EOTO Reflection: Whistleblowers

While listening to the EOTO presentations, I couldn’t help but be fascinated by the slides surrounding whistleblowers. Whistleblowers are a crucial part to our society, and while they put their career and possibly their entire life on the line, they have the ability to quite literally change the world.

As I did my EOTO project on Five Eyes, I became more familiarized with Edward Snowden, one of the most famous whistleblowers of our time who exposed that the government was spying on its own citizens. The other team in my class also did a great job of explaining Snowden’s role in providing Americans with the knowledge that the government isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, and it came with a price. Snowden was essentially blackballed, and he was lucky to recently gain citizenship in Russia.

Someone who wasn’t as lucky as Snowden was Julian Assange, the creator of WikiLeaks, who released thousands of classified documents and information from the government and involved parties. Assange played a big role in the 2016 presidential election, as his leak of Hillary Clinton’s emails played a major factor in swaying voters away from the Democratic candidate. 

Assange now resides in a jail cell, despite having no real reason for being thrown in there, a crime in itself.

Whistleblowers play an extremely key part in keeping the government’s intentions clear, and Snowden and Assange are two prime examples of that. They gave up everything they had to make sure Americans knew what was happening behind the scenes, and that alone makes them heroes.