Ryan Schwank & Anonymous

Whistleblower Aid represents two whistleblowers, one public and the other anonymous, who independently came forward from different federal offices to blow the whistle on the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) enacting a policy change to authorize forcible home entry without consent in violation of the Fourth Amendment. This case has had immediate impact in supporting the Senate demands for DHS/ICE reform as a requirement before reaching agreement over DHS/ICE funding. The demand for requiring judicial warrants for home entry (Number 1 of 10 demands) and for requiring improved training of agents (Number 6 of 10 demands) was made public on February 6, 2026.

The whistleblower disclosure, submitted to the U.S. Senate, focuses on a secret memo issued by Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons on May 12, 2025. The secretive handling of this policy change via hidden memo demonstrates that the Administration’s policies are eroding Constitutional protections. The policy laid out in the memo is a direct violation of well-established Fourth Amendment case law ensuring privacy and security in a person’s home—and in direct conflict with DHS’s written policies and training materials for ICE agents.

Given recent news reports of ICE officers acting with impunity to forcibly break into homes without a judicial warrant—or in some cases without any warrant—the case is timely as it pertains to what is being actively taught to new ICE trainees. The message being received by recruits—who lack law enforcement experience and Constitutional training while being directed to engage with the public—is that they may act with impunity.

Massive news coverage and congressional and public reactions to our case are building the momentum for a reckoning, even as more reports of harm come to light. There is also a substantial legal impact: a recent Minnesota federal court ruling held that ICE violated the Fourth Amendment when it forcibly entered a home to arrest someone subject to a final order of removal “without his consent and without a judicial warrant.”

Senator Richard Blumenthal expressed deep appreciation for the courage of our clients and said: 

“Every American should be terrified by this secret ICE policy authorizing its agents to kick down your door and storm into your home…Government agents have no right to ransack your bedroom or terrorize your kids on a whim or personal desire.”

The Senator and Congressman Robert Garcia co-hosted a Spotlight Forum/Shadow Hearing, featuring our client Ryan Schwank as the star witness alongside Minneapolis victims of the new ICE policy and experts on the constitutional violations pushed by the leadership of DHS. We are also partnering with investigative, research, civil rights, and immigrant rights organizations to track and defend against the Administration’s use of secretive memos authorizing unconstitutional policies and actions bringing real harm every day. As always, we are supporting state attorneys general as they sue for injunctive relief, to address the harm DHS and ICE are causing to their residents and to protect public safety, education, housing, free association, and employment.

Ryan’s case received extraordinary attention including a profile in This American Life, and coverage in top-tier media such as The New York Times, MS NOW, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. Two federal lawsuits relying on the evidence our client brought forward include one by the Lawyers for Civil Rights filed on behalf of the Greater Boston Latino Network (GBLN) and Brazilian Worker Center (BWC), followed by a lawsuit filed by a coalition of legal groups including Protect Democracy, the ACLU, the ACLU of Minnesota, the ACLU of D.C., and Dorsey & Whitney against DHS, ICE, and the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center on behalf of immigrants and U.S. citizens who have been impacted by DHS’s warrantless home entry policy.

Palmer Heenan & Paul Osadebe

Two US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) lawyers, Palmer Heenan and Paul Osadebe, told a Senate panel Jan. 13, 2026 they felt compelled to come forward as whistleblowers after watching the Trump Administration steadily reverse decades of progress to end discrimination in housing.

“We had no choice but to come forward,” Osadebe told a so-called “shadow hearing” convened by minority Democrats on the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. “The fair housing mission is being dismantled piece by piece and worker by worker.”

Our clients testified that HUD leadership is preventing enforcement of the 1968 Fair Housing Act (FHA) and that they suffered retaliation for coming forward to protect the public and uphold the law. With Whistleblower Aid’s support, they spoke out against what they describe as systematic efforts to prevent them from enforcing the FHA, long viewed as a bedrock of US civil rights law. The FHA mandates that HUD protect people from discrimination in housing based on race, religion, gender, family status, or disability. Such enforcement notably includes investigating and prosecuting landlords, realtors, lenders, and others accused of discriminating based on race, religion, gender, family status, or disability. Under the Trump Administration, civil rights attorneys like our clients have been prevented from enforcing this and other basic civil rights protections.

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, said she was “particularly grateful” to Osadebe and Heenan: “You didn’t have to speak up… And you faced consequences for doing this. I want to say on behalf of Congress: You help us in exercising our oversight role.” Senator Cory Booker (D-New Jersey), a housing lawyer, described how the FHA had changed his life, enabling his family to purchase a home free of discrimination.

