How is a person who reported corruption protected
Whistleblower Protection and the Truth: Linked intimately | Tom Michael Devine | TEDxWilmingtonSalon
July 30th 1778 the continent
America July 30th 2016 we're here
celebrating national whistleblower day
who are these whistleblowers they're
people who use freedom of speech to
challenge abuses of power that betray
the public trust now if they're isolated
the Government Accountability Project
where I work we call whistle blowing
sound of professional suicide but with
solidarity they personify why it's a
cop-out to say you can't fight city hall
or big business they personified that we
haven't lost control of our lives and we
can still make a difference
well they need solidarity at a number of
areas first they need solidarity to
defend them against retaliation and that
means everything from informal
investigations to days in court to
review by the Supreme Court of the laws
protecting them
no and it's funny increasingly they're
getting it the Supreme Court supposedly
can't agree on anything but in every
major test case of whistleblowing since
2000 and the Supreme Court is
overwhelmingly backed the whistleblowers
well then there's solidarity from other
witnesses and it's essential for the
initial pebble of the truth to turn into
a landslide that can't be denied that
can't be covered up the truth is
covering up the cover-up and it gap we
do investigations to help expand the
circle of witnesses and when that
happens then you need solidarity from
the public and where I work we play
information matchmaker with that
evidence that's not just legal cases we
do those with their legal campaigns for
the truth
well we unite the isolated whistleblower
with everyone who should be benefiting
from that's dissent from their knowledge
and instead of a corrupt bureaucracy
surrounding the whistleblower and
isolating that person we get the word
out to the media to the politicians to
the law enforcement people to the
communities
have been affected to the citizens
groups who are lifers in trying to fight
those abuses of power to the competitors
of the people who are abusing their
power everybody who should be benefiting
from that knowledge when that happens
instead of a corrupt bureaucracy
surrounding the isolated whistleblower
it's society surrounding that corrupt
bureaucracy in the truth has turned into
power
well they need solidarity a third way
from the law and you know they're
getting it when I first came to Gap we
had one week Gras for government
whistleblowers and just a couple of
lawyers for the private sector now we've
got 59 whistleblower Blois blanketing
our society and when I first came to gap
in 1979 there was only one country in
the world with a whistleblower law the
United States now there are 30 nations
with whistleblower laws free speech
rights have spread from the local level
in Washington DC to the federal level to
the United Nations the World Bank
countries all over the world Serbia the
most recent one in 2012 well even
Albania a few weeks ago whistleblowing
is the most dynamic area of
international law that exists but they
can't have this solidarity without
education and so that means that we have
to be training government officials how
to work with whistleblowers training
organization of leaders that there
should be their best resource instead of
turning them into enemies we have to
train our students in education and
classes we have to share our lessons
learned in books such as our book the
corporate whistleblower Survival Guide a
handbook for committing the truth the
first 30 years of lessons learned it get
you know as long as we've had organized
society powers been getting abused and
sooner or later somebody said enough is
enough
it was the pioneer of challenging that
abuse and you know I think of Jesus as a
whistleblower against the corrupt
religious organizations
I think Martin Luther was a
whistleblower against the Catholic
Church but the sailors in the American
Revolution who sparked our first smart
they blew the whistle blow the whistle
on a corrupt commander of the Navy
Lincoln deputized the whistle blowers in
the Civil War to file citizen
whistleblowing lawsuits it's morphed
into America's most effectively
anti-corruption law but no no they are
what we call them I'm whistleblowing
it's nothing special about the name
there's nothing magic about that yeah in
the Netherlands there called bell
ringers of the people who climb the
church tower and ring the bells to warn
the town of danger in some countries
there called lighthouse keepers after
those who shined the lights and the
rocks that were hidden but with sink
ships in the Africa they're called
public sentinels because they're
defending the people but no matter what
we call them whistleblowing is freedom
of speech when it counts the most
that's easy to have freedom of speech at
a sports event where the referee calls a
foul on the wrong athlete and 40 or 50
thousand people have the freedom to call
that referee any name they want to well
while it's it's hard to retaliate
against forty or fifty thousand people
and it wasn't a secret the the mistake
was probably televised and everybody
could see it well it's a lot different
if you're thinking about blowing the
