POGO -- whistleblowers
In 1778, the Continental Congress unanimously sided with a group of sailors aboard the USS Warren who reported the gross misconduct of the Continental Navy's commander in chief. After removing the commander from power, in part to shield the sailors from retaliation, legislators enacted what many scholars believe to be the first whistleblower protections in the world. When the ousted commander struck back — suing the men and getting two of them jailed — Congress stood with the whistleblowers, paid for their defense, and they won. At nearly 250 years old, whistleblower protections in America are as old as the country itself. As Americans, we protect people who come forward with the truth. Because when truth-tellers are intimidated into silence, acts of corruption, waste, and abuse remain government secrets. Since our very founding, POGO has been working to build on early American legislators’ original commitment to whistleblowers by making sure people who come forward ...
