For the tenth year in a row, the United States Senate has unanimously passed a resolution urging every executive department of the federal government to honor July 30 as National Whistleblower Appreciation Day. Why? As with so many other great movements where human rights and civil liberties were vindicated, protected whistleblowing began with a small band of people who stood up for justice, made their voices heard, and changed history.
During the winter of 1777, 10 sailors and marines aboard the USS Warren blew the whistle on abuses by the commander of the U.S. Navy despite the lack of any existing legal protection. Their spokesman, without leave, jumped ship in Providence, Rhode Island, and made way for the Continental Congress, where he presented 10 petitions in the interest of the Revolution. On July 30, 1778, the sailors finally had their fate sealed.
For these 10 men, the stakes could not have been higher. Their punishment would not be a slap on the wrist — they were subject to military law and could have been disciplined at the hands of the very commander they were trying to take down.
Their first effort to report the wrongdoing was a letter to Robert Treat Paine, the lawyer who prosecuted the British soldiers tried for killing innocent civilians in the Boston massacre. In early February 1777, the whistleblowers asked Paine, a member of the Continental Congress, for his support. Their letter provides insight, not to how the elite in the Continental Congress were...
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