The WhistleNovember 1998Whistleblowers Australia Inc |
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The WhistleNovember 1998Whistleblowers Australia Inc |
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Suppression of dissent website
in the section on Contacts
in the subsection on Whistleblowers Australia
A HEALTHY former NSW Police Service human resources officer
and corruption whistleblower claims a State Government health
unit forced her to medically retire in 1996, stating she
suffered from a permanent psychiatric disorder.
Inner Western Suburbs resident Sue Martin (not her real name)
is still fighting HealthQuest's diagnosis-made after a
20-minute consultation claiming it was false and retribution
for her workplace corruption allegations.
Ms Martin's own doctor has dismissed the diagnosis and the
assessment of the government doctor who issued the medical
retirement order, after observing she had no paranoid or
psychotic symptoms. She was among about 30 protesters last
Monday outside the HealthQuest's Haymarket headquarters, where
they were backed by Whistleblowers Australia (NSW) president
Cynthia Kardell.
About 30 complainants have received letters stating the
Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) is "reviewing"
the referral and assessment procedure between public sector
departments and HealthQuest.
The protesters called for the closure of HealthQuest, a unit of
the Central Sydney Area Health Service (CSAHS), alleging it
practised political and Soviet-style psychiatry, made false
psychiatric assessments to avoid the industrial relations
courts and colluded with employers.
Ms Kardell told the Courier they had called on ICAC, the NSW
Ombudsman and State Parliament to investigate the
allegations.
No-one from HealthQuest responded to the hour-long peaceful
protest, although four police officers arrived after protesters
entered the building's foyer.
A CSAHS spokeswoman said she was unable to comment to the
Courier during the ICAC review.
In 1995, Ms Martin, in her early thirties, had a well-paid job
and a career path, but her life took a dramatic downward spiral
after questioning the directions of her managers, which she
claimed ranged from maladministration to corruption.
She alleges a 12-month witchhunt followed, shattering her
confidence and reducing her to a photocopying and coffee girl
where her every move was monitored, including timed trips to
the toilet.
She was admitted to hospital following a stress-related
collapse and almost lost her home as a result of the amount of
unpaid leave she was forced. to take.
In mid-1996, after a threat to have her employment annulled, Ms
Martin's employer sent her to HealthQuest or a psychiatric
assessment, which she claimed was used as a smokescreen to
avoid Unfair Dismissal laws.
"HealthQuest has medicalised workplace problems and this is
where it's unethical," she said.
Under Freedom of Information laws, Ms Martin accessed her
HealthQuest files in which the assessing psychiatrist noted:
"She certainly merits every effort at rehabilitation,
retraining or redeployment.
"From the enclosed reports [the employer's brief] it
seems the employer is denying any possibility of employment in
any part of the establishment in which case she would need to
be medically retired."
Ms Martin's HealthQuest medical retirement certificate stating
she suffered from a permanent psychiatric illness was signed in
June 1996 by a Dr H. Jagger and a Dr H. Gapper.
"I am of the opinion that she is in consequence unable to
discharge the duties of her office.
"I am of the further opinion that her disability will in all
likelihood prove permanent," it stated.
Ms Martin said: "In a 20-minute interview the HealthQuest
psychiatrist, relying on uncorroborated and misleading
information from my employer, deemed me permanently
incapacitated and had me medically retired-outrageous because
my own doctors said I was fit for work."
Ms Martin unsuccessfully contested the diagnosis through the
appeals process.
In a September 1995 medical report instigated by her employer,
a doctor wrote: "[Ms Martin] suffered from a short
period of adjustment disorder with features of anxiety and
emotional reaction, but considered that that period has now
finished and that her present reasons for not being at work are
indeed 'political' and I consider that she is now fit to return
to her normal duties in whatever form has been arranged for
her."
Ms Martin admitted she had been suffering stress and anxiety
because of the tension at work resulting from her
whistleblowing actions.
Two journalists in the US were fired after refusing to water
down their investigative report on a link between Monsanto's
rBGH in Florida milk and human health problems.
Evidence is growing that rBGH may promote cancer in humans who
drink this milk.
Monsanto tried to intimidate the TV company on this issue by
sending memos warning of "dire consequences" to their
company.
