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Why You Should Care About National Whistleblower Appreciation Day

Posted  August 23, 2016

By Gordon Schnell

It’s sadly telling that last month National Whistleblower Appreciation Day (July 30) came and went with little notice let alone the fanfare it deserved. Obviously, we still have a long way to go in showing our appreciation for this undervalued group. But not for lack of trying, at least from Congress.  The U.S. Senate passed the resolution recognizing the special day on July 7 to honor whistleblowers for the critical role they play in protecting the country against fraud and misconduct.

July 30 was chosen to be the celebrated day because it was on this day in 1778 that the country’s original whistleblower law was first inked. The Continental Congress passed this resolution, without any recorded dissent, in response to the incarceration of two whistleblowers who had exposed the transgressions of the highest ranking US naval official of the time.  As part of the resolution, the newly formed government also agreed to pay for the legal defense of the whistleblowers who as it turned out were also the subject of another whistleblower first — the earliest recorded victims of whistleblower retaliation.

Here we are almost two and half centuries later pretty much unchanged with these two competing sides of the whistleblower paradigm. Click here for more.

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