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• Wednesday, October 31, 2007 10:15 PM

  Laws are worse than useless.

  I don't care what law there is, how long the code of conduct is, how many people staff the agency compliance office, what the "values statement" of the agency is, etc., etc., if an agency, federal or state, wants to get rid of a whistleblower, they will. There are a thousand ways and a thousand pretexts and most of them work quite well.

  My advice to potential whistleblowers -- based on my personal experience -- is that if you blow the whistle you might as well pack up your shit and wait to be escorted out the door or to the basement. Period. Your performance is irrelevant. Your length of service is irrelevant. The fact that you have a "really good case" is irrelevant.

  This whole law thing is very dangerous, because it gives the potential whistleblower the idea that he or she is "protected." Read my electronic lips: THERE IS NO PROTECTION. There never will be any protection. Whistleblower laws are not made of steel; they are made of tissue paper. Try this out: find a land mine. Lay a kleenex on the land mine. Now step on the land mine. The protection you get from the kleenex is the same protection you'll get as a whistleblower.

  You want to blow the whistle. Great, get a new job or a new career. You're going to need it. Life sucks, and it sucks worse for a whistleblower. It shouldn't be that way, but it is and always will be. That's the reality on the ground. Whistleblower protection my ass.

  —Mishima666 Read Mishima666's other letters
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