Where exactly does the term whistleblower come from? The idea seems quite simple, you see wrong, you blow a whistle, others are alerted of the wrong. As it turns out, this is almost definitely the origin of the term “whistleblower”.
You see, back in the days before telephones, cell phones, and long before “apps”, people still committed crimes. In Victorian England a police officer who spotted a crime in progress would (you guessed it) blow his whistle while chasing a criminal in order to alert the public of the crime. Much like these officers, modern whistleblowers spot crime and seek to alert the public. If you saw a theft on the street – a man running with an obviously stolen computer – you might not be able to stop him, but surely you’d want to alert a police officer or authority figure. If only you had a whistle.
Whistleblower provisions are ever-available whistles for informed, concerned citizens to blow when the authorities need to be alerted: “There’s a crime going on!” However, unlike the man stealing a computer, the crimes modern whistleblowers can prevent involve the theft of billions of dollars. Wall Street fat cats steal billions from Main Street by short-changing the government or violating financial regulations. Thanks to modern whistleblower incentives and protections, we can hope that a few brave souls who witness securities violations will have the courage to chase these criminals down the street yelling, “Stop, thief.”
So, with a bit of history thrown in the mix, I will help further yesterday’s contest searching for more appropriate word for whistleblowers:
“Citizen Police”
Assisted by Zachary Kady