WHISTLE-BLOWING: THE INNER CONFLICT BETWEEN LOYALTY AND JUSTICE

So, who is a whistle-blower? According to Wikipedia is "a person who exposes any kind of information or activity that is deemed illegal, dishonest, or not correct within an organization that is either private or public". Usually he has an information about something wrong, uncorrect or unfair going on inside the company, public agency or national government he works in.

The most famous case is the one of Edward Snowden. He was a cyber analyst for one US Intelligence agencies, the National Security Agency, and he exposed questionable investigation and cyber intelligence gathering systems performed by NSA and other intelligence agencies around the world. He did so in order to give the public opinion the chance to determine whether this system of surveillance is acceptable or not.

Another type of whistle-blowing may occur in the private sector. An employee or a business partner may denounce a commercial malpractice, potential damages to public health or the environment, tax evasion, financial fraud, gender discrimination, sexual harassment and so on.

Governments and agencies even push for more whistle-blowing offering financial reward for people who provide useful informations.



I was thinking about what motivates employees to do so. In other words, there must be a inner conflict between loyalty to his employer, government, neighbour and something else, like lawful, integrity, compliance, a sense of rightfulness. All these aims try to protect equal distribution of taxes, privacy, the right to be alone, fairness in business, trust in public institutions, safety of water, air and manufactured products, public assets, national security, freedom of choice. I think all these can be summarized as Justice.

We know there is right and wrong. We have a inner sense of Justice. And when we see something wrong, unfair, incorrect, unlawful, unjust we all have a duty to respond to it. It is up to the employee, agent or contractor to evaluate where his duty of loyalty terminate and his sense of justice prevail.

So, yes, I think people, citizens and employees have a duty of loyalty and fidelity to their Country and their employer, but there is a higher duty of justice above it. That is the final seal of freedom.