whistle there may be only a few people
who know the truth and whoever is
abusing the power is desperate to make
sure that no one else learns about it
and because then it couldn't continue
makes this very high-stakes
and very very dangerous well
whistleblowers years freedom of speech
in a few different ways the most we
usually think about is the freedom to
protest that's kind of the stereotype
that's very significant whether it's
demonstrating in the streets or
appearing in a television program to
expose corruption or testifying in
Congress or even being a witness that a
guy
rushon trial whistleblowers are the
agents of accountability this way you
can't have law enforcement you can't
correct problems without people being to
bear witness and testify but I think
there's an even more significant use of
freedom of speech by whistleblowers
that's the freedom to warn to prevent
avoidable disasters before it's too late
for anything sub damage control picking
up the pieces or finger-pointing whose
fault was it when those are important
but they're not much solace for the
families of victims from tragedies that
never should have happened if we'd only
listened you know this doesn't just
apply to the public at large
organizational leaders too we're always
advising organizational leaders that
whistleblowers should be their eyes and
ears their best resources because the
problems have been covered up from them
in the middle of the bureaucracy and
they might not know about them until
it's they're being blamed and held
accountable because the buck stopped
with them whistleblowers can make a
difference if we listen to them I tell
the organization the leaders look you
know it's bad business to silence or
kill the messenger well you know we have
all these different lessons learned and
ideas but why do the whistleblowers to
do it what makes them expose themselves
to retaliation they're in a a life's
crossroads nothing will ever be the same
after this decision and it's a
crossroads where they have to pick
between valid but conflicting values
that we're all raised with there for
example we don't like naysayers and
troublemakers and people who are cynical
we like team players but on the other
hand we don't like bureaucratic sheep
and we value rugged individualists well
we don't like tattle tales and thinks
and rats but on the other hand we don't
have much respect for people who look
the other way don't want to get involved
it's still
America's national disgraces that sixty
years ago a woman Kitty Genevieve was
murdered and raped on the streets of New
York and everybody close their curtains
I didn't want to get involved you know
and uh see no evil hear no evil speak no
evil we think of that as monkeys not as
human beings whistleblowers have to
choose or what about the right to
privacy versus the public's right to
know or loyalty you know we're all
raised that our first loyalty should be
to support our families and you blow the
whistle you might lose your job and not
be able to support them that's why you
don't bite the hand that feeds you but
what about loyalty to the law and what
about loyalty to our country we call
that patriotism well these are difficult
choices then in my experience working
with 7,000 whistleblowers there's a
common reason they act on what they've
learned because they have to to be true
to themselves it's one of them told me I
have to keep looking myself in the
mirror and sometimes their motives are
noble sometimes they may be self-serving
but if they don't act on their knowledge
for the rest of their lives they'll be
wondering things could have been
different if I hadn't been part of the
cover-up you know one of my first
clients and mentors and teachers a
gentleman named Ernie Fitzgerald
Pentagon whistleblower he exposed the
world's most expensive nuts both coffee
coffee parts toilet seats spending
hundreds of times more for the taxpayers
then we'd be charged if we just went
down to the hardware store and Ernie
told me that whistleblowing is
committing the truth because you're
treated like you committed a crime and
isn't that ironic as whistleblowers it's
the human factor they're the Achilles
heel of bureaucratic corruption and the
most corrupt bureaucracies that produced
the most heroic whistleblowers these are
people who make a difference well you
know it's quite a sales pitch that I'm
giving you
and one of the
one of the things that I think they have
an obligation to do is give us some
proof to back up these claims one of the
first people that I've really been
impressed with was an FDA scientist
named dr. David Graham he blew the
whistle on Vioxx wax was a super pain
killer was like aspirin on steroids
only it turned out it was a killer
painkiller it had killed almost 50,000
Americans from unnecessary heart attacks
all this from a drug that our government
had officially decreed was safe about as
many people as died in the Vietnam War
well thanks to dr. Graham public health
was protected and that stopped within a
month of his Senate testimony the
company withdrew VAX from the market
although it was making almost a billion
dollars a year in profits and what was
the reason there were 400 billion
dollars in lawsuits the truth makes a
