Trump is making it harder for whistleblowers. That’s a problem for corporate America

As U.S. President Donald Trump takes a wrecking ball to the norms, rules, and laws that have governed the United States for decades, whistleblowing as we know it – a way to right wrongs, call out misconduct and hold people accountable – may be under threat.

Think about it: For decades, whistleblowers in the United States have shone a spotlight on fraud and waste in government, environmental catastrophes, and corporate malfeasance. The country’s tradition of whistleblowing goes back to its founding as a nation, when Benjamin Franklin used confidential letters to reveal that the governor of Massachusetts misled Parliament about a military buildup in the new world, according to a whistleblower timeline published by the Government Accountability Project.

Without whistleblowers, the world may never have learned about the U.S. government lying to Congress and the public about its actions in Vietnam (the Pentagon Papers), the National Security Agency’s blanket surveillance of U.S. citizens (Edward Snowden) or the root causes of the 2008-09 financial meltdown (Richard Bowen at Citigroup).