An exposé on the care of the residential front lawn
(C&EN, May 4, page 88) prompted homeowner Richard Stacy of
Montrose, Colo., to tell of the "big lawn" he and his wife once
had in Boulder. A chemical colleague who worked for a big
petroleum and agricultural chemicals company told Stacy that
the company had developed an agent for use on lawns that would
limit the growth of grass to 2 to 3 inches. Thereafter, only
occasional watering was required to maintain the lawn.
Stacy got about 5 pounds of the stuff from his friend and found
that it worked like magic. He then asked where he could buy
some, and the friend responded, "You must be kidding! We have
no intention of marketing this material domestically. Just
think of what it would do to the lawn industry in this
country!"
Public servants certified mentally unfit for work by
government-paid psychologists, after complaining about the way
their schools, offices or departments were run, have won a
battle to have the Independent Commission Against Corruption
look into their claims.
The ICAC has written to each, pledging to review the way they
were treated. The public servants, including teachers, college
staff, a police rehabilitation officer, a fireman and a
physicist, were backed by lobbyists Whistleblowers Australia in
their campaign to have the system examined.
Each person, after bringing up a grievance about their
workplace, was referred to HealthQuest, a unit of the Central
Sydney Area Health Service, part of the Department of
Health.
The examiner was briefed on their problems at work and they
were given a report which certified them as having
psychological or psychiatric problems, leading to dismissal or
early retirement.
They allege collusion between employers and HealthQuest, saying
it is a way to get rid of workers who rock the boat by
criticising health and safety procedures, complaining about
management, or blowing the whistle on misinformation. Some
subsequently have won compensation payouts.
HealthQuest deputy director Helen Jagger denied the claims.
A whistleblower in the Foreign Affairs Department has spent
the entire period of the Howard Government locked out of his
job on full pay.
Alastair Gaisford's security clearance was suspended,
effectively banning him from his work, at 4.45pm on Friday,
March 1, the day before the 1996 election.
He has been on full pay since, fighting the department's
decision in the Federal Court. So far, he has had three court
victories against the department which each time has had costs
awarded against it.
Twice the department reinstated Mr Gaisford's security
clearance minutes before the matter was to go before the
Federal Court Justice Paul Finn. But both times, it was
rescinded later the same day.
The matter is against due to go before Justice Finn on
Thursday.
Department sources claim the department has spent more than
$500,000 in legal and associated fees fighting to keep Mr
Gaisford out, plus almost $200,000 for Mr Gaisford's
expenses.
Mr Gaisford fell out of favour after drawing Federal Police
attention to possible pedophile behaviour by senior Foreign
Affairs officials on overseas postings.
In a letter to Federal Police Commissioner Mick Palmer in
February 1996, he named 16 officials who he said should be
investigated.
One of them was former Ambassador to Cambodia John Holloway,
who was subsequently charged with overseas child sex offences
allegedly committed during his Cambodian posting. The case did
not go to trial because of problems with the evidence of two
teenage Cambodian boys transported to Canberra for the
preliminary hearings in November 1996.
Mr Gaisford said yesterday 10 of the 16 officials he had named
had since taken early retirement, while he had been suspended
from duty.
The department also fought to stop Mr Gaisford from giving
evidence to the 1996-97 Senate inquiry into consular services
which included the kidnapping and murder of Australians in
Cambodia.
It has failed in its attempts to block the family of kidnap
victim David Wilson calling Mr Gaisford as a witness in the
inquest into Mr Wilson's death.
Mr Gaisford was the consul in the Australian Embassy in Phnom
Penh in 1994 when Mr Wilson and fellow Australian Kelly
Wilkinson were kidnapped.
The Bristol case, in which an anaesthetist blew the whistle
on high mortality rates in children undergoing surgery in the
cardiac unit at the Royal Bristol Infirmary, has had a
shattering impact on the medical profession and practice in the
United Kingdom. Trust between patients and doctors, the
profession's reputation with the general public, and the future
of self-regulation are 'all changed, changed utterly' (1). But
for how long? A dismal procession of scandals and allegations
about unprofessional and dangerous clinical practice (2,3,4,5),
research fraud (6), and administrative attempts to suppress
results of changes in funding and policy (7,8) indicate that
hopes of permanent change may be unrealistic.
