In an age when accelerated communications contribute to growing perceptions of organizational improprieties, the ethical and legal implications of whistleblowing have become a major topic of discussion. According to Lawrence and Weber (2014), whistleblowing is an employee disclosing apparent organizational misconduct to the government or media; however, this reporting of information should come after attempts at going through proper channels in order to persuade the organization to take appropriate actions has been ineffective. Whistleblowers’ motives often come under intense scrutiny, since the consequences of sensitive data disclosures can seriously impact an organization’s operations, finances, and public image (Lawrence & Weber, 2014) …show more content…
According to McIntosh (2013), “Private First Class Bradley Manning pled guilty to 10 criminal charges stemming from the largest national security leak in the history of the United States” (p. 148). While his dissemination of government documents to the media were considered criminal acts, many whistleblowing advocates consider Manning’s actions heroic. In fact, Manning stated that his intentions were not to damage the country but to trigger public debate over United States foreign policy; “however, I did believe the release of the cables might be embarrassing” (Savage, 2013, para 10). Military whistleblower laws have been created to protect military personnel from retaliation for reporting to proper authorities any complaints or disclosures of “information that the servicemember reasonably believes constitutes a violation of law, or regulation, including sexual harassment or discrimination, gross mismanagement, a gross waste of funds, an abuse of authority, or a substantial and specific danger to public health or safety” (McIntosh, 2013, p. 149); nevertheless, Manning’s decision to leak 250,000 documents to the Wikileaks, a forum for self-described whistleblowers, would not be justified, since releasing national secrets to the public can put people at
“The most shocking cover up in the United States Military is not what you would expect (The Invisible War),” reports of sexual assaults over all branches of the military have tremendously increase every since women have been allow to take part of the military. According to the Secretary of Defense, over 500,000 male and female soldiers have suffered of sexual abuse from senior peers and commanders. During the past years, many women reported a variety of cases of sexual abuse. Sadly, the victims were only ignored, blamed and punished for the events. Sexual assaults are considered a scandalous subject which our military has decided to avoid, but by doing so, the number of rapes has increase even faster. Rape is a repetitive criminal;
According to Bok and Larmer (2012), “whistle-blower is a nearly mythical character- the brace, lonely person who exposes evil in the corporate or government bureaucracy” (p. 174). The question is whether blowing the whistle violates company loyalty or not. Bok, who asserts that loyalty is acting in a way that the company believes is in their best interests. However, Larmer argues that loyalty is acting in a way that reflects what one believes to be in the company’s best interests. This paper argues against Bok’s side by providing examples, scenarios, and research. The presupposition that whistle blowing does not violate company loyalty is true because one should do what is right for the public interest and oneself since the company is being
It has become extremely easy to transmit information almost instantly without any possible way to censor it quickly enough to keep it out of the public eye. Edward Snowden is an extreme in many examples of people using technology to civilly disobey. Whistleblowers however have created a serious new issue as to whether or not their actions go beyond civil disobedience into the realm of treason. People like Chelsea Manning, who released hundreds of thousands of sensitive documents illegally, could be seen fairly easily as a traitor rather than someone trying to do the right thing. The real question with whistleblowers is whether or not they have gone beyond disobeying the law to posing a clear and present danger to the American people. In the case of Edward Snowden, most would say no. In the case of Chelsea Manning, the results are fairly
Review “Just pucker and blow: An analysis of corporate whistleblowers” in Chapter 2. Please respond to the following:
What is the explanation of the standard view on whistleblowing presented by Sissela Bok and reported by Robert Larmer in his article?
At 5pm eastern standard time on a Friday in late October, 2010, an independent website publisher named wikilieaks.org released documents alleging government and corporate misconduct as told by soldiers in the United States Army. This marked the single largest classified documentation leak that the United States government has ever encountered. This leak included 391,832 classified documents that covered a span of five years, from 2004-2009. I would like to take a second to dive deep into the five ethical examinations that our textbook covers including the utilitarian perspective, rights perspective, fairness or justice perspective, common good perspective and virtuous perspective.
