Sep 28, 2026 · 55 min · 13 segments
IN THIS EPISODE Every whistleblower should know one thing before they step forward with their secrets that demand exposing - at some point, the legal system will engage with you. When that happens…
Jesselyn RadackGuest
John KiriakouHost
But it's because power does that, it uses secrecy to shield itself from accountability, that whistleblowers exist.
As power continues to shield itself via secrecy, our need for whistleblowers to step forward grows exponentially.
One thing every whistleblower knows for a fact, having blown the whistle, they're about to interact with the legal system.
When it comes to defending whistleblowers against the legal system, Jess is a rock and a rock star.
These days, she heads the Whistleblower and Source Protection Program, called Whisper, at exposefacts.org.
Whisper facilitates investigative journalism in the public interest by providing pro bono direct legal representation to whistleblowers and media sources with a focus on human rights and civil liberties.
She's written opinion pieces in some of the most important publications in the world.
For example, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The LA Times, Washington Post, Guardian, The Nation, Salon, Legal Times, the National Law Journal, and lots of prominent academic law reviews.
Jess received the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence Award in 2012, and that same year, she won the Hugh M. Hefner 1st Amendment Award and was named one of Foreign Policy Magazine's leading global thinkers.
Now more than ever, with the government at war on journalists, hacktivists, and whistleblowers, we need to protect those who reveal information that the public has a right to know but that the government wants kept secret.
What makes Jess so good at representing whistleblowers, and she's represented, among others, me, Tom Drake, Daniel Hale, and Ed Snowden, is that earlier in her life, she was a whistleblower herself.
She knows on a cellular level what makes whistleblowers or any individual whistleblower tick.
But it's because power does that, it uses secrecy to shield itself from accountability, that whistleblowers exist.
As power continues to shield itself via secrecy, our need for whistleblowers to step forward grows exponentially.
One thing every whistleblower knows for a fact, having blown the whistle, they're about to interact with the legal system.
When it comes to defending whistleblowers against the legal system, Jess is a rock and a rock star.
These days, she heads the Whistleblower and Source Protection Program, called Whisper, at exposefacts.org.
Whisper facilitates investigative journalism in the public interest by providing pro bono direct legal representation to whistleblowers and media sources with a focus on human rights and civil liberties.
She's written opinion pieces in some of the most important publications in the world.
For example, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The LA Times, Washington Post, Guardian, The Nation, Salon, Legal Times, the National Law Journal, and lots of prominent academic law reviews.
Jess received the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence Award in 2012, and that same year, she won the Hugh M. Hefner 1st Amendment Award and was named one of Foreign Policy Magazine's leading global thinkers.
Now more than ever, with the government at war on journalists, hacktivists, and whistleblowers, we need to protect those who reveal information that the public has a right to know but that the government wants kept secret.
What makes Jess so good at representing whistleblowers, and she's represented, among others, me, Tom Drake, Daniel Hale, and Ed Snowden, is that earlier in her life, she was a whistleblower herself.
She knows on a cellular level what makes whistleblowers or any individual whistleblower tick.
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