It seems that corporate and government secrets are being leaked with more frequency in recent history than ever before. Today, it was revealed that Edward Snowden, a former Booz Allen Hamilton employee, was the source of the leak concerning the NSA’s broad and, some would say, overreaching surveillance program. He is currently residing in Hong Kong in an attempt to escape prosecution by the Justice Department. The uptick in leaks such as these may be due in part to easier access to distribution channels via the Internet and a growing public demand for transparency and accountability in government agencies and companies alike.
While the reasons behind such leaks and whistleblowing efforts are often tied to an individual’s personal ethics, it is much harder to understand the conflict involved in the decision to leak information to the public. That decision often has serious and far-flung consequences for the whistleblower and his or her family. For example, Army private Bradley Manning, who leaked hundreds of thousands of pages of classified documents to website WikiLeaks, was arrested and jailed in May of 2010 and is currently in the process of being court-martialed. Edward Snowden could face extradition and be brought back to the U.S. for trial.
On the corporate front, whisteblowers such as Mark Whitacre (Archer Daniels Midland, 1992), and Jeffrey Wigand (Brown & Williamson, 1996) face financial and violent threats, the fear of being blacklisted, and, in some cases, prison time. Karen Silkwood, who uncovered health and safety issues surrounding the Kerr-McGee Cimarron Fuel Fabrication Site in Oklahoma, was killed in a suspicious car accident on her way to meet with a New York Times reporter about what she had uncovered. Because they face such potentially devastating consequences, corporate whistleblowers must carefully consider their decision to release sensitive information, weighing their moral and ethical obligations against their own personal wellbeing.
In their book, The Corporate Whistleblower’s Survival Guide, Tom Devine and Tarek F. Maassarani provide advice for employees considering whistleblowing and how they should handle themselves:
- Before an employee challenges a company, that employee must understand how large organizations operate and how corporate bureaucracies react to troublemakers.
- A prospective corporate whistleblower must be certain of what the objective is. Objectives may include being a good citizen, the desire to protect the public from a dangerous hazard, or compensation for damages.
- When hiring an attorney, the attorney’s motivation for taking the case should be aligned with the whistleblower’s ultimate objective, be it protecting the public from a hazard or winning compensatory damages.
- It is essential to examine and research the best channels for disclosure of information. Channels may include corporate management, hotlines, advocacy groups, public government agencies, law enforcement, government representatives, or the media.
- Successful whistleblowing hinges more on relationships than on formal legal rights or resources. Relationships are as significant as the quality of the evidence and the efficacy of the strategy.
- Advocacy organizations can be vital partners for whistleblowers, since these organizations can provide advice, research, and connections.
Hi Jason
I am writing this as part of my assignment for a Business Ethics paper, so my reply may seem longer than a simple blog. Thank you for providing me with a chance to think about the topic of ‘whistleblowing’.
The whistleblowing insider’s revelations may well have a bigger impact on society than that of an outsider exposing the same wrongdoing. An insider would have better knowledge of the workings of the organisation and have a better chance of obtaining confidential information than the outsider’s. Therefore, a whistleblower can reveal misdeeds in a very effective and efficient way. However, from an organisation’s or a government’s point of view, the whistleblowing would come as a surprise attack, one which they could not have anticipated or its effects. A whistleblower also cannot predict the impact caused, both to the wrongdoer and to him/herself. I believe that whistleblowing is one of the most important business ethics topics and is worth examining.
You say that the decision to blow the whistle often has serious and far-flung consequences for the whistleblower and for his or her family. It is necessary to consider how whistleblowing can be justified to avoid or mitigate unwanted consequences for a whistleblower. An act of whistleblowing involves disloyalty and damaging the organisation/government. A whistleblower acts against corporate rules such as ‘do not cause disorder’, ‘do not harm the organisation/government’s pride and trust’ and ‘do not leak confidential information.’ A whistleblower would need justification to overcome criticism that he/she had violated such rules.
