Other Countries' Experience
In the United States, Daniel Ellsberg leaked the 'Pentagon Papers' to the New York Times in 1971, documenting U.S. foreign-policy failures and deceit in Vietnam from 1945 to 1968. Although Ellsberg was hailed as a courageous patriot for his actions, this episode did not lead to any protection for whistleblowers.
In 1978 during Congressional hearings into Medicare and Medicaid, members were shocked by the extent of fraud reported, and new anti-corruption legislation was passed. The Inspectors General Act created Inspectors General with a high degree of independence and strong investigative powers to act on information received from employees. The Civil Service Reform Act created the Merit Systems Protection Board, with an Office of the Special Counsel (OSC) authorized to protect federal employees who suffered reprisals as a result of reporting wrongdoing. These laws acknowledged for the first time the vital importance of whistleblowers to maintaining an effective public service.
After the 1986 Challenger Shuttle disaster, the public was startled by the revelation that three NASA engineers had tried unsuccessfully to draw attention to known safety problems with the Shuttle. These warnings had been ignored by NASA senior management, and as a direct result the lives of seven astronauts were lost. There was public outrage when these engineers, having already been harrassed for their efforts, were demoted after testifying to the Presidential Commission on the disaster. This experience led to the Whistleblower Protection Act (WPA) in 1989.
The 1990's the public's imagination was caught by Dr. Jeffrey Wigand, who exposed corporate deceit and wrongdoing in spite of threats to his career and the personal lives of those around him. A popular movie "The Insider" raised awareness of the plight of whistleblowers, and the heroic (rather than treacherous) nature of their acts.
See Jeffery Wigand's website
More recently, there has been a rapid and aggressive response in the USA to corporate scandals such as Enron and Worldcom, leading to the Corporate Accountability Act in 2002 (also known as Sarbanes-Oxley). Again, public opinion and the media have been on the side of whistleblowers: the three Women who blew the whistle on what went wrong at Worldcom, Enron and the FBI were named Time magazine's "Persons of the Year" in 2002.
See Time Magazine
In Britain a series of scandals and inquiries during the 1990s led to creation of the Public Interest Disclosure Act (PIDA), which received Royal Assent on 2 July 1998. This Act encourages people to raise concerns about malpractice in the workplace and is intended to help ensure that organisations respond by: addressing the message rather than the messenger; and resisting the temptation to cover up serious malpractice.
Australia and New Zealand have also enacted effective whistleblower legislation.
Although Canadian federal whistleblower legislation came into force in 2007, this has proven to be ineffective, and Canada currently lags all of these other countries in its legal protections for truth-telling. Although Canadians pride themselves on living in an upright and honorable society, the recent track record of scandals, and the half-hearted efforts of governments to tackle corruption, are more reminiscent of a third-world country.
