WAndrew P. Bakaj is a Washington, DC attorney and former intelligence officer with the Central Intelligence Agency. He was the principal attorney representing the whistleblower who filed the initial complaint that led to the launch of multiple investigations by the United States Congress into the Trump–Ukraine scandal, the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, and, ultimately, the first Impeachment of Donald Trump.
WIn August 2015, intelligence analysts working for United States Central Command (CENTCOM) complained to the media, alleging that CENTCOM's senior leadership was altering or distorting intelligence reports on the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) to paint a more optimistic picture of the ongoing war against ISIL forces in Iraq and Syria.
WThe Cigarette Papers is a 1996 non-fiction book by Stanton A. Glantz (editor), John Slade (editor), Lisa A. Bero (editor), Peter Hanauer (editor), Deborah E. Barnes (editor), and C. Everett Koop (Foreword), analyzing leaked documents that for the first time proved "tobacco companies had long known the grave dangers of smoking, and did nothing about it." In May 1994, 4,000 pages of internal tobacco industry documents were sent to the office of Professor Stanton Glantz, a well-known anti-smoking activist, at the University of California, San Francisco. The source of these "cigarette papers" was identified only as Mr. Butts and was only later identified as Merrell Williams, Jr. The documents provide an inside look at the internal activities of American tobacco company, Brown & Williamson, over more than 30 years.
WThe Criminal Antitrust Anti-Retaliation Act of 2013 is a bill that would protect whistleblowers who report violations of United States antitrust law. The bill would have whistleblowers first file a retaliation claim with the United States Department of Labor before going to federal court. The bill passed the United States Senate during the 113th United States Congress.
WThe Department of Defense Whistleblower Program in the United States is a whistleblower protection program within the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) whereby DoD personnel are trained on whistleblower rights. The Inspector General's commitment fulfills, in part, the federal mandate to protect whistleblowers. It also administers the Defense Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Program (DICWP), as a sub-mission for the intelligence community. The Inspector General's Defense Criminal Investigative Service also conducts criminal investigations which rely, in part, on Qui Tam relators.
WTom Devine is a lawyer, investigator, lobbyist, teacher, and advocate for whistleblower rights. He is currently the legal director at the non-profit Government Accountability Project, in Washington, D.C.., where he has worked since 1979. He has assisted more than 7,000 whistleblowers, testified in Congress over 50 times, and has been a leader on the front lines to draft, enact, help to enact, or defend 34 whistleblower laws in the United States and abroad, including nearly all federal laws since 1978 and international rights ranging from former Soviet Bloc nations such as Kosovo, Serbia and Ukraine to the United Nations, World Bank, European Union, and Organization of American States. He is also an adjunct professor at the District of Columbia School of Law, where he teaches classes on and supervises clinical programs in whistleblower protection.
WKevin Gosztola is an American journalist and author known for work on whistleblowers cases, WikiLeaks, national security, andcivil liberties. He is managing editor of Shadowproof, where he writes The Dissenter. Previously, The Dissenter was part of Firedoglake (FDL). Gosztola has covered the court-martial of Chelsea Manning the case of John Kiriakou, and the extradition of Julian Assange.
WThe Pentagon Papers, officially titled Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force, is a United States Department of Defense history of the United States' political and military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967. The papers were released by Daniel Ellsberg, who had worked on the study; they were first brought to the attention of the public on the front page of The New York Times in 1971. A 1996 article in The New York Times said that the Pentagon Papers had demonstrated, among other things, that the Johnson Administration had "systematically lied, not only to the public but also to Congress."
WThe Sam Adams Award is given annually to an intelligence professional who has taken a stand for integrity and ethics. The Award is granted by the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence, a group of retired CIA officers. It is named after Samuel A. Adams, a CIA whistleblower during the Vietnam War, and takes the physical form of a "corner-brightener candlestick".
