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Ordinary people with extraordinary courage... Join us as we examine the brave individuals who risked everything to expose the truth! Our countdown includes Frank Wills uncovering Watergate, Karen Silkwood documenting nuclear safety violations, Erin Brockovich fighting corporate pollution, and more jaw-dropping cases where regular citizens took down powerful wrongdoers.
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00:00So you've said from the start, I am not a traitor. Why was that so important to put that message
00:05out in your own words?
00:07Because eight years ago, I leaked that document for the purpose of helping the American people.
00:12Welcome to WatchMojo. And today we're discussing the times regular people brought someone else's nefarious deeds to light.
00:19Skullcraft says he often witnessed the downgrading of felonies to misdemeanors.
00:25Teapot Dome Scandal. Leslie Miller.
00:27The Teapot Dome Scandal was probably the most significant presidential scandal in American history in the 20th century.
00:37Prior to Watergate, many people considered this to be the biggest scandal in the history of the American government.
00:43In 1922, the federal government controlled several oil fields out west, including Teapot Dome Oilfield in Wyoming.
00:51Those fields were supposed to be reserved for the Navy to use in a crisis.
00:55But Interior Secretary Albert Fall secretly accepted bribes to lease two of the fields to two major oil companies under
01:03extremely favorable terms.
01:05When a Wyoming oil man named Leslie Miller noticed private trucks hauling equipment in, he got suspicious.
01:11He asked his senator to investigate.
01:13And soon, the whole deal was exposed.
01:15The U.S. Senate launched an investigation.
01:19They discovered Secretary Fall's family had mysteriously received $200,000 worth of government bonds.
01:27Fall went to jail.
01:28And 10 years later, Miller became governor of Wyoming.
01:32Albert Bacon Fall was sent to jail.
01:35So was the head of Mammoth Oil, Harry Sinclair, for contempt, not bribery.
01:39And Teapot Dome went down in history.
01:42Pacific Gas and Electric Company Pollution.
01:45Erin Brockovich.
01:46She was working as a legal clerk when she exposed a huge cover-up near the town of Hinkley, California.
01:52We've lost, I think, three students this past year.
01:55And you're convinced that the oil well at Beverly Hills High has caused these cancers?
02:03I believe.
02:05I don't think it's a coincidence.
02:08Pacific Gas and Electric Company had dumped hundreds of millions of gallons of contaminated wastewater in Hinkley Ponds, sickening numerous
02:16people.
02:17In 1993, Brockovich discovered that the company had known for decades that toxic chemicals were seeping into the groundwater and
02:24had done nothing.
02:25I'm just a guy with a small private firm.
02:28Who happens to know they poisoned people and lied about it?
02:32She and lawyer Edward Massery helped residents file a class-action lawsuit, and PG&E was forced to settle for
02:38over $300 million.
02:40Brockovich continued her environmental activism and has since become a TV host and a legal consultant for major firms.
02:46We're human beings.
02:49Common sense plays a role in science.
02:53Karen McGee Nuclear Plant Safety Issues
02:55Karen Silkwood
02:56In the early 1970s, Karen McGee's Cimarron Fuel Fabrication Site in Crescent, Oklahoma was riddled with safety issues, and the
03:05company was doing everything it could to keep them quiet.
03:07However, technician Karen Silkwood was on to them.
03:11There is no question that Karen was contaminated by plutonium while she was working at the Cimarron Nuclear Plant.
03:16She documented hazardous working conditions, faulty safety equipment, and missing plutonium, and found that records had been falsified to cover
03:25it all up.
03:26She reported everything to the Atomic Energy Commission and scheduled a meeting with a national reporter.
03:31But on her way there, she died under highly suspicious circumstances, and all her documents disappeared.
03:38They found a mark on the left side below the bumper that he attributed to the vehicle being struck by
03:49another vehicle.
03:50Fortunately, her report was enough to spark an investigation into Karen McGee, and its nuclear plants were closed the next
03:57year.
03:57There's no telling if we'll ever get an absolute answer, a definitive closure, but...
04:06In the late 2000s, this New York City police officer started secretly recording conversations with his colleagues, and he captured
04:13some shocking stuff.
04:15I never set that as effective policing, or as they would call it, proactive. Be proactive.
04:21His precinct had set illegal arrest quotas that led cops to hauling people in for the most minor offenses, and
04:28sometimes for no offense at all.
04:29At the same time, the higher-ups were intentionally under-reporting crime statistics to make it look like their offices
04:35were having a positive impact.
04:38Schoolcraft says day in and day out, it was all about the numbers, with little respect for people's rights.
04:44Schoolcraft faced major retaliation and harassment after he reported his findings, but he received a nice settlement payout after he
04:51sued.
04:51I believe they couldn't afford to have someone expose behavior so bad, so criminal.
04:59Schoolcraft followed in the footsteps of Frank Serpico, who became famous after he, too, exposed deep-rooted corruption in the
05:06NYPD in 1970.
05:09U.S. military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
05:12Chelsea Manning.
05:13She spent seven years in prison for leaking documents that revealed terrible things the U.S. military had done in
05:19the Middle East.
05:20While serving as an intelligence analyst, Manning obtained copies of hundreds of thousands of reports and videos.
05:26I think this is a very damaging leak. I think it breaks the trust and confidence that we need to
05:32have.
05:32She passed them on to WikiLeaks, founded by Julian Assange, which has also exposed surveillance by the CIA and NSA,
05:39corruption in the Democratic National Committee, and much more.
