I’m a whistleblower, so by definition, I committed an act that was both honest and bold, and boy have their been disadvantages…

To start off, Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning are two of the most famous whistleblowers of our time. One is in hiding in Russia while the other is in a military prison.

When you google the term “Whistleblower” with autocorrect on, Google autocorrects to “whistleblower found dead,” alluding to the most common fate of a whistleblower.

Even the journalists who helped these men faced tough times.

I, on the other hand, walk somewhat free because I became the journalist, though even I faced quite a bit of severe retaliation. Most recently I spent last Christmas in jail. I didn’t finish up my court case until April, and I still have a lot of restrictions on what I can say about it.

Of all the things I’ve done in life (I’ve stolen, lied, cheated, done drugs, etc.), the only thing I ever went to jail for was telling the truth. 

An executive I named in my leak to Anonymous sued me for defamation and obtained a default judgment as I wasn’t even aware of the case and was given no chance to defend myself. The court said the dozens of civil cases and government regulations enacted because of my leak were moot and by naming the executive, I ruined his livelihood. Of all the crimes committed by the banks that were exposed, none went to jail. The only person who went to jail was me – the whistleblower.

Our society and the system running it does not look kindly upon those with both honesty and boldness, so you will make a lot of enemies.

Being a whistleblower defined the rest of my life, and I can never turn back and live a normal life. I will always have this stigma attached that caused me to have to reinvent myself as a writer, as I had been blacklisted from working in the industries I knew.

This is the disadvantage of being both honest and bold…Brian PennyWhistleblower & WriterSeptember 26, 2015