Forty years to the day that the New York Times began publication of the Pentagon Papers, Mr. Stephen M. Kohn, Executive Director of the National Whistleblowers Center, writes an enlightening article in the Times about our founding fathers and their actions that established America's first whistleblower-protection law.
"That it is the duty of all persons in the service of the United States, as well as all other inhabitants thereof, to give the earliest information to Congress or any other proper authority of any misconduct, frauds or misdemeanors committed by any officers or persons in the service of these states, which may come to their knowledge."
The genesis of this law was the reporting by 10 revolutionary sailors and marines that their commander of the Continental Navy, Commodore Esek Hopkins, had participated in the "inhuman and barbarous" treatment of captured British sailors. This occurred during the winter of 1777, a time during which warship Warren was anchored near Providence, R.I. The men accusing Commodore Hopkins included 10 sailors and marines that were engaged in the revolutionary war. They met on the Warren in order to discuss their issues about the commander, knowing full well the risks they faced, considering that Hopkins was from a very powerful New England family.
The result of their petition, presented to the Continental Congress by a Marine Captain named John Grannis, was that the Continental Congress voted in March of 1777 to suspend Hopkins from his post.
Hopkins, who was furious with the suspension, retaliated with the filing of a criminal libel suit in Rhode Island against the whistleblowers. Two of Hopkins' accusers, who were in Rhode Island at the time, were jailed. In July of 1778 the men pleaded that they had been "arrested for doing what they then believed and still believe was nothing but their duty." The result of their pleading was Congress' enacting of the whistleblower-protection law. Congress went another step further by authorizing payment for the legal fees of the two men, thereby ensuring that the whistle-blowers could have the funds for legal counsel to fight the libel charges.
Mr. Kohn's article makes the point that, "Congress did not hide behind government secrecy edicts, even though the nation was at war. Instead, it authorized the full release of all records related to the removal of Hopkins. No "state secret" privilege was invoked. The whistle-blowers did not need to use a Freedom of Information act to obtain documents to vindicate themselves. There was no attempt to hide the fact that whistle-blowers had accused a Navy commander of mistreating prisoners."
Two hundred years later, the Supreme Court justice William O. Douglas reiterated the meaning of the first amendment and praised our founders' commitment to freedom of speech. He wrote, "The dominant purpose of the First Amendment was to prohibit the widespread practice of government suppression of embarrassing information."
However, just in the last 20 years, laws that were in place to protect federal employee whistleblowers have unraveled. The government now has the right to "strip employees of their security clearances and fire them, without judicial review." Another loophole affects employees of the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency by barring them from any coverage under the law. Finally, national security whistle-blowers, fired for uncovering and exposing wrongdoing, are barred from obtaining protection in federal court.
Our current administration continues to aggressively pursue leakers such as Thomas A. Drake, a former official at the National Security Agency and Bradley E. Manning, an Army private. Drake just plead guilty to a misdemeanor claiming misuse of the agency's computer system by providing information to a reporter and Manning is suspected of passing classified data to Wiki Leaks and has been imprisoned based on these allegations since May of 2010.
Kohn closes the article with, "Instead of ignoring and intimidating whistle-blowers, Congress and the executive branch would do well to follow the example of the Continental Congress, by supporting and shielding them."
Source:
The Whistle-Blowers of 1777, The New York Times, June 12, 2011