As history can attest, government whistleblowers act honorably for the greater good despite threat of prosecution. Government transparency, especially in acts of war, is important to a functioning democracy. J. William Leonard, former US classifications czar, In the documentary We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks, illustrates, “To have those types of decisions, those types of deliberations, done in secrecy is a tremendous disservice to the American people – because these are things being done in their name – so, whether you agree with them or not, to have a free back-and-forth airing of these is essential”. In support of these concepts, those behind WikiLeaks and other government leaks have taken great risks. Birgitta Jonsdottir, member of WikiLeaks and Icelandic parliament, stated, “We were working on something that we knew that could get us into serious trouble and we were all willing to take that consequence” (“We Steal Secrets”). In We Steal Secrets, instant messages between Bradley Manning and the man who eventually turned him in, hacker
At the time of the leaks in 2010, wikileaks was a new platform to unveil confidential information which would benefit the society. “For its work, WikiLeaks won Amnesty International's New Media award in 2009 and the Freedom of Expression Award from the British magazine, Index of Censorship, in 2008” (Benkler, 2013). This proves the fact that this platform was chosen by Manning with honest intentions. His motive was to bring out the wrongdoings of the Military forces to broad daylight. If an information exposing the immorality of US military is leaked, it is going to strengthen the judicial system of the country by eradicating such malpractice. According to these facts, Bradley Manning should be considered a hero for his valiant efforts. His life risking endeavor did not go in vain as he was acquitted of the charge of aiding the enemy by the judge (Tate,
It is popularly believed, even by presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, that whistleblowers only break promises of the nation, and release critically secret information to the everyday public. Many believe that they should be punished for this violation of secrecy. Yet, perhaps what they release could be saving the country and government. Secrets in government of war and finances can be detrimental to the health of the United States of America from the spread of conspiracy theories and due to the fact that the government, which should be protecting the people, is sneaking behind citizen's backs and making their own worldwide decisions. Whistleblowers are needed to create a prosperous and stable country if our government is going to be this corrupt with their secrets.
Employees have an obligation to do the work that they are assigned, to be loyal to their employer, and generally to work for the interest of the company, not against it.” People would argue that Edward Snowden is a traitor by stealing the government’s classified documents and put American in danger. However, Snowden claimed in the interviewed with The Guardian (2013) He said that within the organization, people tend not to take the issue a very seriously. When he tried to talk about the problem, he was told that it’s not a problem and he was ignored. Moreover, during NBC News’ exclusive interview with Snowden (2014), “the network indicated that it was able to confirm Snowden had made at least one attempt to go through channels and the network is in the process of obtaining records showing other complaints were made to superiors.” This means Snowden has at least tried to report his superior about the unethical conduct, but it did not work. In my opinion, Snowden was clearly justified that the only way to blow the whistle on this problem was to expose it to the public and let the outcome do the work that his
There are various cases about whistleblowing, one of them is the case of Motorola CFO, Paul Liska.1 He has been fired after giving a presentation. In the presentation, Liska pointed out to Motorola directors that the cell phone unit, Mobile Devices, missed its sales projection for the preceding three months. Liska intended to attack Sanjay Jha, the head of Motorola’s cell phone division, by doing the presentation at the board meeting. The whistleblowing occurred because Liska and Jha did not get along well, and Liska tried to save the situation with an attack on Jha. Liska objected to Jha’s hiring, his compensation package and the co-CEO agreement. Liska’s behavior markedly deteriorated after Jha’s hiring,
The whistleblower him or herself must be carefully scrutinized. What are the personal and the professional reputations of the whistleblower? What is the motive driving the whistleblower? Is it to benefit the client or the organization, or is it a need for attention or revenge? Is the whistleblower's cause seen as legitimate and significant by trustworthy colleagues and friends? Is the whistleblower aware of the potential consequences of blowing the whistle and still willing to accept responsibility for actions taken?
Whistle-blowing:- Whistleblowing is the term connected to the reporting by workers of unlawful, unethical, or illegitimate practices under the control of their businesses to parties who can make restorative move (Elliston 1985). Whistleblowing is a questionable authoritative issue. On the positive side, informants can help associations right risky items or working conditions and control fake or inefficient practices.Hides the identity/Privacy:-As a HR we ensure the whistle blower that we will not reveal his identity in front of all .This thing will never effect his working in future.
At the start of this century, unprecedented collapses of Enron and WorldCom have sparked heated world discussions over corporate whistle-blowing. In light of this, legislations and professional codes of conduct are implemented to provide framework on ethical and financial decision-making particularly for auditors. This essay covers prerequisites for an effective corporate whistle-blower hotline, measures to avoid potential pitfalls, as well as analysis on benefits and drawbacks of having a whistle-blower hotline.
Research speaks out that the person who blows the whistle is basically a trusted loyal employee. Also indicates chances that the person is a role model employee. It is the employees who have the responsibility to act ethically when he comes across evidence of such an unethical activity being done in the organization.