10 Whistleblowers Who Were Outright Heroes

When you talk about whistleblowers, some popular names come to mind, but the concept of whistleblowing is not a modern one. The tradition has been in place since the days of the ancient world. It has been a critical tool that man has used to achieve justice and fairness in society. While we acknowledge that all whistleblowers with the right intent are constructive, they are not equal.

Some whistleblowers expose mismanagement in small corporations. Some expose corruption at the municipal level of government. At the same time, there is a special class of whistleblowers who expose monumental cover-ups, large-scale fraud, and unbelievable corruption. These whistleblowers became outright heroes because of the magnitude of the evil they exposed and the shared number of lives they saved. These are ten of them:

Related: 10 Times Members of Secretive Societies and Organizations Spilled the Beans

10 Benjamin Franklin Exposed Traitors in Pre-Independent America

The American Revolution began when the American people demanded independence from Britain, leading to an armed conflict. The British waged war against those they considered dissenters. In the middle of the Revolution, some American appointees of the British Government felt that they may not be relevant in the new scheme of things if the Revolution succeeded. So they promptly contacted the British Government, asking them to quell an American uprising against the crown.

The people involved were Governor Thomas Hutchinson and his colonial secretary and brother-in-law, Andrew Oliver. The duo wrote a series of letters concerning some protests that were ongoing against the British crown on American soil. Benjamin Franklin was able to lay his hands on some of the letters because he was living in London at the time. He promptly leaked the letter to the American people.

Franklin initially intended to keep his role as the source of the leak confidential. However, when his associate was wrongfully accused, Franklin demonstrated integrity by admitting his involvement. Consequently, he fled Britain for American soil and became a dedicated advocate for the American Revolution.^[1]

9 Peter Buxtun Blew the Lid on the Tuskagee Syphilis Experiment

In 1932, the United States Public Health Service launched an experiment in Macon County, Alabama, to observe the effect of untreated syphilis. The dark side of this experiment is that it only involved Black people. They enlisted 600 black men, 399 of whom were infected with syphilis. Researchers told the participants that they were receiving treatment for “bad blood” while administering only iron tonic and aspirin.

Even after penicillin was discovered as a cure for syphilis in 1947, the researchers continued to experiment on the men and barred them from receiving treatment. When Buxtun heard that a physician who had cured a man who was infected with syphilis was berated for treating syphilis with penicillin, thereby ruining “a volunteer,” he investigated further. He discovered that the so-called “volunteers” were being deliberately harmed and denied real treatment.

Buxtun reported it up the line, but his report was trashed. Buxtun eventually revealed his findings to the press, making himself an instant hero. His whistleblowing led to both new laws governing human research and medical ethics in the United States.^[2]

8 Joe Darby Exposed Abuses at Abu Ghraib

Joe Darby is a former U.S. Army Reservist who served with the United States Army Military Police Corps. Darby was stationed at the Abu Ghraib Prison, located 20 miles (32 km) west of Baghdad. Abu Ghraib prison was initially used by Saddam Hussein to hold political prisoners, but in the aftermath of the United States’ war in Iraq, the U.S. captured the prison and used it to hold Iraqi prisoners.

In January 2004, Darby provided two CD-ROMs of photographs of torture taking place behind the closed doors of the prison. The photos were published in the public domain. Darby’s disclosure was not well-received by his neighbors. He was shunned by friends, but this did not stop him from testifying against several U.S. service members who were convicted for their role in the torture.

Although Darby originally intended to conceal his identity because he was exposing people who he considered to be his former friends, his identity was unfortunately made public by the press. His name was also mentioned at a Senate hearing.

The Abu Ghraib photos prompted an investigation at American-controlled prisons in other countries. For instance, it sparked investigations into more disclosure of what was happening at the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp and in prisons in Afghanistan. Darby’s actions led to several congressional hearings and investigations, saving a lot of would-be prisoners from the pain of torture.^[3]

7 Daphne Caruana Galizia: The Sad End of a Hero Whistleblower

The whole world stood still when the Panama Papers were released. The papers detailed financial and attorney-client information for more than 214,488 offshore entities. The name “Panama” was given to the documents because the leak occurred from within Panama. They gave several investigative journalists all over the world an edge in discreet investigations they had been carrying out on certain individuals.

