Would You Blow the Whistle?
Presentation
In this week’s module, you learned about whistle-blowers. A whistle-blower is an individual who releases information (typically confidential) about actions that are deemed illegal or unethical. For this week’s discussion, you will select one of the scenarios and determine whether you would blow the whistle.
In your initial post for this week, address the following:
- State which scenario you selected.
- Explain what you would do in that situation, and provide a rationale for your decision. You may want to consider:
- How would you make that kind of decision?
- How would you follow through with your decision?
- What is the potential impact of whistle-blowing or not whistle-blowing?
- Who would be involved?
- Provide a rationale.
Scenario One: You work as an IT specialist at a major stock exchange. One of your colleagues, who also is a childhood friend, works in the accounting department. Over lunch, your colleague discloses the troubling information that they have been providing insider information to clients before it is made public. Your colleague doesn’t seem to see any issues with this, but you understand that any time an employee reveals insider information to an external party, it can create huge losses. Also, there is an organizational policy that requires all employees to refrain from disclosing insider information until senior leadership deems it ready for public view. Even though you don’t work in the same department as your colleague, would you blow the whistle on your colleague and close friend?
Scenario Two: You work for a federal government agency as an information security analyst. Your job involves carrying out security measures to protect your agency’s IT systems. After you accepted the position, you signed a nondisclosure agreement to keep secret all of the agency’s operations. As you gain expertise in your job, you begin to question some of the ethics of your department, which developed mass surveillance technologies that are used in many locations around the world. The original purpose of these technologies is to monitor criminal activities, but innocent people who have no idea that they are being watched are surveilled. Eventually you start to question whether there is a violation of privacy involved. Would you blow the whistle on a federal agency?