Jess Hernandez

Jess Hernandez was inspired to join Airbnb so she could help keep extremists, gangsters and terrorists out of homes being advertised by the company’s platform. Airbnb’s determination to keep its guests and homeowners safe – particularly in the aftermath of the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally in 2017 and the January 6 insurrection in Washington in 2021, when neo-Nazis and other extremists traveled across the country and went looking for places to stay – was what drew her to work at Airbnb in the first place.

The company’s resolve wavered, however, when it found itself in the right wing media spotlight in early 2023. Airbnb had denied service to the parents of Lauren Southern, a prominent far right personality known for speaking at neo-Nazi rallies. This was a standard procedure instituted to prevent those banned from Airbnb from using the accounts of close family members to circumvent their own ban, and thus, the spirit of Airbnb’s Dangerous Organizations policy. Southern took to Tucker Carlson’s show on Fox News to complain that she and her parents were the victims of Big Tech discrimination. Carlson himself accused Airbnb of going “full North Korea.”

In response, Airbnb reinstated Southern’s parents and quietly set about dismantling, undermining and all but shutting down the anti-extremist unit where Jess worked. Convicted January 6th rioters and members of the Proud Boys and other extremist groups were no longer being banned, as they would have been previously.

None of this stopped the company from continuing to tout its anti-extremist policy – on its website and in materials shared with investors and shareholders – as though nothing had changed. Jess watched in disbelief and disappointment, feeling that the public was being deceived. When the company told her that if she and her team didn’t like this, they could leave, she knew she had to act.

With the help of Whistleblower Aid, Jess secured protection as a lawful whistleblower, and her story about Airbnb reneging on its commitment to guest safety garnered national attention. NBC News broke the story both in print and on television, and outlets including CNN followed suit in the days after. Jess’ disclosure was filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and with the Federal Trade Commission, and she has briefed several members of Congress and their staff.

Dr. Joan Donovan

Dr. Joan Donovan is one of the world’s leading experts on misinformation, disinformation, online extremism, and media manipulation. Beginning in October 2021, Dr. Donovan ran into a wall of institutional resistance and eventual termination after she and her team at Harvard’s Technology and Social Change Research Project (TASC) began analyzing thousands of documents exposing Facebook’s knowledge of damaging disinformation being spread through its platform. Those documents, known as The Facebook Papers, were brought to light in September 2021 by former Whistleblower Aid client Frances Haugen, who previously worked as a product manager on Facebook’s civic misinformation team.

When Dr. Donovan announced that she had lawfully obtained the Facebook Papers and her team was preparing to create a public archive, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Pricilla, via their Chan Zuckerberg Initiative had just committed $500 million to the University. To protect the donation, Kennedy School leadership, at the direction of Dean Douglas Elmendorf, imposed an escalating series of retaliatory actions designed to stop Dr. Donovan’s work. 

Throughout the nearly two-year campaign to silence Dr. Donovan, Harvard violated its own code of conduct and commitment to academic freedom. Specifically, the Kennedy School barred Dr. Donovan from using the millions of dollars she raised specifically for her academic research, constricted her team’s ability to grow or even exist by prohibiting hiring, and denied her the right to speak with donors or host any public events. Perhaps most insidious was that Harvard laid claim to her work product and intellectual property in an effort to permanently suppress  her research into Facebook.

Whistleblower Aid submitted Dr. Donovan’s lawful whistleblower disclosure to the President and General Counsel of Harvard University, the U.S. Department of Education, and the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office calling for an impartial investigation into Facebook’s inappropriate influence at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Colonel Earl Matthews

Andrew Bakaj and Mark Zaid filed a whistleblower reprisal complaint on behalf of our client Colonel (COL) Earl Matthews, a Judge Advocate in the U.S. Army Reserve with the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General, and former Acting General Counsel of the U.S. Army. 

Prior to engaging Mark Zaid’s law firm and Whistleblower Aid, in December 2021 COL Matthews disclosed to the House January 6^th Committee and the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that, among other things, the Director of the Army Staff, Lieutenant General Walter E. Piatt and the Army’s former Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, now-General Charles A. Flynn, had not been completely factual or truthful in their June 2021 oral and written testimony to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee or in their testimony to the DoD OIG. Furthermore, COL Matthews asserted that LTG Piatt had overseen the creation of a misleading, factually flawed, and revisionist recitation of events called the Report of Operations of the United States Army. Subsequently, LTG Piatt provided the factually flawed report to several committees of the U.S. Congress. 

In October 2022, The Washington Post reported that President Biden declined to nominate LTG Piatt for promotion to full General due to concerns over his actions or inaction on and around January 6th. The October 2022 Washington Post article on the President’s decision not to nominate LTG Piatt referenced COL Matthews’ December 2021 disclosure, which had been critical of Piatt’s activities surrounding the events of January 6, 2021. 

