One hundred percent of respondents said they wouldn't think twice about speaking up. Most said they'd do it for the right reasons. Not a single person said they'd tattle because they hate their company and it's a way to get back at them. Or because they want to make the news.

Seventy percent said they'd speak up because, "It's important to do the right thing." Thirty percent said they'd do it because, "I'm sick of companies getting away with unethical behavior."

Whistleblowers, says, James R. Bennett in a 1997 article in The Humanist, are ordinary people who show remarkable courage. It is someone, "who makes public the crime and corruption of powerful people and institutions from within the institution."

They become heroes of conscience because they believe in the most basic moral precept: honesty, and often at great personal risk, he says. And that price is why, in part, many people have opted out of coming forward in the past.

There are hordes of stories of people who were demoted, harassed, fired-even threatened with their life--for rocking the boat. One of the most notable is the senior scientist at Morton Thiokol, Inc., Roger Boisjoly, who discovered that the O-rings in the space shuttle Challenger were eroding and asked for a delay in the launch, but was overruled. He testified before an investigative commission after the shuttle exploded, killing six astronauts and a teacher. Afterwards, he was demoted.

To crack down on corporate corruption and offer whistleblower protections, the Corporate and Criminal Fraud Accountability Act was signed into law in 2002.

But within hours of signing the law, President Bush issued a policy directive, that according to an editorial in The Philadelphia Inquirer, "appears to hamstring the new measure's effectiveness," and backs away from whistleblower protection.

Whistleblowers, the article said, will only be "shielded from company retaliation if they talk to a congressional committee 'in the course of an investigation,' the White House said." They wouldn't be protected if they bring their information to an individual lawmaker or aide.

If whistleblowers reach out to other authorities or media, before any congressional investigation is underway, "they do so now without any federal protection, if the administration view prevails," says the article.

After President Bush's directive was stated, the Government Accountability Project, which helps defend whistleblowers, sent the President a letter saying:

"Whistleblowers are the lifeblood of genuine anti-corruption laws...the human factor whose courage puts meaning in your warning to corporate criminals that they will be exposed and held accountable. Congressional leaders have condemned those who did not do their duty and blow the whistle. But it is unrealistic to expect that whistleblowers will defend the public, if they think they still cannot defend themselves."

Fortunately, those who responded to my unscientific website survey would blow the whistle simply because it is the right thing to do. If only the legislation did the same.

© by Andrea Kay