For instance, in Malta, Daphne Caruana Galizia had been researching vast corruption and money laundering schemes against a former prime minister. Maria Efimova, a former employee of Pilatus Bank, helped Galizia with significant information, linking Michelle Muscat, the wife of Malta’s former prime minister, Joseph Muscat, with significant corruption. Efimova’s evidence was crucial in helping Galizia connect the necessary dots. Galizia went public with Joseph Muscat and family’s corruption story.

Six months after she went public with the story, Galizia was killed in a car bombing. Efimova, her husband, and their children escaped to Greece in the aftermath of Galizia’s assassination. Although Galizia paid the supreme price for justice in Malta, her story helped draw global attention to the scale of corruption taking place within the small Island country and the role of other countries in aiding and abetting the corruption in Malta.^[4]

6 Mark Felt “Deep Throat” Brought Down a Presidency

The Watergate scandal is probably the most well-known scandal in the world, despite the fact that it happened more than 50 years ago. It made journalism significant in the United States and also raised a number of other questions in our society. The scandal was primarily driven by two top-notch reporters, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. The duo will never be forgotten for their role in the development of the Watergate story; however, many do not know that most of their leads came from a person referred to as “Deep Throat.”

His real name was Mark Felt, and he was the Associate Director and second-in-command in the FBI at the time. Throughout 1972, Felt fed Woodward and Bernstein a steady flow of information, which, at the end of the day, exposed Nixon’s knowledge of the entire scheme. The scandal forced Nixon to resign his presidency.

Ironically, the White House suspected Felt might have been “Deep Throat,” but Woodward and Bernstein protected his identity, even decades after Nixon’s resignation. It was not until 2005 that Felt revealed his identity as deep throat. Richard Nixon was an authoritarian, the first American president in modern American history who had an “Enemies List.” Felt, “Deep Throat,” brought down the most high-handed president in modern America.^[5]

5 Terry Bryan Exposed Abuse at a Care Facility

Terry Bryan was a nurse with more than twenty years of experience when she secured a job at Winterbourne View Hospital in Hambrook, South Gloucestershire, England. When she got to Winterbourne, she could not stomach what she saw. She witnessed staff repeatedly assaulting and harshly restraining patients under chairs. She reported the abuse to the management of the hospital, but nothing was done about the issue.

It was at this point that Bryan decided to get the undercover press involved. In the aftermath of the involvement of the media, a horrible video was taken showing workers giving patients cold showers as a punishment. A video also showed staff going to extreme lengths to force-feed patients with medicines. The last straw was when one patient decided to jump out of a second-floor window in order to escape the torment.

Even a clinical psychologist who reviewed the video came to the conclusion that the patients were tortured. In the aftermath of the release of the video, there was an outcry by members of the public who called for an overhaul of the institutional care for people with learning disabilities. Castlebeck, the owners of Winterbourne View Hospital, had several of their facilities closed as a result of the incident.^[6]

4 Libor Michálek: A Whistleblower Saves His Country Twice

Libor Michálek is an undeniable hero when you talk about whistleblowing. After his university education, he got a job as a broker at the National Property Fund in the Czech Republic. He was at this job from 1994 to 1996, when he got fired for exposing a tunneling embezzlement scheme. When Michálek uncovered the fraud, he believed that the director was innocent and did not know what was going on, so he decided to “spill the beans” to him.

When he waited months and didn’t see any tangible action from the director, he realized that he was dealing with an accomplice which made him leak the matter to the press. Michálek was promptly fired, but he won his job back in the court because the court determined that the process through which he lost his job was inappropriate. Many people hailed him as a hero, particularly because he was involved in compensating the victims of the fraud after he got his job back.

What his fans did not realize was that Michálek was not done. He would soon do it again.

