Edward Snowden is the latest whistleblower to alert the American people to conspiracy in a high-level organization. Here are some other famous whistleblowing cases over the years:
1906: Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle sheds light on the horrifying conditions inside Chicago pig-slaughtering houses, prompting Americans to shy away from hot dogs for six hours
1966: Peter Bruxten exposes the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment after walking into a room full of black men being infected with syphilis and thinking, “something isn’t right here”
1983: CBS President Nancy Tellem brazenly exposes the ending of M*A*S*H by televising the finale nationwide
1989: Toxicologist Myron Mehlman reveals that Mobil gasoline sold in Japan is 5 percent benzene. Not the most exciting case in the world.
1992: After consuming psilocybin mushrooms, Oregon State University student Brian Whitaker reveals to his buddies that society is a huge sham
1996: Revealing that the CIA was helping drug dealers in Nicaragua to raise money for the Contras, investigative journalist Gary Webb writes a lengthy 20,000-word, three-part series when he probably could have done it in like two or three sentences
2001: Enron executive Sherron Watkins reveals CEO Kenneth Lay and others concealed massive debt from shareholders, pretty much fucking herself over for any chance of receiving stock options
2003: State Department employee Joyce Rutherford leaks information to The New York Times revealing that the Bush administration is using faulty intelligence to justify invading Iraq. The invasion is subsequently called off, saving the country countless lives and billions of dollars.
2005: Playboy Playmate Raquel Gibson reveals her turn-ons include a guy who knows his way around a kitchen
2009: The national media receives tips from 300,000 brave whistleblowers that Barack Obama may not have been born in this country
2014: Edward Snowden flees the NSA with state secrets again, shocking HR manager Stan Johnson, who really put himself out on the line to rehire the 31-year-old contractor