This issue of the Journal (p.369) carries an account by
Bolsin, the anaesthetist involved in the Bristol case (9). He
started raising concerns in 1990 soon after arriving in
Bristol; the last death occurred in 1995. In June this year the
General Medical Council Professional Conduct Committee found
against the doctors involved. Meanwhile, Dr Bolsin had
'suffered the traditional fate of whistleblowers, ostracism and
a collapse in earnings-after which he emigrated to Australia'
(10).
The personal cost of whistleblowing is high (11). Although the
lives of Dr Bolsin and his family were 'changed utterly', like
many whistleblowing doctors with portable skills he retained
his health and his ability to work. But most whistleblowers do
not. When seeing whistleblowers as patients, doctors need to be
aware of the shattering health, financial and psychological
impact on the whole family, and of the potential misuse of
psychiatry by colleagues to discredit them. This is 'possibly
one of the most insidious and vile weapons used against
whistleblowers' (12).
Costs to the community are also high. They include the costs of
supporting these injured workers, most of whom were model,
often outstanding, employees before they blew the whistle;
costs of the original issue, in lost lives or public monies;
legal costs as public authorities defend the indefensible; the
cost of public inquiries; and further legal costs and damages
as in due course the vindicated victims sue.
It is easy in retrospect to see the cost, waste, and damage of
the typical whistleblowing case as an unnecessary tragedy in
which everybody loses; and to see how immensely preferable it
would be to circumvent that process. It is not so easy to see
how to do this. Several states in Australia now have
whistleblower protection legislation, but to date there is no
evidence that any are effective; there is still no federal
legislation (13). Published comparable mortality figures (14),
could help and should be implemented, but inherent difficulties
in comparing cases of different complexity, and the fact that
nearly half the figures will of necessity be below average,
mean they can't provide more than part of the solution (15).
Monitoring the health and welfare of whistleblowers, a method
pioneered by the NSW Police Service (16) shows considerable
promise.
An overriding need however is to change attitudes that
currently leave correction of inevitable failings in the system
to the fortuitous emergence of a lone, heroic
whistleblower-preferably supported by babies in life-and-death
drama, to ensure front page exposure and corresponding
influence. Many cases with less appealing victims would never
get as far. Our focus should be on the overwhelming majority of
staff who stand by and do nothing, and how to create a climate
where all practitioners expect to report on others at a very
early stage, support other staff who do so, and respond with
constructive humility when others-staff or patients-raise
concerns about them in their turn. Medical Boards in the last
few years have successfully encouraged the reporting of
impaired doctors in this way. Current proposals to achieve
similar attitudes and policies in reporting suspected
substandard competence, focussing on non-punitive investigation
and correction of substantiated problems would avoid most
damage from false or mistaken allegations, and enable staff
with concerns to blow the whistle in confidence.
Unfortunately current reality often pits a junior staff member,
dependent on references and goodwill, against a senior person
of power and influence, effectively insulated by eminence.
Without the support of equally senior colleagues, Colleges and
other bodies-in which the senior person may well be an office
bearer-the complaint will go nowhere, the whistleblower will be
victimised, and the usual disaster follows.
The most important issue, therefore, is the need to recognise
that however hard we try, the system won't necessarily work.
Nor will external regulatory bodies, which-perhaps
inevitably-tend to become part of the system (17). The
profession as a whole has to try to learn to welcome and adapt
to dissent. After all, today's best practice-like some of the
surgical procedures used in Bristol-was yesterday's dissent,
and may well be the subject of tomorrow's. Yet dissent by its
nature is political as well as ethical, and we ignore its
political implications at our individual and collective peril.
When administrators try to 'gag' doctors, what is needed is a
collective political response.
And for doctors caught in a classic 'Bristol' situation, we
need to re-think conventional ethics' blanket ban on
bad-mouthing colleagues to patients. That, and the brutality of
inflicting great anxiety and loss of faith on parents of
children with a life-threatening condition, prevented more
direct action in Bristol. But political acts need the widest
possible awareness and support. Parents are the most powerful
and dedicated advocates for their children, and the media has
repeatedly been shown to be the only reliable source of help
for whistleblowers (17). The brutal truth is that if parents
and public had been mobilised at a much earlier stage, many of
the Bristol children would still be alive. Perhaps it is no
longer enough to be a good clinician; doctors also need
political skills to save all possible lives.
