Washington, D.C. June 12, 2015. Today the National Whistleblower Center, the nation’s leading whistleblower advocacy group, launched a website promoting the establishment of a National Whistleblower Day.
The website, www.nationalwhistleblowerday.org, recites the history of the world’s first ever whistleblower law which was enacted by the Continental Congress on July 30, 1778.
“Recognizing the significant contributions to democracy made by whistleblowers is the key to changing the corporate culture that defines whistleblowers as snitches, ‘rats at the picnic’ or worse,” said Stephen M. Kohn, Executive Director of the National Whistleblower Center. “Our Founding Fathers unanimously stood behind America’s first whistleblowers, in both word and deed. We expect the same from our current government,” Kohn added.
Kohn, who rediscovered this law while researching materials for an amicus supporting the constitutionality of the False Claims Act, fully retold the story for the first time ever in his The Whistleblower’s Handbook.
Recognizing the historical significance of this first whistleblower law, Senator Charles Grassley first successfully urged the U.S. Senate to pass a unanimous resolution commemorating July 30th 2013 as National Whistleblower Appreciation Day. In 2014 Senator Ron Wyden joined Grassley in passing the resolution again in 2014.
The National Whistleblower Day website strives to make July 30th a permanent day of recognition for whistleblowers. Visitors to the website can learn how our revolutionary forefathers, when they learned that two whistleblowers that had exposed misconduct by the highest-ranking U.S. naval official, were being prosecuted in the State of Rhode Island, agreed to act. Visitors can also use tools on the website to urge Congress to establish July 30th as National Whistleblower Day by signing a petition and writing to their Members of Congress.
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