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Boeing whistleblower found dead in US

bbc.com

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Re: Boeing whistleblower found dead in US

#531

Post by ClumsyPilot »

shadowgovt wrote: post #517
vinay_ys wrote: post #457

Why does a whistleblower need to be identified? Why can't it be an anonymous tip to the regulator, who then uses the tip during audits to dig deeper and get to the truth? If they can't get to the truth even after being provided a tip, then their audit process is too broken? This whole business of non-anonymous whistleblower has too much power-imbalance and always seems to end badly for the individual.

Sometimes anonymous is sufficient. But if the regulator is building a legal case in the US against a company and the only evidence they have is what the whistleblower provides, right to face one's accuser (a right we do not give up lightly) demands that the whistleblower be named.

> right to face one's accuser

I will buy this ‘corporate rights are human rights’ argument when a corporation is put on death row for murder.

Re: Boeing whistleblower found dead in US

#532

Post by ClumsyPilot »

goku12 wrote: post #512
dfxm12 wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whistleblowers dying in suspicious circumstances is more about sending a message to potential future whistleblowers than anything else.

The NTSB is bearing down on Boeing to give up the names of the staff that worked on the Alaska Airlines aircraft whose door plug blew out. At this rate, Boeing wont have to worry about whistleblowers. The investigation alone will be enough to open that can of worms.

I will believe it when I see it, can’t recall the last time a major executive went to prison

Re: Boeing whistleblower found dead in US

#533

Post by ClumsyPilot »

zenexer wrote: post #26
esoterica wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Movies aren’t real dude.

In the real world, the security team just handles it directly. https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/pr/six-former-ebay-employees... Edit: In all seriousness, I don’t think the situation presented in the aforementioned movie quote is implausible, though I’m inclined to doubt foul play here unless there’s specific evidence to that effect. Depositions can be extraordinarily stressful; compound that with the anxiety of being…

Suppose you believed that a particular someone is responsible for, through incompetence or on purpose, deaths of 500 people and is making your life hell. Do you:

A - kill yourself

B - burn his house down first, at least

Re: Boeing whistleblower found dead in US

#534

Post by JohnBooty »

salawat wrote: post #511
andrei_says_ wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inflict damage or have the company wake up to its duty to safety and realign with its original intentions? I see whistleblowing as a call to integrity and healing, not an act of personal retribution.

Regardless, as a practitioner in the Quality field, I find the timing exceedingly suspect. Even if Boeing did rip him a new one in deposition, (which 32 years of employment and a documentation heavy culture more than equips a legal department to do) you don't close the ticket until it's resolved. He may have intended to do this all along; but not before all the dirty laundry got aired. There is no way that any of thi…

    Even if Boeing did rip him a new one in deposition, 
    (which 32 years of employment and a documentation heavy 
    culture more than equips a legal department to do)
There is no joy in this situation whatsoever but if these weren't matters of life and death, it would be darkly humorous to imagine Boeing's legal team attempting to simultaneously explain that he was a bad employee and that they for some reason chose to employ him for 32 years.

Re: Boeing whistleblower found dead in US

#535

Post by SR2Z »

chasd00 wrote: post #516
rootusrootus wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they made someone so despaired he saw no other way than to kill himself. Give the man some agency. If he chose to end his own life, that was his decision alone. And it may be entirely unrelated to Boeing. Maybe he would have done it anyway at this point in his life.

I wonder if there's a clause where retirement benefits are clawed back if you choose to become a whistleblower. That would hurt; 62 years old, your whole life spent at Boeing, and then all your retirement suddenly evaporates because you chose to cause problems.

I doubt it - such a clause would be trivially illegal, since it would be retaliation for reporting a safety concern.

Re: Boeing whistleblower found dead in US

#536

Post by slater »

Chinchilla03 wrote: post #141
slater wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Less of the onerous "if only others could see what I, random internet person, has seen!" self-aggrandizing would go a super-long way, imho.

In RL I never do such, as I know how to pretend and survive, for my own good. What I pointed out is that the dead guy did it with courage, with of course his life being the cost. Scaling it up I see something, and with the overall disappointment I find place to suit myself better in the future. And I don't plan to go a super long way with the majority anyway. This book is strongly recommended to read: "The Crowd" wri…

> In RL I never do such

...then why do it here?

Re: Boeing whistleblower found dead in US

#537

Post by dang »

lutoma wrote: post #308
dang wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a technical article. It's a lurid media topic* about a suspicious-looking alleged suicide with zero information for a substantive discussion, and tons of fuel for sinister speculation. That's not what HN is supposed to be for. However, we can give this one a pass because the ongoing Boeing saga is of interest and there's clearly a community appetite to discuss this development. Edit: even though the thread i…

[flagged]

I've replaced it with 'media' at the top. When I say something like that, I just mean the big media websites and they way they cover often-sensational stories.

Usually I say "major media" to avoid misunderstandings like this. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

Re: Boeing whistleblower found dead in US

#538

Post by JohnBooty »

wkat4242 wrote: post #354
ListeningPie wrote: post #98

The emotional strain of being a whistleblower and having your colleagues now see you as the enemy is not something I’ve read about, but it must take a toll. A whistleblower, almost by definition, is a hero to strangers and a villain to those they know and work with. Or he was simply executed like in many corporate espionage movies.

> The emotional strain of being a whistleblower and having your colleagues now see you as the enemy is not something I’ve read about, but it must take a toll. A whistleblower, almost by definition, is a hero to strangers and a villain to those they know and work with. Hmm I don't know, if I were a whistleblower I wouldn't really care what my colleagues would think. And I'd probably not continue working there anyway.…

    Hmm I don't know, if I were a whistleblower I wouldn't really 
    care what my colleagues would think.
Also, many of his colleagues probably admire him. They are also aware of the problems and presumably want them fixed.

I gather that whistleblower claims are generally about systemic and management issues, and not "Bob from accounting is a stupid idiot."

Re: Boeing whistleblower found dead in US

#539

Post by shadowgovt »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #531
shadowgovt wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes anonymous is sufficient. But if the regulator is building a legal case in the US against a company and the only evidence they have is what the whistleblower provides, right to face one's accuser (a right we do not give up lightly) demands that the whistleblower be named.

> right to face one's accuser I will buy this ‘corporate rights are human rights’ argument when a corporation is put on death row for murder.

Corporate rights aren't human rights, but the right to face one's accuser should be extended to any entity under the judicial process.

I don't think it's wise to just hand the government the power to dissolve corporations on evidence they got from... Somewhere, they don't need to tell you. Imagine how that could be abused by a corrupt executive or judiciary.

Re: Boeing whistleblower found dead in US

#540

Post by rolph »

bitfilped wrote: post #122
charles_f wrote: post #105

Is it me or the "apparent" in the title implies it looks like a suicide but is not conclusively one?

I doubt the police investigation is over, and a coroner report certainly isn't done, so there isn't an official cause of death yet.

cod develops over time, from an enforcement perspective, a rapid assesment of the situation may lead to a level of response based on perceived threat.

an experienced or well trained LEO may see a subtle detail indicating involvement, or not of other person, setting the tone for investigation or threat response.

an autopsy may turn that around if it ends up that a weapon was held in a position quite unlikely for decedent to achieve.

the overarching consideration is a planned murder is not in any way beneficial to boeings situation

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