As a direct result of COL Matthews’ protected communications, Responsible Management Officials (“RMOs”) associated with the U.S. Army War College retaliated against him by, among other things: 1) falsely accusing him of misconduct and/or unprofessional behavior; 2) by abruptly curtailing a scheduled 12-day reserve duty assignment midway through; 3) by having COL Matthews physically and visibly escorted out of a publicly accessible hotel by security personnel; and 4) by providing COL Matthews’ name and likeness to military police personnel assigned onsite as a person of concern who might attempt to disrupt the military conference that Matthews had previously been assigned to support in his reserve capacity.  In addition to causing him the loss of military pay and reserve retirement points, the retaliatory actions of the Army War College RMOs caused COL Matthews grievous reputational harm, significant personal embarrassment and public humiliation.

Julie Farnam

Mark Zaid, with support from Whistleblower Aid, represented Julie Farnam, then the Assistant Director of Intelligence with the U.S. Capitol Police. With counsel support, Ms. Farnam disclosed to the USCP Inspector General and then later the January 6th Committee evidence that she and her intelligence team had previously warned Capitol Police senior leaders of an impending threat of violence which ultimately became the January 6th insurrection.

Peiter "Mudge" Zatko

When the former head of security at Twitter, Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, wanted to speak out about security, privacy and infrastructure failures at the company even before Elon Musk’s takeover, he turned to Whistleblower Aid for support. We and our co-counsel at Katz Banks & Kumin filed disclosures with the SEC, DOJ and FTC as well as relevant Congressional committees and generated media coverage around the globe.

Given Twitter’s prominence and its continuing role as an essential platform for public discourse around the world, we expect our client, with his extraordinary expertise, to continue to receive media coverage and to continue to inform regulators here and abroad on effective enforcement strategies in the public interest.

“When other avenues were exhausted, and I realized I would have to become a legal whistleblower to fulfill my obligations, I was very concerned with making sure that I did things in the most responsible and ethical way possible. Whistleblower Aid was invaluable in helping figure out how to fulfill my obligations through legal avenues. Knowing that my family and I had Whistleblower Aid on our side helped us navigate a very stressful, complicated, and important process.”

Frances Haugen

Frances Haugen, a member of Facebook’s Civic Integrity team, became front page news around the world in 2021 when she showed how the company was misrepresenting its progress on containing the spread of hate, violence, and psychological damage to teenage girls exposed to unrealistic expectations about their bodies. Whistleblower Aid helped Haugen disclose thousands of internal company documents and helped organize hearings in Congress and other national legislatures.

On the media side, our team managed the exclusive public launch of this case with the Wall Street Journal and 60 Minutes which generated a torrent of local, national, and international coverage – that continues today.

We continue to be a resource as Facebook has come under scrutiny from federal law enforcement agencies, state Attorneys General, and class action lawsuits. Policymakers at home and abroad rely on our expertise as they craft new legislation, including the recent Kids Online Safety Act, introduced by Senators Blumenthal and Blackburn. Ms. Haugen’s testimony and recommendations played a key role in shaping the legislation according to Senator Blumenthal. Ms. Haugen’s testimony before the European Union was credited for playing a pivotal role in the passing of the EU’s Digital Marketing Act and Digital Services Act.

Frances Haugen’s case was a watershed moment in the public’s understanding of how decisions made by Facebook and its parent company Meta can affect our daily lives.

The Anonymous Intelligence Officer

When a member of the intelligence community felt compelled to report on a phone call in which President Trump attempted to parlay foreign aid to Ukraine into an investigation into his political rival, Whistleblower Aid attorneys Andrew Bakaj and Mark S. Zaid jumped in to represent them. The lawful, protected complaint they filed triggered multiple investigations into the President’s use of his office to engage in election interference and ultimately resulted in the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump. The reason we know about Trump’s illegal misconduct is only because a civil servant had the courage to speak out. 

Whistleblower Aid was critical in providing funding, physical security, technological support, and encrypted communications for the legal team who represented the unnamed whistleblower. We continue to protect their identity. 

Jack Spratt

When then-CEO Parag Agrawal initiated a campaign to discredit renowned cybersecurity chief, Mudge Zatko’s, disclosures about the true state of Twitter, anonymous whistleblower known as Jack Spratt, came forward with documentary evidence demonstrating just how easy it is to impersonate users on Twitter.  When Spratt dug into how and why multiple methods for tweeting as others existed, Twitter’s answer was a game of semantics. Changing the name of one capability from “GodMode” to “PrivilegedMode” as a “solution” to the fact that every Twitter engineer was given GodMode upon entry to the company did nothing to limit the exposure to users. Even after Elon Musk took over, anyone with access to Twitter’s engineering code base could easily Tweet as any user without leaving a record of foul play.

