Whistle-blowers are a historically new group. Since the founding of the United States, there have been those who have demanded public attention to social injustice. Either acting individually or in organized efforts, they have dedicated themselves to political activity -- speaking, writing, and protesting issues of unfair taxes, slavery, exploitation of workers, prostitution, war, and a myriad of other problems that have arisen in the rapidly growing, industrial society.

Like these earlier reformers, whistle-blowers proclaim their belief in individual responsibility and are willing to put themselves at risk for the well-being of their fellow citizens. But in other ways they embody a different type of protester -- one who is actually employed by the organization and totally dedicated to its stated goals but who refuses to countenance a lack of accountability when employers bypass safety regulations, mishandle funds, or violate other laws. Moreover, unlike other dissenters in American history, most whistleblowers do not initially have a strong interest in promoting large-scale social reform; nor do they define themselves as workers locked in an adversarial relationship with management. Rather, they turn to public disclosure only when they find that internal appeals to their superiors do not change objectionable practices, and they fear that they will become complicit in wrongdoing. Although often apolitical in conventional Left-Right ideological terms, these are people of strong convictions. 5 Their allegiance to their professions, churches, communities, and families are the sources of their commitment to the rights of patients and children, the protection of neighborhoods from chemical dumping, the shielding of women from sexual harassment, the marketing of safe products, and the guarding of public funds.

These internal protesters were dubbed "whistle-blowers" by Ralph Nader and others in the early 1970s to distinguish them from the informers who testified against their Mafia chieftains or from former Communists who "named names" for the FBI or congressional committees. 6 The whistle-blowers' admirers labeled them not as self-serving "snitches" but as valiant citizens of industrial society who cared deeply about responsible action and exposed significant corruption, despite risks to their careers or personal safety.

Several interrelated social and political factors allowed such individuals to surface as staunch defenders of legal and ethical standards. Among the most central were the struggle over the new government regulations of private industry in the 1960s and 1970s, widespread disillusionment with technology, and the increasing skepticism that industry could control the technological "monster" it had created. At the same time there was growing cynicism that government was effective or committed enough to monitor the potential hazards to public health and safety. Taken together, this created an environment in which the gap between ideal and actual standards widened. Increasingly, there was conflict between ethical employees and their managers over appropriate organizational behavior. . .