Yes, They Can Be Mavericks, But We Need Whistleblowers Like Edward Snowden
A lawyer working for HMRC found that his boss, David Hartnett, was having "sweetheart" sessions with Goldman Sachs allowing the bank to avoid £10m in interest on tax. He thought this out of order and did what the rulebook said. Under the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 (Pida) he wrote privately to the national audit office and to a committee of parliament. When HMRC found out, it went berserk. Using the anti-terrorist Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa), it had his belongings, emails and phone calls searched. He was suspended and left "a broken man". He lost his job.
On Monday the public accounts committee chairman, Margaret Hodge, asked HMRC's boss, Lin Homer, to promise to never again use anti-terror laws against whistleblowers. Homer refused. She will have known she had ministers on her side. Jack Straw's Ripa has been an all-purpose state cosh against dissent ever since Tony Blair capitulated to the securocrats in 2000.
HMRC is not alone. Last week the policeman who blew the whistle on the Metropolitan police's massaging of crime figures was driven to resign, citing his "treatment as a result of making disclosures in good faith and in the public interest". He had been placed under police investigation for "misconduct". Round at the benighted NHS, the Mid-Staffs hospital whistleblower, Julie Bailey, has had to move home after being insulted, threatened and attacked by local Labour activists as a liar. Her dead mother's grave was desecrated. She had "brought shame on the town".
The Pida supposedly lays down a procedure for reporting illegality or misconduct to accountable authority. It supposedly protects whistleblowers from victimisation or blacklisting. It has led to a rise in reported cases – almost 8,000 in the NHS alone – though it is hard to tell its resulting effectiveness. What remains clear is that anyone who blows the whistle on Britain's public sector will get little sympathy from authority and can look forward to a bleak future.
The default setting of British democracy, as de Tocqueville suggested, is the club. The club hates those who step out of line, who are disloyal to the group. Whistleblowing is classic disloyalty. Talk to members of Britain's security establishment about Edward Snowden, king of whistleblowers, and the reaction is universal bafflement. If Snowden was so concerned about the NSA and GCHQ, why did he not go to his superiors? Why not convey his concerns privately? Why not come and have lunch at the club?
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http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/27/mavericks-whistleblowers-edward-snowden