Authors
Jean Lennane, psychiatrist, Vice-President of Whistleblowers
Australia; Sydney, NSW. William De Maria, lecturer in social
work and social policy, University of Queensland, Brisbane,
Queensland.
References
1. Smith R. All changed, changed utterly. BMJ 1998;316:
1917-8
2. Mohr V.K. Outcomes of corporate greed. Journal of Nursing
Scholarship 1997;29: 39-45
3. Slane B. Privacy Act permits some whistleblowing. New
Zealand Family Physician 1997:24:29-30
4. Dyer O. Professor Allain is innocent, say French scientists.
BMJ 1994;308: 281-2
5. Lupton D. Back to Bedlam? Chelmsford and the press.
Australian and New Zealand Journal of Pyschiatry
1993;27: 140-8
6. Smith, R. The need for a national body for research
misconduct. BMJ 1998; 316:1686-7
7. Smith R. The rise of Stalinism in the NHS. An unfree NHS and
medical press in an unfree society. BMJ 1994;309:
1640-5
8. Doctor gag-an election issue. Australian Medicine
1992; October 5, p 5
9. Bolsin SN. Professional misconduct-the Bristol case. Med.
J. Aust. 1998; 169: 369-372
10. Delamothe T. Who killed Cock Robin? BMJ 1998;316:
1757
11. Lennane K.J. Whistleblowing; a health issue. BMJ
1993;307:667-70
12. Report of the Senate Select Committee on Public Interest
Whistleblowing. In the Public Interest. Commonwealth of
Australia, Senate Printing Unit, Parliament House, Canberra,
1994
13. Lewis D. Employment protection for whistleblowers: on what
principles should Australian legislation be based?
Australian Journal of Labour Law 1996; 9: 135-152
14. Warden J. Hospital death rates to be published for England.
BMJ 1998;316: 1767
15. Poloniecki J. Half of all doctors are below average.
BMJ 1998; 316:1734-6
16. Freeman P., Garnett B. Research report: the physical,
psychological and social effects of becoming an internal
witness in the NSW Police Service. NSW Police Service 1996.
17. De Maria W. Unshielding the shadow culture.
Queensland Whistleblower Study, University of Queensland
1994.
NOTE - Spy and CounterSpy does not endorse, condone, or
encourage any illegal act. The material in this article is
presented for information, research, entertainment, and
education purposes only. The words "you" and "your" are used in
this article for ease of readability only.
Imagine, for a moment, this hypothetical situation. You possess
inside information. You feel the public has a right to know.
You are a moral individual and you have a strong sense of
social responsibility. But you don't want the goons kicking in
your door an hour before dawn. Your problem is - you don't know
how to leak the information without getting caught. You
don't know how to communicate anonymously.
This article teaches you how to use the Internet to send untraceable email. The recipient of the message won't be able to trace you. The Internet provider won't be able to trace you. The local phone company won't be able to trace you. The FBI won't be able to trace you. Simply stated, if you need tradecraft that will give you unbreakable anonymity, you are reading the right article.
First, go to a cybercafe. This is a retail store that offers
public access to the Internet. You'll find them in almost every
US city.
The cybercafe you select should ideally be in another city. At
a minimum, it should be on the other side of town. Don't use
the cybercafe just around the corner from where you work.
Some cybercafes charge by the hour, others by the minute. Some
are free, located in public libraries and colleges. But
otherwise they all work the same way. You sit down at a
computer workstation and use it as if it were your own.
It's already preloaded with nifty software, including the most
popular browsers. And it's connected to the Internet. You can
surf the 'net just like you do at your office or home. Except
when you're using a cybercafe you're anonymous.
BACKGROUND - You can't use your own computer and expect
anonymity. The authorities can trace email packets back to your
SMTP and POP accounts at your Internet service provider. From
there the telephone line or coaxial cable can be traced to your
physical location.
