Defining the Whistleblower: The Digital Realty Case and Proposed Legislation

Whistleblowers have existed since ancient times, with the first known instance having been recorded in 695 A.D. Early U.S. records indicate that in 1773 Benjamin Franklin provided evidence that the governor of Massachusetts misled Parliament to increase the military in the new world, resulting in the governor being dishonorably discharged and exiled. In 1777, two U.S. naval officers reported the torture of British prisoners of war. More recently, an anonymous internal whistleblower at Apple disclosed privacy issues surrounding its voice assistant Siri, similar to the privacy issues discovered with Amazon’s Alexa, when humans listened to recordings from these devices. Whistleblowers help shape corporate America by raising issues and righting wrongs discovered in the workplace.