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Politics

"It's not worth it. You'll just get screwed."

Jesse Walker | 3.14.2008 4:11 PM

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The drawbacks of whistleblowing.

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Jesse Walker is books editor at Reason and the author of Rebels on the Air and The United States of Paranoia.

PoliticsWorldTerrorism
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  1. Jennifer   18 years ago

    Let this be a lesson to anyone who thinks cops or any other government authority figures actually give a damn about the people they supposedly protect.

  2. Reinmoose   18 years ago

    How dare he tell the terrorists about the flaws in our port security! He should have, umm.., gone through the proper channels! We would have handled it right away, because it is such an important thing to keep our citizens safe!

    Yeah, that.

  3. Episiarch   18 years ago

    Whistleblowing is a tough thing. If you don't get famous from it, and can live off that, you're pretty fucked. All prospective employers now consider you untrustworthy, you're branded a rat, and you probably pissed off some powerful people.

    In a case like this you have to commend the guy for, essentially, sacrificing his career to do the right thing.

  4. von Laue   18 years ago

    Oh, my. Has Baltimore finally lost its innocence?

  5. J sub D   18 years ago

    [raises hand poitely} Mr. Reinmoose, Mr. Reinmoose, I was thinking about about the Civics 101 lesson from yesterday, I still have some questions about governmental motivation.

  6. J sub D   18 years ago

    Just four days after The Sun's report, Tarburton was stripped of his badge, gun, police powers and his anticipated promotion to corporal. His superiors banished him to a desk job at a truck weigh station in Cecil County.

    Damn this pisses me the fuck off. If he had just assaulted some innocent citizen, maybe planted some crack on them, none of this would have happened to him.

  7. J sub D   18 years ago

    This dovetails nicely with a point I made earlier on another thread.

    One of the many reasons people don't respect cops is The heirarchy in the law enforcement community also has a vested interest in ignoring wrongdoing. Nobody likes airing their dirty linen in public. It make the chief, and the city government who hired him look bad. It's more comfortable to ignore the problems.

    Man, I'm getting discouraged today.

  8. R C Dean   18 years ago

    If he had just assaulted some innocent citizen, maybe planted some crack on them, none of this would have happened to him.

    Are you kidding? That's the stuff promotions are made from. See, e.g, Horiuchi, Lon.

  9. Almost Oscar Winner Sweet Bead   18 years ago

    Wow another case of life (sort of) imitating the Wire

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