So Freedom only got a slap on the wrist, basically
The Personal Toll of Whistle-Blowing
11–20 of 121 posts
Re: The Personal Toll of Whistle-Blowing
#12So Freedom only got a slap on the wrist, basically
When asked about the Freedom fine, [Patel] responded, "I decided to take it as a cost of doing business."
This is the problem, why should you not take dubiously legal or moral action, if there isn't a significant deterrent?
Re: The Personal Toll of Whistle-Blowing
#13So Freedom only got a slap on the wrist, basically
pretty typical. look at Snowden. The guy ruined his own life and nobody still gives a damn. Was it worth it? i dont think so. He definitely should have kept quiet even if it was against his own personal beliefs. It sucks but it is what it is.
HSBC got slapped on the wrist for laundering cartel money.
"If you’re suspected of drug involvement, America takes your house; HSBC admits to laundering cartel billions, loses five weeks’ income and execs have to partially defer bonuses"
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/outrageo...
happens all the time with corporations.
Re: The Personal Toll of Whistle-Blowing
#14So Freedom only got a slap on the wrist, basically
pretty typical. look at Snowden. The guy ruined his own life and nobody still gives a damn. Was it worth it? i dont think so. He definitely should have kept quiet even if it was against his own personal beliefs. It sucks but it is what it is. HSBC got slapped on the wrist for laundering cartel money. "If you’re suspected of drug involvement, America takes your house; HSBC admits to laundering cartel billions, loses f…
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Re: The Personal Toll of Whistle-Blowing
#15This guy did OK out of being a whistleblower (barring the prison sentence): https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tax-birkenfeld/whistl...
you cant put a price on time behind prison bars and away from your family.
what if during that time his father died? was 100million "worth it"?
Re: The Personal Toll of Whistle-Blowing
#16An interesting story of turning whistleblowing into a business is Ven-a-care pharmacy in the Florida Keys.[1] They started out as a small pharmacy, but now have a team of lawyers. They’ve gotten over $600M in whistleblower rewards as of the early 2010’s. Not sure what the total is now. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/id/41491563
Did they have lawyers to begin with? How did they get awarded these funds if it was not their case to begin with?
Re: The Personal Toll of Whistle-Blowing
#17This guy did OK out of being a whistleblower (barring the prison sentence): https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tax-birkenfeld/whistl...
you cant put a price on time behind prison bars and away from your family. what if during that time his father died? was 100million "worth it"?
Two points: of course you can put a price on being away from your family. It's called a job, a millions of people do it all the time, often for long, extended periods (e.g. the military, expeditions, etc.) Being in prison is obviously extreme, but if getting out with several lifetimes of wealth means you never have to work again, could easily be a fair trade off.
Second, he went to jail because he committed crimes from which he expected to gain, personally. He was at risk for a longer, more severe sentence had he been discovered and not cooperated with the government.
Re: The Personal Toll of Whistle-Blowing
#18I hate the last few months of the year, when ads for car dealerships get pushed away by ads for "Medicare Advantage" plans which sound like something you need to get Grandma away from.
It's kind of thing that seems like a scam to normal people, but politicians seem to think is a way to save money. Go figure. I don't see how you can save money when you start out by adding 13% extra at the beginning to give the private sector some profit to work with.
Re: The Personal Toll of Whistle-Blowing
#19>One interviewee, in response to a question about what advice he would give a potential whistle-blower, wrote, “[Can they] afford 5 years of their life in turmoil?” Another said, “Part of your ability to do anything about this is keeping yourself together,” and suggested that whistle-blowers find someone “like a minister or a shrink who’s confidentiality-protected,” because “this could go on for a while.” A high prop…
But I wonder: if there was a way to reduce the duration of the cases, would that reduce the impact on whistleblowers? I remember reading somewhere recently about the standard M.O for federal cases. They take a long time in order to build an extremely solid case. That's why federal conviction rates are so high. Intuitively it makes sense. If you're gonna go after some naughty people for doing naughty things, you reall…
Indeed, Federal prosecutors tend to be pretty effective, and the amount of data in these corporate cases that needs to be reviewed is enormous.
Re: The Personal Toll of Whistle-Blowing
#20So Freedom only got a slap on the wrist, basically
pretty typical. look at Snowden. The guy ruined his own life and nobody still gives a damn. Was it worth it? i dont think so. He definitely should have kept quiet even if it was against his own personal beliefs. It sucks but it is what it is. HSBC got slapped on the wrist for laundering cartel money. "If you’re suspected of drug involvement, America takes your house; HSBC admits to laundering cartel billions, loses f…
First off I don't think you can make that determination, (was it worth it), only Snowden himself can. Second, while the toll was high for him, those of us who have sworn an oath to the Constitution take that oath very seriously and I applaud him for being one of the rare ones with enough conviction to act on his beliefs instead of just spouting them. Third I am eternally grateful to Snowden because without him all my rants about the coming surveillance dystopia would still be met with incompetent or malicious accusations of being "crackpot conspiracy theory" and generally ridiculed (like many other things the public still hasn't caught up on).