In the wake of the furore about President Obama's data gathering exercise, the Guardian prints this morning a piece in G2 consisting of interviews with whistleblowers from various fields, detailing their tribulations - loss of job, loss of home, loss of health, relationships etc. As I read this piece I couldn't help noticing that one of the most famous whistleblowers of recent years was missing.
This was Sarah Tisdall, a civil servant who in 1983 leaked details about the arrival of US cruise missiles in Britain to a newspaper. The paper complied with a court order that it reveal the identity of its source, and Tisdall as a result was sent to prison for four months.
The newspaper in question? The Guardian of course.
