Whistleblower of the Year

2021 Whistleblower of the Year Goes to... Reality Winner

The results are in, and Constantine Cannon’s 2021 Whistleblower of the Year award goes to Reality Winner.  She is the former military contractor who publicly released a top-secret NSA intelligence report about Russia’s attempt to infiltrate the 2016 U.S. Presidential election.  For doing so, Winner was ordered to serve the longest sentence (five years and three months) ever imposed for disclosing classified...

Vote Here Now for the 2021 Whistleblower of the Year

THANK YOU FOR VOTING FOR THE 2021 WHISTLEBLOWER OF THE YEAR. POLLS ARE NOW CLOSED AND WE ARE PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE THAT REALITY WINNER IS OUR 2021 WINNER!

Whistleblower Insider wants to hear from you on who should be honored as our 2021 Whistleblower of the Year.  As in past years, we are especially interested in those individuals who best encapsulate the qualities of the typical whistleblower — courage,...

2021 Whistleblower of the Year Candidate - Daniel Ellsberg and The GroundTruth Project

Earlier this year we celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of one of the seminal moments in whistleblower history:  the publication, starting on June 13, 1971, of the “Pentagon Papers,” a 47-volume top-secret history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, based on classified documents, leaked by Daniel Ellsberg, a former U.S. Marine and military analyst for the RAND Corporation.  The papers revealed that four...

2021 Whistleblower of the Year Candidate - Reality Winner

In 2017, Reality Winner shared with the public a top-secret intelligence report from the NSA about Russia’s attempt to infiltrate the 2016 U.S. Presidential election process.  The report indicated that Russian hackers accessed voter registration polls with an email phishing operation, potentially undermining the integrity of the election. At the time, Winner was a military contractor for Pluribus International...

2021 Whistleblower of the Year Candidate - Facebook Whistleblower Frances Haugen

When identifying this year's possible Whistleblower of the Year candidates, Frances Haugen was perhaps the most obvious pick.  Everyone around the globe knows her story by now.  She is the former Facebook data scientist who several months ago – with the help of a cache of internal company documents – spoke out against what she sees as the perilous path Facebook has taken in broadening the reach of its social...

2021 Whistleblower of the Year Candidate - Ifeoma Ozoma

Pinterest might seem harmless, with its boards upon boards of dessert recipes and do-it-yourself rustic chic wedding favors. But, according to Ifeoma Ozoma, the tech company harbored a festering internal culture of racism and misogyny. While Ozoma blew the whistle in 2020, her experiences have lead her to become an advocate for whistleblowers.  For her whistleblowing and her continued advocacy, we nominate Ozuma as a...

2021 Whistleblower of the Year Candidate - Phil Saviano

“He refuses to be silent.” That was the headline for the Boston Globe’s 1990s-piece reporting Phil Saviano had denied a settlement with confidentiality terms meant to prevent him from speaking out about the sexual abuse he endured in his youth. Thirty years after he was molested by a priest named Father Holley in Worcester, Massachusetts, Saviano became one of the first survivors to blow the whistle on sexual...

2021 Whistleblower of the Year Candidate - Alex Vlasov

Hollywood’s world of fictional fame and fortune produces few real-life whistleblowers; Alex Vlasov is an exception.  But he doesn’t work for a film studio, music company, or media conglomerate.  For nine years he worked in private security, for a company called Black Box Security in Woodland, California.  With a client roster of Hollywood personalities, “staffed by former elite members of the Israeli...

Our Whistleblower of the Year Nominations for 2021 are Coming Soon

It is that time of year again when Whistleblower Insider asks for its readers to help select the Whistleblower of the Year.  As in past years, we are interested in showcasing the individuals who best encapsulate the qualities of the typical whistleblower — courage, strength, integrity, selflessness, and a deep concern for public health and safety.  Voting begins in mid-December with the winners announced in...

2020 Whistleblower of the Year Goes to... Rebekah Jones

The results are in and Constantine Cannon's 2020 Whistleblower of the Year award goes to Rebekah Jones.  She is the former data scientist for the Florida Department of Health who was fired for what she claims was her refusal to manipulate COVID-19 tracking data to support a political push to reopen Florida after less than a month of quarantine.  Later on, she went to create her own website to provide what she...