed by whistleblowers can prompt public debates, inquiries and subsequent major legal reforms. Whistleblower testimony has prompted investigations of those found to have broken the law, as well as revealing to us a deeper understanding of how the world really works. In our book, Perspectives on Whistleblowing, we have combined whistleblowers’ first-hand accounts with contributions from public-interest lawyers, journalists and activists to provide an insight into specific high-profile cases. The cases touch on a range of important ethical and legal issues, including the use of torture by state agencies (original insights from CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou and FCO whistleblower Craig Murray), the use of bribery by corporate actors (an account by Airbus whistleblower Ian Foxley), and major flaws in systems and laws that have been designed to protect whistleblowers and their legal and journalistic supporters (commentaries by Deepa Driver, Andrew Fowler and Robert Tibbo).
The cost of speaking out
These accounts also explore the impacts of retaliation against those who are courageous enough to speak out about what they have witnessed. In some cases, retaliation can extend to those who support whistleblowers. The experiences of journalist Julian Assange, who was subject to arbitrary detention for his work for WikiLeaks, Robert Tibbo, the lawyer who represented Edward Snowden in Hong Kong, and the Tibbo refugees who protected and hid him from the Chinese and American authorities illustrate the reach of such pressure.
Recent years have seen the emergence of institutions and mechanisms designed to support whistleblowers, including internal upspeak mechanisms, new whistleblower-protection legislation and new forms of journalism designed specifically to support and facilitate whistleblowing. New journalist organisations like WikiLeaks, The Intercept and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists have taken varied approaches to handling leaks, and support groups such as Compassion in Care and Protect in the UK, and the Government Accountability Project in the US have all worked to assist whistleblowers navigating retaliation and legal risk.
These stories often reveal the painful transformation whistleblowers undergo, suffering retaliation tactics ranging from social exclusion and smear campaigns used to discredit and undermine them, to more aggressive attacks, including imprisonment. Because of these experiences, many become involved in supporting other whistleblowers. Some have gone on to establish new support groups for whistleblowers, notably Eileen Chubb and Ian Foxley in the UK, and actively support investigative journalist efforts, such as Daniel Ellsberg’s Freedom of the Press Foundation and Craig Murray’s work with journalists at WikiLeaks.
Whistleblowing, human rights and the health of democracy
Human rights are a key foundation of many of the discussions. Whistleblowers are protected under Article 19 of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, which safeguards our freedom of expression and our right ‘to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers’. Whistleblowers often speak out to protect the human rights of others, such as the right to privacy (Snowden) and the freedom from torture and arbitrary detention (Kiriakou, Murray). These rights, established in the wake of World War II, form a cornerstone of modern post-World War II democracies.
When we see whistleblowers being undermined and attacked, we are witnessing direct threats to the fabric of democracy itself. A common observation across the many chapters in our new book is that despite the development of new laws to protect them, in practice, whistleblowers are often subject to intensified retaliation, including imprisonment (John Kiriakou, Chelsea Manning), torture (Chelsea Manning) and exile (Edward Snowden). Journalists working with whistleblowers have also been subject to increasingly severe forms of retaliation, including imprisonment and torture (Julian Assange) and assassination (Daphne Caruana Galizia).
New models of support and investigative journalism
Additional legislative and institutional support is urgently needed. Recent years have witnessed several bold experiments to create new forms of whistleblower support, heralded by WikiLeaks, which pioneered the use of a secure submission site to protect whistleblowers’ anonymity, as well as initiating the mass leaking of whistleblower disclosures to facilitate citizen journalism and our right to know. This has helped end illegal wars in the Middle East, supported those who have been subject to illegal rendition and torture, enabled the prosecution of tax evaders and shone a light on a range of social and environmental injustices.
Other forms of whistleblower journalism have emerged in the wake of WikiLeaks, such as the work of The Intercept in highlighting the civilian casualties of the US drone assassination programme and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists in revealing global networks of tax evasion in their release of the Panama and Paradise papers. These other forms of journalism have not permitted the same level of access to whistleblower disclosure as WikiLeaks, but they have endeavoured to protect the identities of their sources, with varying levels of success.
Why whistleblowers still matter
Whistleblowers must be protected. They often sacrifice their own welfare to protect others. They serve as a valuable mechanism of democratic oversight when other formal systems fail. They help to protect our basic human rights. They enrich our democracies by revealing information of great public interest concerning abuses of power by highly secretive corporate and state organisations. In a world of increasing concentration of financial, military and technological power, we are more reliant than ever on insiders for our protection. In turn, we need to do much more to protect them.
Iain Munro is Professor of Management at Newcastle University, UK.
Kate Kenny is Professor of Business and Society, University of Galway, Ireland
Perspectives on Whistleblowing edited by Iain Munro, Kate Kenny and Marianna Fotaki is available on the Bristol University Press website. Order here for £24.99.
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