Whistleblowers are hardly new in the US – News – The Bulletin – Norwich, CT – Norwich Bulletin

ByMarge Hoskin

"Whistleblowers" who have recently come forward to disclose critical information about wrongdoings in our federal government are not new in the United States of America.

Historians pretty much agree that the first whistleblowers included American naval officers Samuel Shaw and Richard Marven.In 1777, soon after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, they reported the misconduct of the Navy's highest officer, thecommander-in-chief of the first United States Navy, Esek Hopkins.He was a Rhode Island slave runner by occupation.His crime: torturing British prisoners of war.

Ten officers had signed the complaint which they said upheld principles in Congress's original "Orders and Directions for the Commander in Chief of the fleet of the United Colonies" which ordered that prisoners of war be "well and humanely treated."

On Jan. 2, 1778, Congress dismissed Hopkins who retaliated by filing a criminal libel suit against the petitioners.Only Shaw and Marven, residents of Rhode Island, were jailed. Congress soon ruled that they be set free and passed the world's first whistle-blower protection law on July 30, 1778.

During my lifetime, there have been numerous whistleblowers whose deeds have inspired both books and movies.

They include: Frank Serpico who reported corruption in New York City in the late 1960s and 1970s; Daniel Ellsworth, a military analyst who in 1971 gave what became known as "The Pentagon Papers" to several newspapers. The papers included a study regarding the Vietnam War and revealed that the war was considered unwinable but was being escalated anyway. And, of course, there was Mark Felt, FBI Associate Director who worked with Washington Post reporters Bob Woodworth and Carl Bernstein during President Nixon's Watergate scandal (1972-1974) under the name "Deep Throat."

During every decade since the 1970s, there have been numerous additional whistleblowers such as Mark Whitacre who blew the whistle on the Archer Daniels Midland Co. price-fixing scandal in 1995, and Jeffrey Wigand's 1996 discussion on the TV program "60 Minutes" of his own organization's (Brown and Williamson Tobacco Corp.) approval of additives known to cause cancer to their cigarettes.

More recent so-called whistleblowers (they have been called other names, also) include Chelsea Manning who was court-martialed for passing in 2013 thousands of pages of military-related documents to Wikileaks et al, and Edward Snowden who created the biggest intelligence leak in theNational Security Agency's history, also in 2013, by releasing classified information without authorization.

Who's next?

Marge Hoskin, a Quiet Corner native, is a retired naval officer. She is the former Chairwoman of the Quinebaug-Shetucket board of directors and one of the founders of the Corridor. Reach her at mlhoskin@sbcglobal.net.

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Whistleblowers are hardly new in the US - News - The Bulletin - Norwich, CT - Norwich Bulletin