Whistleblowing: Loud and Quiet ways to do it

• Talking to Press/Leaking
  • Organizations like the Federal Unionist Network and Federal Workers Against DOGE have trusted press contacts they can put you in touch with. This provides some safety, versus reaching out cold to an unknown reporter.
  • Make sure to use an encrypted tool such as Signal, which leaves no paper trail of who you talked to.
  • Always ask that any conversation be “off the record”, before you start talking. This means the journalist cannot publish anything you tell them, even anonymously. No journalist should object, especially for a first-time source. If the reporter thinks you’ve told them something critical that the public needs to know, you can negotiate that after the fact. 
• Most government documents are subject to FOIA (the Freedom of Information Act), which makes government documents presumptively available to the public on request. If you think a document needs to be publicized, but you don’t want to be the one publicizing it – tell someone in the public that it exists, and recommend they FOIA it. This person can, but does not need to be, a journalist. It can be any person.
• Federal law protects government employees who report fraud, waste, abuse, and other illegality. There are numerous avenues to make these reports, such as your department’s inspector general, to the department of justice, or to a federal elected official. Unfortunately, the Trump administration has taken action to gut these internal watchdogs, making whistleblowing to any executive branch official unwise. Whistleblowing to a sympathetic congressperson or senator may be more effective. Before doing this, you may wish to seek legal counsel to understand if the report you want to make is protected under whistleblower protection laws.