You say that Devine and Maassarani provide the advice that a prospective corporate whistleblower must be certain of what the objective is. Objectives may include being a good citizen, the desire to protect the public from a dangerous hazard, or compensation for damages. I think this relates to whistleblower’s justification, and I would like to expand this idea further. De George (1993) said: “for a whistleblower to be morally justified, the following facts are required: 1. There is serious and considerable harm to the public 2. The threat of the harm had been already reported to their immediate superior but the superior does nothing to solve the problem. 3. The whistleblower cannot find any other way to solve the problem within the organisation/government. 4. The whistleblower has evidence of the harm and has a good reason to believe that revealing the threat will prevent the harm. If a whistleblower is justified according to the above analysis, he/she is morally right and should be protected. Some people may argue that De George’s justifications are broad, subjective and internal justifications. This means criticism will never be completely eliminated. However if we critically examine using De George’s justifications, it is possible to construct unbiased opinions. For example, I examine a case of the collapse of WorldCom which was revealed by a whistleblower. First, stakeholders had been harmed seriously by the window-dressing settlement. Second, other solutions were exhausted because the top management was involved in the wrongdoing. Third, the whistleblower was an internal auditor and had an evidence of the harm. Although criticism against the whistleblowing may not be completely eliminated, the whistleblower can be still justified objectively.
A prospective whistleblower has to judge for him/herself whether the whistleblowing would be justified. There is no one who will share their responsibility. Even though he/she convinces him/herself of its justification, he/she is not 100% sure that its justification would be accepted by the society. A prospective whistleblower will have a serious dilemma because he/she has to expect possible damage to him/herself as a result of the whistleblowing. You say that because they face such potentially devastating consequences, corporate whistleblowers must carefully consider their decision to release sensitive information, weighing their moral and ethical obligations against their own personal wellbeing. I believe that the justification will be the first step for a person to decide whether to whistleblow.
It is true that successful whistleblowing hinges more on relationships than on formal legal rights or resources. In reality, whistleblowers receive serious and sometimes severe retaliation, for example Mark Whitacre, whom you mentioned or Jeffrey Wigand and other whistleblowers experienced in the past. There are members of the public who consider whistleblowing to be a betrayal and support the view of retaliation. Those people with strong emotions against betrayal may cause more impact on whistleblowers than a spiteful counterattack from an organisation or a government. How can we mitigate the impact of those anti-whistleblowers? I believe that we should not allow those people to label a whistleblower as a disloyal trouble maker. They may bring a narrow-minded view that the problem is the whistleblower him/herself, such as the whistleblower has a peculiarity in his/her character, or the whistleblower has shown a lack of loyalty to the organisation/government. Those people would attribute the unfortunate event caused by a whistleblowing to the whistleblower’s own characteristics. This kind of narrow-minded attribution would be an obvious disadvantage for whistleblowers for their protection.
I believe that it is necessary to provide a suitable opinion to support a whistleblower’s vulnerable position. Each situation and background is different, so each whistleblowing must be examined individually and point out if there are any improper attacks on a whistleblower. You say that advocacy organisations can be vital partners for whistleblowers, since these organisations can provide advice, research, and connections. I expect that advocacy organisation can play important role to make sure that whistleblowers are protected from unreasonable criticisms.
In conclusion, to bring to the public’s attention an organisation or a government’s wrongdoing requires great courage. Unfortunately, in spite of the whistleblower’s tremendous effort, many whistleblowers have faced miserable outcomes. There is no doubt that it would be preferable that there be no corporate wrongdoing, then there would be no need for whistleblowing. However, in reality, there will always be some corporate wrongdoings, which only whistleblowings could prevent from causing further damage to society. As whistleblowings are occurring more frequently than ever, in recent history, it is important to give protections to those justifiable whistleblowers.
References:
Davis, M. (1996). Some paradoxes of whistleblowing. Business and Professional Ethics Journal, 15(1), 3-19.
Duska, R. F. (1990). Whitleblowing and employee loyalty. In J. R. Desjardins & J. J. McCall (Eds.), Contemporary issues in business ethics (2nd ed., pp.142-147). Belmont CA: Wadsworth.
Simamura, S. (n.d.) The Ethical Dilemma of Whistleblowers and the Concept of Loyalty A Theoretical Consideration toward Effective Protection of Whistleblowers, Retrieved January 3, 2014 from
The Open Polytechnic of New Zealand. (2013). 71203 Business Ethics learning guide (Module 2). Lower Hutt, New Zealand
Very good article and comment. I have a question, is the ethical dilemma here with the federal government in regards to Snowden? It would seem The government is being unethical in “its” pursuit of Whistleblowers.
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