The Insider, Silkwood, All the President's Men, Erin Brokovitch
The amount of character and courage that it takes to blow the whistle on corporate crime and government corruption is obviously why so many good movies have been made and will continue to be made about whistleblowers. Enough to fill a virtual museum.
In this past year alone, for example, we've seen The Informant! (a drama based on Mark Whitacre and ADM) and the fantastic just-released documentary, The Most Dangerous Man in America (a must-see doc about Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers).
Now -- in just a few minutes actually -- you can watch some of these true whistleblowers -- live.
Participant Media and the Government Accountability Project (one of the nation's leading whistleblower rights groups) are launching a social action campaign called Anyone Can Whistle with a live panel discussion (watch it live online starting at 7pm).
The NY-based event features Mike German (who exposed the FBI's use of illegal wiretaps); Daniel Ellsberg (the former Rand Corporation analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers); Frank Serpico (yes, the same guy portrayed by Al Pacino in the 1973 film) and Dr. David Kessler (the former FDA head who challenged the tobacco industry).
Sadly, one whistleblower who won't be there is Bradley Birkenfeld , whose voluntary disclosures cracked the vault on Swiss bank secrecy, exposing tens of thousands of rich American tax dodgers.
People like Birkenfeld and Ellsberg and Bunnatine Greenhouse (who blew the whistle on the illegal no-bid contracts given to Halliburton in Iraq) -- should be treated like heroes, not pariahs, and certainly not like inmates.
That's why we need to help the National Whistleblower Center and the Government Accountability Project strengthen whistleblower rights.