Unpatriotic? Whistleblowers are ‘as American as apple pie’
This article features commentary from Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto’s founding partner, David K. Colapinto.
WASHINGTON — It was 1777. The Revolutionary War was raging, and a small band of officers and seamen in the Continental Navy faced a dangerous dilemma.
Their commodore was one of the most powerful men in colonial America. But his subordinates had seen him engage in “barbarous” mistreatment — torture, in their eyes — of captured British sailors.
Eleven years before the U.S. Constitution was ratified, the 10 worried sailors became the new republic’s first whistleblowers, reporting what they had witnessed to the Continental Congress — and getting legal protection to shield them from retribution.