Spratt’s disclosures to the SEC, FTC and others submitted by Whistleblower Aid, both substantiated Mudge’s warnings on privacy, security and national security concerns – and exposed the bad faith anti-whistleblower tactics by Twitter leadership.

Working with Whistleblower Aid has been an exceptional experience; their professionalism, empathy, relationships and stewardship has provided a significant peace of mind for myself and my family. WBA recognizes that it is a huge step and risk to speak up, and having worked with them, their dedication, attention and care to the individual and their message is treated with the utmost care and diligence. They truly make you the North Star, and help champion your observations to ensure that they are communicated with the right stakeholders.” – Anonymous Twitter Whistleblower

Kateri Dahl

A former special federal prosecutor revealed that the Johnson City (TN) Police Department (JCDP) was protecting an alleged serial rapist – and Whistleblower Aid stepped up to represent her. The JCPD refused to investigate multiple, credible allegations that a suspect was drugging and raping women spanning more than a decade. Two of the victims were critically injured or died following their encounters with him. 

This is an ongoing investigation and Whistleblower Aid is working diligently with co- counsel and regional media to identify victims, connect them with appropriate legal representation, and hold the JCPD accountable. 

“I was so grateful when [Whistleblower Aid] took on my case and helped me navigate the process of whistleblowing. It can be an overwhelming and isolating experience, so having such a knowledgeable team step in was a huge relief. I was impressed not only by their legal expertise, but by their compassion for their clients who are in difficult and stressful situations. Their dedication to the truth and protecting whistleblowers who come forward is admirable.” – Kateri Dahl

Anonymous Facebook Whistleblowers

Our clients revealed that Facebook had deliberately blocked pages of Australian government fire and safety agencies, among others, during brush fire season and health institutes days before the Covid-19 vaccine rollout in a strategically executed blackout that was only supposed to include news sites. They revealed it was a premeditated effort to strong-arm the Australian government and influence precedential legislation on how much it and other tech companies should pay news outlets for the use of journalistic content.

Whistleblower Aid helped our clients lawfully disclose their evidence to members of Congress, the United States Attorney General Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section, the DOJ Criminal Division, and the California US Attorney. We continue to protect their identities.

Shortly after our clients made their submission, The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission began investigating our clients’ claims. During an October 2022 Legislative Hearing by the Canadian Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, Whistleblower Aid and our clients’ disclosure were directly cited while debating Bill C-18, An Act respecting online communications platforms that make news content available to persons in Canada. Many European nations are also considering our client’s disclosure as they move to adopt similar legislation.

Joohn Choe

Joohn Choe hunted bad actors for Facebook.  His directive was to find and report hate groups, inciters of violence, and illegal use of the platform according to their community standards and federal regulations. What he found, and  alerted senior executives to, was evidence that sanctioned, pro-Russian rebels were using the platform to identify and imprison dissidents in early 2021. Despite his efforts, Facebook did not act on Mr. Choe’s reports and continued to allow the sanctioned rebels to use the platform to spread misinformation and publicly hunt and persecute people fighting for human rights in the country. Whistleblower Aid helped Mr. Choe to safely disclose his findings to the DoJ and the FBI. 

Mr. Choe continues to identify companies that are violating US trade and business restrictions and he shares these tips with the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control. Many of his tips involve businesses illegally supporting Russia and president Vladimir Putin. These sanctions will support international democracy and help protect those who fight against the unjust invasion of Ukraine.

Furthermore, Mr. Choe transmitted his research on hate groups and violent inciters to the January 6th Committee.   

“Before Whistleblower Aid, honestly, I felt… like I was way over my head and I didn’t have adequate preparation… [Whistleblower Aid] provided the support that I needed to come forward and provide my truth to the world – to become a whistleblower myself.” – Joohn Choe

Naomi Seligman

Two months after the Senate Foreign Relations Committee unanimously approved Eric Garcetti’s nomination as the next U.S. ambassador to India, Whistleblower Aid filed a disclosure accusing Garcetti of lying under oath. He had denied being aware that his top aide had for years engaged in a pattern of persistent sexual harassment and abuse, even though multiple witnesses in a lawsuit filed against the City of Los Angeles had testified that he had in fact seen it with his own eyes on multiple occasions. One of those witnesses, a former communications director to Garcetti named Naomi Seligman, became a Whistleblower Aid client and together we met with the staff of more than two dozen Senators, both Republican and Democrat, to lay out the evidence against Mayor Garcetti and to argue that enabling and attempting to cover up sexual abuse made him unfit to serve.

Whistleblower Aid filed follow-up disclosures and made sure the issue received consistent media coverage. In response, Senator Chuck Grassley directed his Judiciary Committee staff to investigate the issue themselves. Not only did they conclude that Garcetti either did or should have known about the harassment; they also uncovered more witnesses than had previously spoken out.

