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whisTle-blowing has long
been a vital weapon against pub-
lic and private wrongdoing in
America. Just as FBI whistle-
blower Mark Felt called out Rich-
ard Nixon’s systemic criminality
and Karen Silkwood disclosed
the massive risks of nuclear
power, so today whistle- blowers
are explaining how Cambridge
Analytica helped to corrupt our
elections or how Big Pharma
hooked our nation on opioids.
In 2019, a whistle-blower
revealed startling facts
about President Don-
ald Trump’s July 25
phone call with
Ukrainian President
Volodymyr Zelensky,
triggering impeach-
ment proceedings.
Whistle- blowing
is based on celebrated
American ideals, such
as the freedom of ex-
pression, the right and
duty of citizens to warn of public
wrongdoing, and the importance
of the individual conscience. Pio-
neering whistle- blower laws were
passed by the Continental Con-
gress in 1778, and by Abraham
Lincoln in 1863, at the height of
the Civil War.
But as important and
effective as whistle- blowing
has become today, its rise is
actually bad news for American
society in the long term—
a symptom of the breakdown
of internal checks and balances
on our corporations and our
government. This current spate
of high-level disclosures by
whistle- blowers coincides with
the spread of cultures of secrecy,
of outsourcing public goods and
services to private contractors,
of increasing normalization of
conflict of interest and other
unethical practices as clever
business models, and the
weakening of the very concept of
public service itself. Watchdogs
are disappearing, as regulators
are captured, defunded or
drowned out by lobbying, as
local newspapers cut their staffs,
and with fewer attorneys
at the Department of
Justice willing or
able to prosecute
white collar
criminals. Corporate
and government
insiders realize that
if they don’t speak
out, no one will
ever learn of the
wrongdoing they see.
We publicly
celebrate whistle- blowers
in the news and in films as
heroes, but in real life we allow
most of them to be permanently
blackballed in their chosen
fields. This two-faced view
toward people with the rare
courage to speak truth to power
suggests why whistle- blowing is
so alarmingly easy to politicize.
And since the basic currency
of whistle-blowing is a respect
for facts and the rule of law,
the act of whistle- blowing, like
democracy itself, is at hazard
in today’s postfact world.
Mueller is the author of Crisis
of Conscience: Whistleblowing
in an Age of Fraud
In the Season 2
premiere of Fleabag,
creator and star
Phoebe Waller-
Bridge attends a
tumultuous family
dinner wearing a
sleek black jumpsuit
that promptly
became the talk
of Twitter, selling
out in a day once
Internet sleuths
found its maker.
The jumpsuit, a
High Street offering
retailing for about
$50, features wide-
leg trousers paired
with an open back,
a high-neck collar
leading to a deep
keyhole in the front.
“It’s sassy and yet
exposing,” Fleabag
costume designer
Ray Holman tells
TIME. “The jumpsuit
is very easy to wear,
but I think you have
to be very confident
and streetwise
to pull it off.” The
effect is daring
and alluring, but
it’s also decisively
aloof—much like
Fleabag herself,
a quintessentially
millennial character,
whose confidence
and wit often
distract from her
aching vulnerability
and personal
trauma. Fleabag’s
cheeky candor
and unapologetic
penchant for
selfish, self-
destructive coping
mechanisms made
Waller-Bridge’s
character the most
relatable—and
beloved—antihero
of the year, which
might explain why
her viewers bought
the jumpsuit
en masse. It’s 2019,
and women are still
explaining that we’re
complicated and
multidimensional.
The Fleabag
jumpsuit, like so
many of us, is a study
in contradictions.
—Cady Lang
THAT
JUMPSUIT
Fleabag gave women the daring look
they didn’t know they wanted
SOUNDING
THE ALARM
Why whistle-blowing is an American
tradition—and a bad sign By Tom Mueller
PR
OT
ES
T:^
GE
TT
Y^ I
MA
GE
S;^
FLE
AB
AG
:^ A
MA
ZO
N^ P
RIM
E
WHISTLE-
BLOWING’S
RISE IS A
SYMPTOM
OF THE
BREAKDOWN
OF INTERNAL
CHECKS AND
BALANCES
