DoD's whistleblower program holds its origins in the Defense procurement scandals of the 1980s. Stories concerning overpriced spare parts and underperforming weapon systems dominated media headlines. Members of Congress concerned about those issues championed the cause of whistleblowers alleging they were reprised against for exposing procurement-related wrongdoing. In the years following, Congress has enacted, and amended, a series of laws aimed at protecting civilian appropriated-fund employees, military members, appropriated and nonappropriated fund employees, and Defense contractor employees from reprisal for engaging in whistleblowing activities.[6]

While procurement fraud was driving the statutory and regulatory reforms generally, Congressional oversight beginning with the Church Committee hearings of the mid-1970s led to reform within the federal intelligence and counterintelligence communities. As early as December 1982, the Secretary of Defense mandated that "no adverse action [be] taken against any employee because the employee reports" questionable activities within the intelligence community. Seven years prior to the passage of the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989, the Department of Defense was already working through the lessons learned by other branches of the federal government over the previous decade. A year later in 1983, Congress passed a law prohibiting reprisals against non-appropriated fund employees for blowing the whistle on wrongdoing at military base facilities. In 1986, the first statute aimed at Defense contractor employee whistleblower protection was enacted. At this time, members of the Congressional Military Reform Caucus also became concerned about military service members who chose to "blow the whistle" on DoD waste, fraud, and abuse. One specific story involved an Air Force colonel working on the development of the Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle. He openly challenged whether the operational testing of the vehicle was realistic enough. This angered Army officials to the extent that they threatened him with an unfavorable reassignment in reprisal. His reassignment was cancelled after congressional intervention. This whistleblower event became the subject of a 1998 movie called The Pentagon Wars.