Two years after the original Whistleblower Aid disclosure, Garcetti remains unconfirmed as ambassador. Ms. Seligman, meanwhile, has joined the staff of Whistleblower Aid as Vice President of External Affairs. With Garcetti’s nomination still pending, we are continuing to support Ms. Seligman with congressional briefings and local and global media reporting. 

“I have dedicated my career to holding officials responsible when they violate the public trust. Whistleblower Aid was my invaluable support when I came forward myself to denounce a pattern of enabling sexual harassment and abuse in the Los Angeles mayor’s office and made sure that the facts prevailed even when my former colleagues sought to undermine me.”

Gary Miller

Gary Miller, a mobile phone security expert, disclosed that the surveillance company NSO Group Technologies offered to give representatives of an American mobile-security firm “bags of cash” in exchange for access to global citizens’ private texts messages, phone calls, and geolocation information.

NSO Group Technologies is an Israeli technical surveillance company that makes Pegasus, a program on smartphones – allowing operators to track the user’s locations, listen to calls, retrieve pictures and monitor social media activity – often used by repressive governments to spy on journalists, dissidents, and activists. Pegasus has been found on the phones of murder victims including prominent Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi who was killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.  Whistleblower Aid helped Mr. Miller share his lawful disclosure with the DOJ and members of Congress. We worked with The Washington Post to support their breaking news coverage.

Igor Ostrovskiy

Harvey Weinstein spied on journalists reporting on his sexual crimes in an attempt to identify and harass their sources using an elite, Israeli private intelligence agency called Black Cube. As an investigative subcontractor to Black Cube, Igor Ostrovskiy soon realized he was inadvertently assisting Weinstein while endangering himself and many others. 

Whistleblower Aid helped Mr. Ostrovskiy separate from Black Cube and provided secure communications for his use to shield him from retaliation. We helped Mr. Ostrovskiy disclose the surveillance to the journalists reporting on Weinstein and assisted the DoJ in their investigation of Black Cube. We guided Mr. Ostrovskiy through the process of sharing his story with the world with the help of one of the very journalists targeted by Weinstein in an exposé featured in The New Yorker. 

Whistleblower Aid is proud to have helped hold Harvey Weinstein accountable for his crimes and to support our nation’s journalists. 

“[Whistleblower Aid] guided me through the process… It was a relief. It felt safe. It felt like I’ll be able to continue to do the right thing and I’m not going to jeopardize myself. I don’t know where I would be without Whistleblower Aid.”– Igor Ostrovskiy

“I was lucky to have the support of [Whistleblower Aid], a nonprofit law firm that offers pro bono legal services to [w]histleblowers. They are a hero of our time, representing many national interest [whistleblower] clients for free.“ – Igor Ostrovskiy

Matt Schissler

Our client, Matthew Schissler, a sociocultural anthropologist who formerly lived and worked in Myanmar, provided groundbreaking evidence of Facebook/Meta’s culpability in a campaign of hate and organized violence against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.

He documented Facebook’s choice to ignore how the platform was being used to promote violence against ethnic minorities in Myanmar. Mr. Schissler’s disclosure, which Whistleblower Aid filed with the DOJ, highlights Meta’s failure to moderate non-English hate speech and take actions to prevent the deaths and displacement of millions. 

Current litigation against Facebook for its role in the Rohingya genocide and complementary work by Amnesty International are using Mr. Schissler’s evidence to hold Meta accountable and prevent similar atrocities.

Simon Edelman

A former Department of Energy (DOE) photographer Simon Edelman  made public photos that showed that then-Secretary Rick Perry was crafting U.S. energy policy to fulfill coal baron Robert Murray’s “wish list”. Mr. Edelman published his photos – which show the two men hugging and discussing an “action plan” for overhauling federal energy regulations — when Perry publicly claimed he did not have a relationship with Murray. He was illegally fired and ordered to destroy the photographs. 

Whistleblower Aid filed Mr. Edelman’s complaint with the US Office of Special Counsel, alleging that he was fired from the DOE for sharing “evidence of criminal corruption, obstruction of justice, and ethics violations” with the press.

As a direct result of Mr. Edelman’s disclosures, Perry’s proposed rule before the Federal Energy Regulatory Committee, needlessly subsidizing the coal industry, was voted down unanimously.

“…[T]here’s a great organization called Whistleblower Aid who’s there to protect people who want to expose law breaking without breaking the law. And they helped me out pro bono and they’re there for anybody else who wants to speak up and is afraid to. And this isn’t just a government issue, this is a private sector issue, too. If you see wrongdoing in any sector, you should feel free to speak up because you have the right to do so and there’s protections that can do that.” – Simon Edelman