difference or let's go to threats to
freedom from our own government there
were half a dozen whistleblowers
starting at the telephone companies
through the Department of Justice the
NSA climaxing with mr. Snowden who
taught us the big brother has moved into
the homes of every American family that
uses electronic communications well
thanks to their courage we got the USA
Freedom Act and there's some controls on
their type of surveillance now let's
consider anti-terrorism Robert McLane
was a blur at the federal federal air
marshals service he stopped the
government from going AWOL
during a more ambitious rerun of 9/11 in
2003 Saudi intelligence the u.s.
counterintelligence had confirmed that
al Qaeda this time was planning not to
attack just New York City in Washington
DC those cities plus cities up and down
the West Coast European capitals Rome
London Paris even the capital of
Australia Canberra it was going to be
the grand finale of terrorism
in our department of homeland security
pulled all the air marshals off when the
when the attack was can when the attack
was going to be taking place thanks to
mr. MacLaine's disclosure within 24
hours the government said oh is all a
mistake corrected the mistake the
hijacking was prevented these people
changed the course of history or
casualties in water France now the chief
science advisor for the Marines he
learned that 90% of our fatalities in
60% of our casualties in Iraq because we
hadn't delivered for a year and a half
vehicles that would actually protect our
troops against landmines and they were
using ones they weren't even designed
for that purpose well thanks to him
blowing the whistle the EM reps as
they're called were delivered in
casualties from land mines went from 60%
to 10%
what about human rights about 15 years
ago and the situation in our country was
that people arriving from other nations
at the airports or african-american
women coming through our airports were
regularly stopped in accused of drug
smuggling without any evidence
sometimes it was sexual harassment
sometimes they just wanted overtime
nothing to do with the law enforcement
though in if they couldn't find any
drugs in their luggage they do body
cavity searches inside and outside if
they still couldn't find any drugs they
take them to a hospital you have up to
four days of laboratory tests during
their time they couldn't contact their
family they couldn't talk to a lawyer
but they had vanished in their bodies
were property of the United States
government well thanks to Kathy Harris
an African American customs inspector
down in Atlanta the truth came out the
government couldn't defend itself in
four days were shrunk to two hours
before they have the rights of
citizenship well let's consider the
environment about 20 years ago at the
Hanford nuclear waste dump that's where
we store all America's radioactive waste
plutonium the most dangerous substance
on the planet or if you touch it in less
than 240,000 years it kills you and
about 20 years ago the contractor there
held a press conference and said well
we've lost track of 5,000 gallons of
radioactive waste we're telling you this
because we're honest and don't worry I
can't get into the water supply or
anything well thanks to a whistleblower
using their books we learned the real
figure wasn't 5,000 gallons four hundred
forty billion gallons of radioactive
waste unaccounted for we send divers
that into the Columbia River the water
supply for the Pacific Northwest there
are already traces of radiation in the
water thanks to a whistleblower it
started a much more ambitious cleanup
effort plugging the leaks and we don't
have the wrong kind of hot water in the
Pacific Northwest today you know I could
keep going for quite a while but I think
the points been made whistleblowers
changed the course of history in their
making more of a difference today than
ever before in the course of history and
you know it's funny that our government
leaders say oftentimes well if we want
to be safe it's very expensive and it's
going to cost a lot of money tens and
tens and tens of billions of dollars for
you to be safe
and we don't really have the luxury of
all this Liberty we're gonna have to cut
back on freedom if you want to be safe
but it doesn't cost anything to listen
and whistleblowers they make us safer by
strengthening our freedom instead of
canceling it
you know the founding fathers had it
right that freedom of speech should be
the First Amendment in our bill of
rights you know and the good news is if
solidarity is the magic word for
whistleblowers to make a difference and
get away with it they're getting more
solidarity that ever before in history
when I first came to get they're
considered Kooks or traitors or nuts now
they're lionized in the press
unprecedented public
support is the reason why Congress which
can't get it agree on anything as
unanimously passed 15 laws for strong
and whistleblower protection since 2000
though Supreme Court justice once said
if corruption is a social disease
sunlight that's the best disinfectant
and the reason is pretty obvious to me
in a free society there's nothing more
powerful than the truth
you
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