Anonymous

In May 2025, an anonymous whistleblower within the US Intelligence Community filed a highly classified complaint involving Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and another, unnamed federal agency. In June 2025, the whistleblower, consistent with the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act, asked that their disclosure be transmitted to Congress. Gabbard, a subject of that complaint, then thwarted its disclosure to Congress for nearly eight months, on grounds including executive privilege, which generally denotes the President’s authority to withhold confidential information or private discussions from Congress. 

In a letter to Gabbard dated Feb. 3, 2026, Whistleblower Aid Chief Legal Counsel Andrew P. Bakaj wrote that he would offer an unclassified briefing on “Ms. Gabbard’s conduct and the underlying intelligence concerns” to the appropriate Members of Congress on Monday, Feb. 9, “should your office fail to provide us with security guidance on contacting the Congressional Intelligence Committees by Friday, Feb. 6, 2026.”

US Senator Mark Warner (D-Virginia), Vice Chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and one of a handful of congressional leaders authorized to receive a highly classified disclosure, was sharply critical of Gabbard’s stonewalling, which he described as “in direct contradiction to what [she] testified during her confirmation hearings, that she would protect whistleblowers and share the information in a timely manner.”

Dr. Jason Sattizahn, Cayce Savage, and Four Anonymous Whistleblowers

Six Meta researchers came forward to expose how Meta repeatedly deleted or doctored internal safety research showing that children, some as young as ten, are being exposed to child grooming, sexual harassment, drugs and violence across its platforms, including its Virtual Reality products.

According to our brave clients, Meta’s leadership, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg himself, prioritized engagement over child safety. Researchers were pressured to stop asking questions and to bury evidence of child harm on its platforms. Leadership also repeatedly terminated approved projects, such as age verification, that would improve safety within its products.

With Whistleblower Aid support, two of our clients, Dr. Jason Sattizahn and Cayce Savage, testified Sept. 9, 2025,  before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law at a hearing titled “Hidden Harms: Examining Whistleblower Allegations that Meta Buried Child Safety Research.” Their testimony uncovered Meta leadership’s “see-no-evil” strategy, which erases evidence of harm, silences researchers, and misleads the public and Congress about its actions to protect children online. After their bombshell testimony, a bipartisan group of 10 U.S. Senators, led by Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee) and Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut), demanded that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg provide all internal research regarding safety risks to and prevalence of users under age 13 on its platforms.

Jason Sattizahn’s written statement to the U.S. Senate

“I worked at Meta from 2018 to 2024. During these six years, I witnessed data scandals, multiple disclosures about Meta’s disregard for user safety and children’s mental health, and mounting public pressure against Meta. I saw the company respond to these pressures by deliberately compromising internal processes, policies, and research to protect company profits over users.”

“… [W] hen Meta has been given repeated and frankly unearned opportunities to improve their product and take responsibility for suffering they have created, they have chosen to double down, deflect, and deceive. To hide evidence. To punish those doing the right thing. To disregard and disrespect government bodies like yours instead of working with you to make positive change.”

Casey Savage’s written statement to the U.S. Senate

“I worked at Meta from 2019 to 2023. In those four years, and most especially as I led research on youth safety in Virtual Reality, it became clear to me that Meta is uninterested in listening to their users or in prioritizing their safety.”

“Most importantly, Meta is aware that these children are being harmed in VR. In my time on the team, I quickly became aware that it was not uncommon for children in VR to experience bullying, sexual assault, to be solicited for nude photographs and sexual acts by pedophiles, to be regularly exposed to mature content like gambling and violence, and to participate in adult experiences like strip clubs and watching pornography with strangers.”

Anonymous Former DOJ Attorney

A former Department of Justice (DOJ) attorney was the first – of three — whistleblowers to alert accountability holders that senior DOJ officials, including President Trump’s judicial nominee Emil Bove, violated court orders relating to the Trump Administration’s immigration deportation policies, then directed DOJ lawyers to commit perjury in federal court to cover up the violation. The whistleblower, whose identity remains protected, provided internal DOJ documents to the DOJ Office of the Inspector General (OIG), which, despite having received the complaint in early May 2025 — both digitally and by courier – later claimed they had “lost” the complaint. For nearly three months, while Bove’s judicial nomination advanced through the Senate, the OIG failed to review crucial evidence related to his fitness to be nominated to a federal judgeship. Only on the eve of Bove’s confirmation vote did the OIG “find” our client’s complaint and advise they would be unable to investigate the claims prior to Bove’s confirmation vote. 

In response to the OIG’s mishandling of this case, Whistleblower Aid has called upon Congress to investigate the DOJ OIG’s failure to act on this complaint in a timely manner, and to examine whether political interference played a role.

Miles Taylor

In a stunning abuse of executive power, President Donald Trump issued a Presidential Memorandum only three months after he took office directing the power of the full weight of the federal government to investigate Miles Taylor for espionage and treason – the first time in U.S. history that a president has invoked investigative powers against a named private citizen. Taylor’s ‘treason’ was speaking out against President Trump’s dangerous and reckless national security posture during the first Trump Administration.

