Whistleblowing

According to Merriam Webster, a whistleblower is “an employee who brings wrongdoing by an employer or other employees to the attention of a government or law enforcement agency and who is commonly vested by statute with rights and remedies for retaliation.” In other words a whistleblower is someone from inside the company that alerts the public about neglect, abuse or corruption going on inside the company.

There are a few things that a whistleblower needs to consider before speaking out. The first thing that you need to consider is the following question; is speaking out really in the public's best interests? Next, you need to consider which is more important; loyalty to the company or loyalty to the public. You also need to consider your personal consequences such as your reputation and your job. Then you need to consider is the following question; will real change take place? If you finally go through with it you have to be very specific with your facts. You need to specifically say who did it and what they did. But before you do any of this, I suggest that you try to solve the problem within the company first. 

A recent example of this was a guy named Edward Snowden in 2013. He was a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee who leaked classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA). He fled the country and now resides in Russia because he cannot show his face in America anymore. There are organizations that try and protect whistleblowers so that they feel safe and feel like they can show their face in the place where they reside.