‘Knife in your back’: The dangers of being a whistleblower

I would say 95% of the whistleblowers really think they're going to get a handshake for

reporting a violation. It's like, no, you're going to get a knife in your back

You see it in the headlines. Whistleblowers coming forward. But will blowing the whistle

put their own livelihood or lives at risk? When the whistleblower comes into our office

they're so stressed and they should be and anxious. They should be

The public recently learned more on the digital footprint of the man who attempted to assassinate

President Trump at the Butler, Pennsylvania rally. A trove of information regarding Thomas

Crook's social media accounts, including never-before-seen photos and videos appearing to show Crooks with a gun. All of these new details in the case were brought to light by

a whistleblower. And it got us thinking, how does the whistleblower process actually work

behind the scenes. Today, we're talking to Stephen Cohn, who helped found the National

Whistleblower Center. He has spent decades representing whistleblowers and has helped in the evolution of whistleblower legal protections. Now, whistleblowing always has a lot of risk

It's inherent. But by keeping confidential, following the laws, being smart, you do have a really strong opportunity to end up on top

Cohn has seen whistleblower protections in the United States evolve over the last several decades

I started in 1984. None of the laws I used then do I use now

None. Zero. None of them existed. Since then, Cohn says laws have strengthened

and some of them he has personally had a hand in. But these sort of protections are still complex compared to others One thing that confuses people we don have one whistleblower law in the United States Like if you a victim say of discrimination based on race or sex

there's a national law known as Title VII and the lawyers know how to use it. It's well

established. In whistleblower, there's about 65 different laws. They came up scandal by scandal

Many whistleblower laws are reactive, meaning they only came about after a scandal or crisis occurred

In response to several deadly airplane crashes, like a ValueJet plane crash in 1996 and an Alaska Airlines crash in 2000

Congress passed laws improving safety oversight and added protections for aviation whistleblowers

Safety concerns within nuclear facilities prompted similar safeguards in the energy sector

Or take the 2008 financial crisis. This led to the Dodd-Frank Act creating whistleblower protections on Wall Street for reporting fraud

These are examples of Congress reacting to specific industry failures by creating safeguards for insiders to sound the alarm

It's massively confusing. 92% of all whistleblowers who suffer retaliation did not use the proper filing procedures

The moment you don't use the proper filing procedures, you are open to bad things

Whistleblower protections in the United States differ a lot between government and private sector workers

Federal employees have broad legal protections. Private sector workers have more limited protections

But many whistleblower programs offer financial rewards for exposing wrongdoing. So while the stereotype or typical good for TV narrative is whistleblower versus the government sometimes they work hand in hand My largest case ever which is confidential

because the company did not know there was a whistleblower. And you're talking multi-billion dollar sanctions, multi-year investigation

Because I was able to take the whistleblower in confidentially and anonymously

The government agreed to all of the restrictions on revealing evidence, on revealing identity, where we conducted interviews

So as they built their case, the fact that they had an insider was never revealed

So the company never knew. So the company never did like a witch hunt to find out who the source was

And my guy wins, gets very significant compensation. The government wins, they're able to hold the people accountable, and that's how it should work today

But media involvement can complicate things. If the whistleblower goes to the media, they can lose all their rights fairly quickly

So they have to be smart to protect them. And though a story may name you as anonymous, that is not a guaranteed protection

If the only protection you have is as an anonymous source to the press, it's fairly weak

There is no federal shield law, meaning if courts get involved, journalists can be forced to name their sources

If you're afraid of the government coming in and issuing subpoenas or grand jury

trying to throw you in jail, which they can do, there's a way to circumvent that by using these anonymous and confidential programs

One toll government whistleblowers have if they want to go to the press is what called pre There this pre clearance procedure which immunizes you Many people most whistleblowers I know do not use that Our whistleblowers do If I have a whistleblower

security clearance, they want to go forward with something, let's use pre-pub clearance

just so they don't get in trouble. While there are laws to protect government whistleblowers

and whistleblowers in other specific industries, Cohn says the laws need to catch up to modern

times. There's no whistleblower protections for AI. So if you look at the risks that everyone

has said could occur, and it's not to say we're anti-AI at all, but all of the experts

and the companies themselves have looked at chemical warfare, fraud, they've said it could

cause an extinction event. I mean, the potential risks, there's no law, no whistleblower rights

So if someone's working for this multi-billion dollar AI company and they think they're about to unleash something that could stimulate chemical, you know, let terrorists make chemical bombs and they want to report it, they don't have any protection under federal law

Whistleblowers can play an important role, but it's a tricky one. They may want to shine a light on wrongdoing, safety risks or fraud, but the path is complicated and the risks are real

Whether you're inside government, corporate America, or emerging industries like AI, knowing the rules can mean the difference between protection and retaliation

A big thank you to Stephen for taking the time to talk with us and for sharing his expertise for this story

I know I learned a lot from our conversation, so I hope you also were able to take away something new

Thank you so much for watching our story. For more stories that matter to you, be sure to download the Straight Arrow News mobile app

or visit us online at san.com. For Straight Arrow News, I'm Kara Rucker