Meet the founder
Shannon Norenberg knows why records matter.
Shannon founded Release The Records after a lifetime shaped by military sexual trauma, survivor advocacy, and whistleblower accountability.
Why she is doing this
Shannon is an Army veteran and a survivor of military sexual trauma from bootcamp. Years later, she became a Sexual Assault Response Coordinator, the senior official responsible for coordinating sexual assault response within a military institution.
She served as a SARC with the U.S. Marine Corps from 2010 to 2013 and with the United States Coast Guard Academy from 2013 to 2024. In that role, she worked with survivors who were often left without the records needed to understand what happened in their own cases.
In May 2024, Shannon became a whistleblower after uncovering evidence that she had been used by the Coast Guard to unknowingly provide false information to survivors of Operation Fouled Anchor, a 2014 investigation into sexual assault and harassment at the Coast Guard Academy.
Her disclosures contributed to national media coverage and congressional investigations into how the Coast Guard handled and concealed sexual assault cases. Release The Records grew from that same conviction: survivors deserve the truth in their own files.
From survivor to whistleblower
The system told survivors to trust the process. Shannon learned the records could tell a different story.
Release The Records exists to force those records into the open and return them to the people whose lives they document.
Start here
If Shannon's story sounds familiar, you are not alone.
Whether you want your records, want to understand whether a report was ever made, or are ready to make a formal report now, you can start here.