A Look Back at our Work with Whistleblowers Over the last few years, we’ve seen employees of conscience make a difference like never before. Whistleblowers exposed abuse of migrants in detention centers, corruption at the Drug Enforcement Administration, mismanagement at Voice of America, secret financial dealings of Afghanistan and Kurdish leaders, and problems with the government’s response to [...]
Know Your Rights: Big Tech Whistleblowers On October 5, a former Facebook employee, Frances Haugen, testified before Congress about her experience working for the tech behemoth, as well as the tens of thousands of pages of internal research and documents she released. Among her claims was the evidence that Facebook knowingly allows its platforms [...]
Notes From Underground: A Spill of Opportunity By Adam Arnold Inevitability Returns to Southern California A pipeline rupture off the coast of Southern California was detected on the evening of Friday, October 1 and led to over 100,000 gallons of oil being released into the environment before owner Amplify Energy closed off the pipeline the next day. The spill has indeed amplified calls to end [...]
“If There is Not a Change, There is Not Going to be a Change” Dawn Wooten’s Impact, One Year Later At this time last year, over 270 thousand new cases of COVID-19 were recorded, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the first woman to lay in state at the U.S. Capitol, and devastating wildfires out west injected climate change into the [...]
We Must Repair and Restore Scientific Integrity in Government: Our Recommendations to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy By Anne Polansky Government Accountability Project recently prepared a set of recommendations for policies strengthening existing scientific integrity policies and submitted them to the newly created Scientific Integrity Task Force under the White [...]
Making an Impact While Supporting Whistleblowers: Five Tips for Public Interest Organizations On the surface, the goals of public interest organizations and whistleblowers seem to align. However, a deeper dive reveals that unless advocates understand the complexities of blowing the whistle, the combination is filled with ways to go wrong. That’s why it’s so [...]
Well-Known Hollywood Producer Leaves Legacy to Government Accountability Project On June 26, 2020, popular long-time Hollywood producer Stuart Cornfeld sadly lost his struggle with cancer. He left a significant mark on Hollywood with a score of films that ranged from horror to comedy. His most successful creations were comedies that he produced in close [...]
Protecting our Planet: Celebrating the Importance of Whistleblowers on Earth Day In honor of Earth Day on April 22, the world recognizes the anniversary of the modern environmental movement. Started in 1970, Earth Day provides an outlet for individuals and institutions alike to put a spotlight on the state of the planet. At Government [...]
Women Whistleblowers in the Trump Era: A Celebration of Women Who Refused to Be Silenced (Part 2) By Sarah Hubbard Government Accountability Project is recognizing Women’s History Month by spotlighting women whistleblowers who have made a difference. Read part one of this series here. Dawn Wooten In July 2020, attorneys at Project [...]
To Promote Accountability, Support Whistleblowers Whistleblowers are one of the most effective catalysts of accountability. Truths about wrongdoing and illegality exposed by employees of conscience act as a check against powerful individuals and institutions. Time and time again, whistleblower stories serve as a case study for why policies should encourage workers to speak up. However, [...]