WThe U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) whistleblower program went into effect on July 21, 2010, when the President signed into law the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The same law also established a whistleblower incentive program at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to incentivize reporting of violations of the Commodity Exchange Act, which is run by former senior SEC enforcement attorney Christopher C. Ehrman. The SEC Whistleblower Program rewards people who submit tips related to violations of the federal securities laws. The program offers robust employment protections, monetary awards and the ability to report anonymously. SEC whistleblowers are entitled to awards ranging from 10 to 30 percent of the monetary sanctions collected, which are paid from a replenishing Investor Protection Fund. Since 2011, whistleblower tips have enabled the SEC to recover over $2 billion in financial penalties from wrongdoers. The SEC has awarded more than $700 million to whistleblowers.
WKevin Gosztola is an American journalist and author known for work on whistleblowers cases, WikiLeaks, national security, andcivil liberties. He is managing editor of Shadowproof, where he writes The Dissenter. Previously, The Dissenter was part of Firedoglake (FDL). Gosztola has covered the court-martial of Chelsea Manning the case of John Kiriakou, and the extradition of Julian Assange.
WEdward Joseph Snowden is an American former computer intelligence consultant who leaked highly classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA) in 2013 when he was an employee and subcontractor for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). His disclosures revealed numerous global surveillance programs, many run by the NSA and the Five Eyes Intelligence Alliance with the cooperation of telecommunication companies and European governments, and prompted a cultural discussion about national security and individual privacy.
WThe Trump–Ukraine scandal was a political scandal in the United States involving efforts by U.S. president Donald Trump to coerce Ukraine and other foreign countries into providing damaging narratives about 2020 Democratic Party presidential candidate Joe Biden as well as misinformation relating to Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. Trump enlisted surrogates within and outside his official administration, including his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Attorney General William Barr, to pressure Ukraine and other foreign governments to cooperate in supporting conspiracy theories concerning American politics. Trump blocked payment of a congressionally mandated $400 million military aid package to allegedly obtain quid pro quo cooperation from Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. Trump released the aid after becoming aware of a whistleblower complaint about his activities relating to Ukraine, before the complaint was known by Congress or the public. A number of contacts were established between the White House and the government of Ukraine, culminating in a phone call between Trump and Zelensky on July 25, 2019.
WTruth & Transparency Foundation is a whistleblowing organization inspired by WikiLeaks, which focuses on exposing documents from the leadership of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It began in October 2016 as a leaked series of videos on the YouTube channel Mormon Leaks. In total, 15 videos were initially leaked via the Mormon Leaks channel from meetings of high-ranking LDS leaders including the Quorum of the Twelve. They discussed topics including the "homosexual agenda", the subprime mortgage crisis, and a debate over the sexual orientation of Chelsea Manning. Politicians featured in the videos included former Utah governor Mike Leavitt and former U.S. Senator from Oregon Gordon H. Smith.
WThe University of North Carolina academic-athletic scandal involved alleged fraud and academic dishonesty committed at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). Following a lesser scandal that began in 2010 involving academic fraud and improper benefits with the university's football program, two hundred questionable classes offered by the university's African and Afro-American Studies department came to light. As a result, the university was placed on probation by its accrediting agency.
WThe Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989, 5 U.S.C. 2302(b)(8)-(9), Pub.L. 101-12 as amended, is a United States federal law that protects federal whistleblowers who work for the government and report the possible existence of an activity constituting a violation of law, rules, or regulations, or mismanagement, gross waste of funds, abuse of authority or a substantial and specific danger to public health and safety. A federal agency violates the Whistleblower Protection Act if agency authorities take retaliatory personnel action against any employee or applicant because of disclosure of information by that employee or applicant.
WA whistleblower is a person who exposes any kind of information or activity that is deemed illegal, unethical, or not correct within an organization that is either private or public. The Whistleblower Protection Act was made into federal law in the United States in 1989.
WThe Winkler County nurse whistleblower case was a series of legal proceedings in West Texas related to the retaliation against two nurses who submitted an anonymous state medical board complaint against a physician in 2009. The case attracted national attention for its implications on whistleblowing by nurses. After witnessing what they believed to be unsafe medical care, nurses Anne Mitchell and Vicki Galle submitted an anonymous complaint against Dr. Rolando Arafiles to the Texas Medical Board (TMB).