Bravehearts

They tell the truth about big business, big money, and governments around the world. But what happens to them when they have no more to tell?

Whistleblowers try to save lives—and too often pay with their own.

When insiders like former NSA analyst Edward Snowden, ex-FBI agent Coleen Rowley or Big Tobacco truth-teller Jeffrey Wigand blow the whistle on high-level lying, lawbreaking or other wrongdoing, the public benefits enormously—wars are ended, deadly products are taken off the market, white-collar criminals are sent to jail.

The whistleblowers themselves, however, generally end up ruined. Nearly all of them lose their jobs—and in many cases their marriages and their health—as they refuse to back down in the face of increasingly ferocious official retaliation. Holding such moral conviction despite terrible personal cost is the defining feature of whistleblowers.

These are the true stories of those brave men and women who have sacrificed so much to pull back the curtains on corruption, lies, and behind-the-scenes conspiracies—even as most of the rest of us continue to live in blissful ignorance.