In August 2010, he became the director of the Czech State Environmental Fund. He blew the whistle on a scam to inflate the cost of a wastewater treatment plant in Prague by $138 million. To date, it remains one of the biggest corruption scandals in Czech history. Michálek was awarded the František Kriegel Prize by the Charter 77 Foundation for his “brave, consistent, and uncompromising fight against corruption in government.^[7]

3 Sherron Watkins Exposed Enron Fraud

Sherron Watkins is a former Vice President of Corporate Development at the Enron Corporation. Sherron joined Enron in 1993 and rose through the ranks to become vice president, where she discovered that Enron’s management engaged in multiple breaches of corporate laws and rules, including the use of off-balance sheet vehicles. Moreover, directors created corporate entities to enter into dealings with Enron. The shady corporate entities cheated Enron silly in every deal made.
Over time, the company started to slide into a decline. Nonetheless, Enron’s management kept setting silly targets for the company. As income dried up, the management got their accountants to cook the books so that people could keep investing in a company that was not making any income but taking on new loans daily. When Watkins could not take it any longer, she sent a memo to President Ken Lay that the company would implode as a result of accounting fraud.

Watkins also sent memos to other top executives of the company stating that Enron Corporation was a dying entity, cooking the books in order to continue receiving investments from the innocent public. The heat from Watkins made the top executives nervous about the possibility of continuing the scam. At this point, resignations started to come in.

Subsequently, the SEC opened an investigation into Enron, and management admitted to manipulating the books. On Dec 2, 2001, Enron filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. Watkins was selected as one of three people for the “Persons of the Year” 2002 by Time Magazine. Thanks to Watkins, the United States has enacted several laws in the wake of the Enron scandal that ensures that investors can count on their investments in the future.^[8]

2 Jeffrey Wigand Blew the Whistle on Tobacco Tampering

Jeffrey Wigand is an American biochemist who was a former Vice President of Research and Development at Brown & Williamson in Louisville, Kentucky. He worked on the development of reduced-harm cigarettes. Unfortunately, while at the company, he witnessed something he could not stomach. He observed that the company had intentionally manipulated its tobacco blend with chemicals such as “ammonia” to increase the effect of nicotine in cigarette smoke. This was done to ensure that customers became hooked on the cigarettes.

Wigand blew the lid on the heinous act. Brown & Williamson fought back harshly. Wigand was fired, and then a consultant was hired to produce a 500-page dossier on him. The dossier depicted Wigand as a man who could not conform to rules and a man whose opinion could not be trusted. The dossier backfired as many news outlets examined it and found the claims of misconduct contained inside it to be unsubstantiated or trivial.

Due to his whistleblowing, Wigand saved thousands of lives. He sacrificed his $300,000-per-year job for the good of society. Not only did he lose his job and a chance to be hired as a high-level researcher by any company, but eventually, Wigand had to settle for teaching at a high school in Kentucky. He was named the 1996 Teacher of the Year in the state of Kentucky for his efforts. Wigand received the first-ever National Whistleblower Center Lifetime Achievement Award in 2024.^[9]

1 Boris Bazhanov Became a Thorn in Stalin’s Side

Boris Bazhanov was a secretary of the Secretariat of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. He was the personal secretary of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin from August 1923 to 1925. He held several prominent positions in the Politburo until he defected from the Soviet Union in 1928. He defected because he was disillusioned with communism and dissatisfied with working under the brutal Stalin.

Bazhanov revealed how Soviets with a sense of fairness, justice, and ethics were extinguished by Stalin and his minions and how the self–centered, protective bureaucratic machine was first built by Stalin. He exposed Stalin’s corruption and high-handedness in detail. He made it known to the world that Stalin was jubilant over Lenin’s death while publicly putting on a mask of grief. Stalin also executed everyone who could lay claim to power in order to usurp power himself.

In his books, he revealed how Stalin killed people and forced innocent people to confess to the crimes he (Stalin) committed. Bazhanov also revealed that Stalin falsely accused Kamenev and Zinoviev of murder. He assured them that they would neither be executed nor their families harassed if they confessed to collaborating with Trotsky. After the men had admitted to working with Trotsky, they were promptly tried and executed in 1936.

Stalin would go ahead and kill several Soviets during the “Great Purge” that took place from 1936 to 1938. Bazhanov survived several assassination attempts and continued to pressure the international community to do something about Stalin’s madness. But for the few like Bazhanov, who acted as the only check to Stalin’s atrocities, many more people would have suffered and died under his brutal regime.^[10]