The Cost of Whistle Blowing
Over at Instapundit, Glen quotes:
The Obama administration has directed defense officials to sign a pledge stating they will not share 2010 budget data with individuals outside the federal government.
Which prompts one of his readers to write:
Reader Jim Menard writes: “Obama must have learned from Bush’s experience with internal opposition cells at the CIA and State Department, with their damaging anonymous leaks of sensitive information. The military certainly includes some anti-budget-cut hawks, so Obama’s move makes political sense, but if Bush had even thought about something like this, details would have been leaked to and lambasted in the NY Times within hours.”
I bring it to your attention because I think this does a nice job of showing the problem of ‘leaks’ in federal organizations. I’ve argued with several of you on this point. I think that if you are caught leaking information you should be fired no matter how important that information is in bringing to light wrong doing. If a leaker really honestly believes wrong doing is being committed, they should be willing to lose their job to reveal it. Given the administration’s decision to force individuals at the defense department to sign pledges not to leak information, Obama seems to agree with me. I wonder where my readers land on this issue now that their president has sided with me.
Additionally, I also think the comment about the NYtimes also helps illustrate how bias in the press manifests itself.
February 26th, 2009 at 10:14 am
I agree, we should have fired Chaney, Rumsfeld and Libby right away after they leaked the identity of one of our agents.
February 26th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
Oddly, I agree. If its the case that these adminstrators Actually leaked this information they should be fired.
February 26th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
Yeah, I have to agree, although it kinda sucks because it means there’s only ever a disencentive to point out actual problems and wrongdoing. I can’t help but think that our current financial crisis might not have been as bad if some of the people who knew about the junk securities and so forth had spoken out sooner, but of course they would have beeen fired and never hired again and their families would be homeless, etc. Steve, would you give to a charity that was dedicated to supporting and finding new jobs for employees who did blow the whistle on genuine corruption or wrong doing and were fired for doing so? I thikn I would.
March 3rd, 2009 at 4:31 pm
Many people did speak out, but no one could hear them over the deafening roar of money flying into their pockets.