The Broken Whistle is the firsthand account of former CIA officer and Intelligence Community whistleblower Pedro Israel Orta and his years-long struggle with the very institutions and processes designed to protect those who report government wrongdoing.

Drawing on eighteen years of service with the Central Intelligence Agency—including assignments in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Middle East, CIA Headquarters, and the Office of the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community—Orta takes readers inside a world largely hidden from public view. His experience working on Intelligence Community whistleblower issues, and later becoming a whistleblower himself, provides the foundation for a broader examination of government accountability, institutional power, and congressional oversight.

The book opens with one of the most consequential whistleblower controversies in modern American politics: the 2019 Ukraine complaint that contributed to the first impeachment of President Donald Trump. Orta examines that episode through the lens of Intelligence Community whistleblower law and procedure, questioning how the complaint was handled and contrasting the extraordinary attention it received with the experiences of other Intelligence Community whistleblowers who struggled for years to obtain investigations, protection from retaliation, or meaningful relief.

But Donald Trump is not the book's ultimate subject. The system is.

At the center of The Broken Whistle is a fundamental question that transcends political parties: What happens when the institutions responsible for investigating government wrongdoing and protecting whistleblowers are themselves accused of failing the people who turn to them for protection?

Orta recounts his own journey through the CIA and Intelligence Community whistleblower process, including his allegations of retaliation, institutional resistance, failed oversight, and ultimately the termination of a career in which he had received eight Exceptional Performance Awards for contributions to U.S. national security. His story becomes the framework for examining a larger problem: whether Intelligence Community employees can safely challenge misconduct when their careers and livelihoods depend upon institutions possessing extraordinary authority and operating largely beyond public view.

The Broken Whistle also confronts the role of Congress. In America's constitutional system, congressional oversight provides an essential check on executive power—especially within the classified world of intelligence and national security. Orta argues that when Congress fails to vigorously oversee whistleblower protections and demand accountability when those protections fail, the consequences extend far beyond any individual whistleblower.

This is not an argument that government accountability matters only when one political party controls the White House. It is an argument that government power must be accountable regardless of who holds it.

Part CIA memoir, part whistleblower account, and part examination of the institutions entrusted with protecting national security and constitutional government, The Broken Whistle challenges readers across the political spectrum to consider uncomfortable questions about secrecy, dissent, accountability, executive power, and the responsibility of Congress to provide meaningful oversight.

Readers may agree or disagree with Orta's conclusions. But the questions raised by his experience are larger than Donald Trump, larger than any administration, and larger than partisan politics.

When the institutions created to protect those who expose government wrongdoing fail, who holds the government accountable?

—Through the pages of The Broken Whistle, Orta lays bare his own harrowing journey through the treacherous corridors of the Central Intelligence Agency. Within these walls, he describes a culture in which challenging institutional power can come at an extraordinary price—and where those who dare to speak out may face retaliation, professional isolation, and ultimately termination. As Orta’s unwavering voice rises above the institutional resistance he encountered, readers are led on an odyssey through a powerful bureaucracy that he contends too often protects itself rather than those who challenge it.

—The Broken Whistle is an unapologetic chronicle of one man’s fight for justice—a clarion call that reverberates through the darkest corners of government power. Orta peels back the layers of secrecy and institutional resistance to expose what he argues is a broken system that has forsaken one of its most important duties: protecting those willing to speak truth to power.

—Download your copy of the PRESS RELEASE and the SELL SHEET here in the italicized text; and an advance copy of chapter 21, “A FIGHT WITH THE DEVIL, ROUND 3: CIA HEADQUARTERS (AUG. TO DEC. 2017).”‍ ‍

—The movie can be seen video-on-demand on SalemNOW in this hyperlinked text.

—The movie has won three film festival awards: Best Short Documentary at the “Cine Paris Film Festival”; the Best Whistleblower/Best Awareness Film at the “World Film Festival in Cannes”; and Best Crime in the Monza Film Fest contest.

—The movie has also won three additional film festival honors: 2025 WXSA Paris International Film Festival semi-finalist; 2025 WXSA Barcelona International Film Festival semi-finalist; and Absurd Film Festival honorable mention for best soundtrack.