A Whistleblower is any person who gives out any information that is illegal, unethical, or not correct in either an organization whether private or public or government’s information; the information can be either a threat to the public interest or the national security (Near,1985). A person can choose to become a whistleblower; becoming a whistleblower may be risking as the individual should be ready to face retaliation if accused of wrongdoing. There are set laws and regulations which protect the whistleblowers; many whistleblowers face legal charges, termination from any position, social stigma, and criminal charges. There has been an ongoing debate among whistleblowers where some people support them while others are against them. Supporters argue that whistleblowers should have right to freedom of speech as their aims are to protect the public the public from government manipulation. The opponents claim that whistleblowing is unethical and as they pass on confidential information to the people who should not know about the information especially if the information is sensitive.
Whistleblowers should have their rights and should be protected by the; they help to ensure that the government is transparent to its citizens as they expose any form of misconduct, fraud or corruption acts by the government (Vanden, 2013). This helps in ensuring that the government performs its duties moderately without any fault due to fear of being exposed. Whistleblowers are seen as people who cause great harm and damages people's trust; many whistleblowers as referred to as traitors and treason is punishable by death in many countries something which has raised up was on whistleblowing. In the United States, former President Barrack Obama was committed to transparency in his government and passed out a Protection Enhancement Act which protected whistleblowers and encouraged them to speak up without any fear. Obama’s act was to help and support the democracy of the nation by giving anyone freedom to say anything as long as he/she is sure that what she/he says is true.
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Espionage Act is a Unites States federal law passed in June 1917; it was adopted shortly after U.S entered into a World War I; the act keeps on being amended. The Espionage Act was passed to so as to prohibit interference with the military recruitment or its operations; the Espionage Act prohibits many kinds of speech such as disloyal, profane or use of any abusive language about the government of the United States (Harold & Benno, 1973). President Obama’s administration when it amended the Espionage Act, it was seen as it was attacking many whistleblowers since the Act is all about prohibiting people from different types of speech which are perceived as denying whistleblowers their rights to freedom of speech (Devine, 2013). The Espionage Act kept many whistleblowers silent as anything said against the government or a top secret made known to the public is a crime and is punishable by law. This meant that the people who had decided to be whistleblowers cannot say anything or cannot correct the government if in case it does the things the wrong way because such an act is an offense.
Many people opposed this and saw this as a way of silencing people and denying them freedom of speech and expression; there is nothing wrong an individual or a whistleblower does when for example a person reveals government misconduct. Revealing an official misconduct is not a crime although in America many people suffer by exposing the truth to the public and such people are referred to as traitors. Whistleblowers are individuals who have dedicated their lives to fight for the civil rights and make them known to anything concerning their countries, and thus laws should be put in place to protect them and encourage them to speak up.
References
Devine, Ted. (2013). " Obama's dangerously contradictory stance on whistle blowing ." The Guardian .
Harold, Edgar. & Benno, Schmidt.(1973). " The Espionage Statutes and the Publication of Defense Information," Columbia Law Review .
Near, Janet . (1985). "Organizational dissidence: The case of whistle-blowing. " Journal of Business Ethics.
Vanden, Katrina. (2013). "Don't confuse truth-tellers with traitors. " The Washington Post .
