The Personal Toll of Whistle-Blowing • Hacker News Board

Re: The Personal Toll of Whistle-Blowing

#61

Post by roywiggins » Mon, Jan 28, 2019, 5:38 PM UTC

Buttons840 wrote: post #47

snarf21 wrote: post #29

I keep thinking that in cases of any real size that these people should be put into witness relocation programs. Additionally, continue to pay them their current salary but not require them to work. We need people who know to speak out and therefore need to protect them.

Or give them a small percentage of what they save tax payers. A whistle-blower who saves tax payers billions should be set for life. Guess not all whistle-blowing is about stealing money, but I best most of it is.

That's exactly how SEC whistleblower awards work.

https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2018-44

Re: The Personal Toll of Whistle-Blowing

#62

Post by samstave » Mon, Jan 28, 2019, 5:41 PM UTC

There is an insidious aspect with respect to Tech Workers.

You don't need to be a whistle-blower to have a toll on your life/career.

Talk too much shit about a company in Silicon Valley and you're fucked, regardless of the merits of your claims against them.

#TeflonUnicorn

Re: The Personal Toll of Whistle-Blowing

#63

Post by Simon_says » Mon, Jan 28, 2019, 5:43 PM UTC

whatshisface wrote: post #22

readhn wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> He definitely should have kept quiet even if it was against his own personal beliefs. That argument for moral complacency is largely self-fulfilling, because if nobody thinks that one person defecting will change anything, you'll never get more than one defector at once, and nothing will ever change. In that way everyone will march in lockstep to hell and deserve every bit of the torture that's waiting for them. Th…

Snowden's escape was a near-run thing. He intended to go to Ecuador and got trapped in Russia. He's only living free now because Putin likes showing the rest of the world that the USA is just as bad as Russia. It very easily could have gone another way with Snowden never seeing the light of day again and getting tortured for the rest of his life.

That's a lot to ask of anyone, and why I think Snowden will go down as among the bravest people in history.

Re: The Personal Toll of Whistle-Blowing

#64

Post by sleepybrett » Mon, Jan 28, 2019, 5:55 PM UTC

Should whistleblowers be entitled to some portion of the fine levied against the offender to offset their losses (and encourage whistleblowing)?

Re: The Personal Toll of Whistle-Blowing

#65

Post by mywacaday » Mon, Jan 28, 2019, 6:01 PM UTC

Ireland is still recovering from the Maurice McCabe case https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garda_whistleblower_scandal#Ma... He was ostracized by his colleagues and even painted as a pedophile by Senior Gardai(Police) trying to discredit him. An absolute horror of a story when you get into the details, spent nearly a decade proving his life fighting the case and clearing his name. Can't imagine any Gardai whistleblowers in Ireland for a long time.

Re: The Personal Toll of Whistle-Blowing

#66

Post by gwern » Mon, Jan 28, 2019, 6:08 PM UTC

> A few days later, in early September, 2014, Sewell was rushed to the hospital with a serious head injury after an accidental fall inside his house. Medical personnel found a clot in his brain. After three days in the hospital, Sewell died, at the age of thirty-nine.

Head injuries are no joke, people. Even if you recover from them, the epidemiology suggests there are life-long consequences for mental health, intelligence, income, impulse control...

Re: The Personal Toll of Whistle-Blowing

#67

Post by Red_Pill_Phil » Mon, Jan 28, 2019, 6:13 PM UTC

ilaksh wrote: post #59

For me there is a related issue that is just as problematic or worse. There are certain things that are critical of the US government that are simply not allowed to be spoken in most US centric places. The public effectively censors itself. I could mention some specific things but that would trigger it and then no one would see my comment. In general you can get away with mentioning things from the distant past but n…

Ive noticed this too alot lately and I've actually started to question if our ideals are really moral.

I think we have a very serious conversation ahead of us as a culture.

Are we the bad guys?

Re: The Personal Toll of Whistle-Blowing

#68

Post by tzs » Mon, Jan 28, 2019, 6:18 PM UTC

chrisbennet wrote: post #39

ramblerouser wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is totally incorrect. The high conviction rate is a result of extremely high maximum sentences. People who are 100% innocent often plead guilty after being threatened with a 30-year prison sentence that would be only 1 or 2 years under local law. Many federal crimes are unconstitutional and deliberately vague, like "lying (not volunteering incriminating evidence) to an investigator" and "mail fraud" which is jus…

I assume whomever downvoted You has forgotten what happened to Aaron Schwartz.

He's probably being down-voted for saying erroneous things like

> The high conviction rate is a result of extremely high maximum sentences. People who are 100% innocent often plead guilty after being threatened with a 30-year prison sentence that would be only 1 or 2 years under local law.

That's erroneous because very few federal defendants actually face such long sentences, so those that do so pleading guilty is not a plausible explanation for high conviction rates.

Federal sentences for a particular instance of a crime are based on the class of the crime and on the details of the particular instance. The class sets an upper limit, which often is long, up to 20 years, but it is the details that determine how much you can actually get. To actually get anywhere near that 20 years you have to have a lot of the details against you. Typically this means you caused a lot of damages or harm, had multiple prior convictions for similar crimes, where doing it as part of organized crime, and similar things.

Swartz is a good example. A lot of reporting said he faced 30 years or 50 years or similar big numbers. Actually, he was looking at maybe 6 or 7 years if things went as favorably as possible for prosecutors.

The DOJ bears a lot of the blame for that bad reporting. They make no attempt in the press releases announcing indictments to actually compute the maximum sentence for the particular instance of the crime. They just give the maximum that it is possible for the worst possible instance of that crime committed by the worst possible defendant.

Here's a good article on federal sentence length [1].

[1] https://www.popehat.com/2013/02/05/crime-whale-sushi-sentenc...

Re: The Personal Toll of Whistle-Blowing

#69

Post by gizmo385 » Mon, Jan 28, 2019, 6:21 PM UTC

ramblerouser wrote: post #27

samcday wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is totally incorrect. The high conviction rate is a result of extremely high maximum sentences. People who are 100% innocent often plead guilty after being threatened with a 30-year prison sentence that would be only 1 or 2 years under local law. Many federal crimes are unconstitutional and deliberately vague, like "lying (not volunteering incriminating evidence) to an investigator" and "mail fraud" which is jus…

> like "lying (not volunteering incriminating evidence) to an investigator"

This is literally the purpose of the 5th amendment. If you get asked a question where the answer would incriminate you, you are well within your rights to refuse to answer the question. Taking the path of deliberately attempt to mislead investigators is most certainly a crime and it should be.

Re: The Personal Toll of Whistle-Blowing

#70

Post by boomboomsubban » Mon, Jan 28, 2019, 6:27 PM UTC

Red_Pill_Phil wrote: post #67

ilaksh wrote: post #59

For me there is a related issue that is just as problematic or worse. There are certain things that are critical of the US government that are simply not allowed to be spoken in most US centric places. The public effectively censors itself. I could mention some specific things but that would trigger it and then no one would see my comment. In general you can get away with mentioning things from the distant past but n…

Ive noticed this too alot lately and I've actually started to question if our ideals are really moral. I think we have a very serious conversation ahead of us as a culture. Are we the bad guys?

We've avoided that conversation for two hundred years, why is it ahead of us now? If anything, blind patriotism makes it easier to ignore.