Miles Taylor, who served as Chief of Staff at the Department of Homeland Security during Trump’s first administration, initially blew the whistle in a 2018 anonymous New York Times op-ed where he assured the public that he and others were leading a resistance against the President from within the Trump administration. He later came forward publicly, becoming a prominent internal critic of Trump’s leadership and raising the alarm on the threat he posed to American democracy. Now, Trump is retaliating against him to silence dissent and truth. With the support of Whistleblower Aid’s legal defense fund EndPresidentialRevenge.org, Taylor has filed a constitutional challenge against Trump’s retaliatory Memorandum.

Dr. Maxwell Ollivant and Anonymous

When two medical providers witnessed one of the nation’s largest healthcare providers delay and outright deny critical care to vulnerable nursing home patients, they stepped up to save lives. Our clients, both former UnitedHealthcare nurse practitioners, revealed a disturbing pattern of corporate greed and dangerous profiteering practices inside of America’s nursing homes. According to their disclosures, Optum, a subsidiary of UnitedHealthcare, systematically exaggerates elderly patients’ medical conditions to inflate Medicare payments, defrauding the American taxpayer. Then, in adherence to the company’s “playbook”, UnitedHealthcare pressures providers into delaying or denying critical hospital care, even when the patient’s life is on the line. In some cases, our clients were pushed to coerce elderly patients into signing “Do Not Resuscitate” orders to justify denial of care. If our clients did send a patient to the hospital, their compensation was docked, even if doing so saved the patient’s life.

With Whistleblower Aid’s support, our brave clients brought the receipts on UnitedHealthcare’s profiteering at their patients expense and were featured in the Guardian’s expose “Too Big to Care” series. In response, the company sued the Guardian to try to stop subsequent installments in the series from being published. We helped our clients disclose their experiences to the SEC and FTC, the Washington State Attorney General, and Congress. As a result, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are calling on UnitedHealthcare to be investigated for deceptive practices based on our clients’ disclosures Sen. Ron Wyden going so far as to say that “for-profit insurance companies are failing Americans.”

Nicholas Enrich

Nicholas Enrich, formerly the acting assistant administrator for Global Health at USAID and a civil servant with over two decades of service, stood up against the Trump Administration and DOGE to expose the truth: that Trump’s freeze on foreign humanitarian aid will cost the lives of thousands worldwide. Despite DOGE’s assurances that cuts won’t touch lifesaving assistance, the USAID team responsible for monitoring and responding to global disease threats – including Ebola, Tuberculosis, and Malaria – were dismantled. Critical safeguards to stop the spread of these diseases, like airport disease screenings in Uganda, were cut and disappeared overnight, baring the rest of the world to preventable outbreaks of deadly diseases. 

Soon after Enrich sent his concerns via internal memo to political leadership at USAID the memo was released publicly, and he was placed on administrative leave only 30 minutes later. The devastating details of his memo soon appeared in nearly every major news outlet. 

With the support of Whistleblower Aid, Enrich submitted a disclosure to the U.S. Office of Special Counsel and testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Dan Berulis

When Dan Berulis, a cybersecurity expert and former civil servant at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), witnessed DOGE exfiltrate the private data of millions of Americans in a stunning breach of public trust, he blew the whistle in the public’s interest. His bravery uncovered how DOGE exposed NLRB data – which could include names of union activists, sensitive labor cases, and confidential corporate information – to foreign adversaries, such as Russia. Within minutes of DOGE personnel creating accounts within NLRB agency systems, someone, or something, in Russia attempted to log in using all of the right credentials. Leading up to his lawful disclosure of wrongdoing, our client experienced serious threats to his safety.

Berulis stood firm in calling for a formal investigation of DOGE and the Trump Administration’s violation of the public interest and of the law. Thanks to Whistleblower Aid’s advocacy and media strategy, Berulis’ revelations dominated the news cycle. Alongside Whistleblower Aid’s Chief Legal Counsel, Andrew Bakaj, Berulis appeared on MSNBC – The Rachel Maddow Show, CNN – The Lead with Jake Tapper, and PBS NewsHour.

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, Kateri (Kat) Dahl, 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, Sean Williams, was drugging and raping both women and children for more than a decade. Two of the victims were critically injured or died following their encounters with him. In total, over 60 victims have come forward.

With Whistleblower Aid’s support, Dahl’s bravery was detailed in a major investigative story published by Ronan Farrow in The New Yorker. Dahl’s courageous and tireless pursuit of justice continues to impact Johnson City to this day. That includes a recently settled $28 million civil suit on behalf of Williams’ victims, as well as litigation concerning unlawful employment retaliation against Dahl herself.

“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