05:43The latest leak includes confidential views about major allies and partners.
05:47The documents Manning collected show that the U.S. military had killed reporters and tens of thousands of Iraqi and
05:54Afghan civilians, and committed other atrocities.
05:57The leak caused a massive scandal, with many people debating whether Manning had done the right thing.
06:02But I can say that the United States deeply regrets the disclosure of any information that was intended to be
06:13confidential.
06:14My Lai Massacre. Ron Leidenauer.
06:17It's common knowledge that American soldiers were responsible for horrific violence against civilians during the Vietnam War.
06:23But the My Lai Massacre was one of the worst.
06:26Its mission? Destroy the trouble spot.
06:29And all of its inhabitants.
06:31In March 1968, U.S. Army soldiers wontonly murdered between 350 and 500 women, children, and elderly men in the
06:41My Lai village for no apparent reason.
06:43The military initially reported it as an ordinary battle against enemy combatants.
06:48It was helicopter gunner Ronald Reidenauer who finally exposed the truth.
06:53I wanted to see action taken. I wanted to see the people who are responsible arrested.
06:58He wasn't present at the massacre, but he saw the aftermath and did his own sleuthing.
07:04Reidenauer sent letters to Congress and President Nixon calling for an investigation, which revealed what had really happened in My
07:11Lai.
07:12I think that it was Winston Churchill who once said, a country without a conscience is a country without a
07:18soul.
07:19Purdue Pharma's role in the opioid epidemic.
07:22Barry Meyer.
07:23The Sackler family are some of the most despised people in America, thanks to this New York Times reporter.
07:28He discovered that the Sackler's company, Purdue Pharma, was aggressively marketing OxyContin to doctors while lying about its risks.
07:36And that effectively, the company covered it up. This was in the late 1990s. This was just in the few
07:42years after OxyContin's introduction.
07:45Purdue knew that there was a high likelihood of people becoming dependent on the powerful narcotic, but it massively downplayed
07:51the problem while exaggerating the drug's effectiveness.
07:54The company even knew that people were selling OxyContin on the streets, and doctors were prescribing it to people who
08:00didn't really need it.
08:01The fact of the matter is that Purdue marketed this drug in an aggressive and illegal manner.
08:09Meyer made contact with a Purdue insider who gave him all the dirt he needed to expose the truth.
08:14The company has since gone bankrupt after paying out billions in fines and settlements.
08:19But Alex, if you talk to anyone who's been affected, they're going to tell you that no amount of money
08:25can reverse the damage or bring back their loved ones.
08:282016 Russian election interference. Reality Winner.
08:32After Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election, it came to light that Russian agents had engaged in a massive
08:39social media campaign to spread disinformation and promote his candidacy.
08:43Rumors were already circulating that this interference had taken place, but it wasn't confirmed to the public until Reality Winner
08:50leaked a classified document from the NSA.
08:53The government says Winner, who had a top-secret security clearance, leaked this secret NSA report about a Russian military
09:00cyberattack on a U.S. voting software company.
09:02She was working as a translator for a company that contracted with the agency when she discovered the document, which
09:09provided proof of Russia's actions.
09:11She mailed it anonymously to The Intercept, but the organization accidentally revealed her identity, and she was arrested.
09:18Investigators say Winner was caught because the document had been creased.
09:21Winner was sentenced to five years in prison, but was released in 2021 for good behavior.
09:26Because I think that the truth is one of the most important things in the world.
09:31Tuskegee syphilis experiment.
09:33Peter Buxton.
09:34For 40 years, the U.S. Public Health Service intentionally withheld syphilis treatment from hundreds of black men, without their
09:42consent, just to see what would happen.
09:45It was a disgraceful episode for American science.
09:48We feel the repercussions still.
09:49More than 100 of them died.
09:52It was one of the most disgustingly racist and cruel things the American medical community has done in the modern
09:58era, and it only ended in 1972, thanks to Peter Buxton.
10:03He worked for the Public Health Service, and was shocked when he learned about the study.
10:07He filed multiple complaints to his superiors, which went nowhere.
10:11Finally, Buxton leaked information to a reporter.
10:14The story became front page news, and the study was quickly terminated.
10:18But no one was ever penalized for their role in it.
10:21I'm saddened today to think of those who did not survive, and whose families will forever live with the knowledge
10:32that their death and suffering was prevented.
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10:52Watergate
10:53Frank Wills
10:54This principle of confidentiality of presidential conversations is at stake in the question of these tapes.
11:03I must, and I shall oppose, any efforts to destroy this principle, which is so vital to the conduct of
11:11this great office.
11:12The most famous scandal in U.S. history was uncovered by a humble security guard.
11:17Wills was just 24 years old when he was working at the Watergate Hotel and Office Building in 1972.
11:24He was doing his usual rounds early in the morning on June 17th, when he discovered duct tape placed over
11:30a door latch so it wouldn't lock.
11:32Wills called the cops, who locked down the building and helped him search the offices one by one.
11:37It was something that told me that you should check, not only check the door, but you should call the
11:43police.
11:44They arrested five men, who turned out to be operatives working for Richard Nixon, to plant bugs in the Democratic
11:50National Committee headquarters.
11:52Despite his heroism, Wills had trouble finding work, and spent most of the rest of his life in poverty.
11:58Would you have the courage to expose a scandal?
12:00Which of these people deserve more recognition for their actions?
12:04Let us know in the comments below.
12:05Let us know in the comments below.
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