With today's digital infrastructure, the trace is
instantaneous. There's no hurry, though. Billing records allow
the authorities to trace you months later if need be. So-called
remailers, anonymizers, and mixmasters are helpful, of course -
they'll slow down the authorities' search by about 24 hours -
that's about how long as it takes to serve a warrant or writ on
an uncooperative Webmaster.
Whether you pay the cybercafe proprietor in advance or
afterwards is not important. But you must make a point to pay
using cash. And don't show any ID. If the proprietor insists on
credit card payment or personal ID, go elsewhere.
When trained members of a resistance movement use cybercafes,
they alter their silhouette by wearing different clothing and
footwear, changing their hairstyle, adding (or deleting)
eyeglasses, and so on. Simply wearing a hat can significantly
reduce the ability of a witness to describe your appearance to
an investigator. It can also confound an in-store video
surveillance camera.
As soon as you are online at the cybercafe, you can set up
an anonymous free email account. Here are a few providers to
choose from - mailexcite.com, prontomail.com, usa.net,
hotmail.com, mailcity.com, and doghouse.com.
Other providers are available. Use a search engine to find one
that meets your preferences.
As you complete the online registration form, keep in mind
that the provider has no way of verifying the information you
provide. For all he knows, you might be using a fictitious
name, address, postal code, and telephone number. Not all
providers even bother to request this information. Some ask for
only a name and a city.
Remember that the name you provide will appear on the header of
outgoing email messages.
If the registration form insists on an email forwarding address
or a social security number, you should look elsewhere for a
provider.
After submitting the registration form, you'll usually have an
active email account within a few moments. You can now send and
receive email anonymously.
Intelligence agencies refer to this type of as a cover address.
In particular, a cover address refers to a postal address,
email address, or courier address that is not linked to the
identity of the person using the address.
If you have a short message to transmit, simply type it into the editing window of the email editor and you can send your email immediately.
If you have a lengthy message or an encrypted message to
transmit, you should prepare it in advance and bring it with
you on diskette as a text file or html file. Most cybercafes
allow you to use diskettes with their computers. Simply insert
the diskette as you would at your office or at home.
SECURITY CAUTION - If your cybercafe insists on inserting the
disk at a central location and then transmitting the data by
LAN (local area network) to your computer workstation, you'll
probably want to use encrypted text. Some cybercafes do this
because they're concerned about viruses being introduced into
their systems.
You can use Windows Wordpad to load your file, select the text,
and copy it to the Windows clipboard. Then you'll be able to
use Shift+Ins to paste your text into the editing window of the
email editor.
You can also send your file as an email attachment direct from
your diskette. Different email account providers have different
policies concerning attachments. Some allow them. Some
don't.
Under most circumstances, you'll be able to get online, set up an anonymous free email account, compose and send your message, and log off in fewer than 3 minutes. There's no real need to rush, however. You don't want to attract attention to yourself.
Take a damp cloth. Wipe off the keyboard. Wipe off the
mouse. Wipe off anything else you've touched. Don't leave any
fingerprints.
Make certain you've removed your diskette from the disk drive.
If you have a DOS-based file-wipe utility, you can use it to
delete the browser's cache files, history files, and bookmark
file. (This step does nothing to hinder the authorities,
however, who can trace the source of the email message to this
particular computer if they open an investigation. Deleting the
browser's files merely obstructs nosy busybodies - other
cybercafe customers and staff.)
Go to the counter and pay the proprietor. With cash.
Walk out the door. Don't go back. Ever. And keep your secret
to yourself. Don't tell anyone. Ever.
BACKGROUND - Keeping quiet is important. Most people are caught
because they can't resist the urge to brag - or because they
feel a need to confide in someone. If you can't keep a secret,
then you'll never be a good underground urban activist, freedom
fighter, or guerrilla.
Intelligence agencies, security services, resistance movements,
and guerrilla groups have found that for some reason women seem
better at keeping quiet about covert ops than men. So if you're
a guy, you'll need to make an extra effort in this regard.
Smile to yourself. Congratulations are in order. You've just
executed a successful covert op.)
Here is the small print. It appears here because we have found
that maintaining a corporate front is the only way we can
protect ourselves against interference by governments and their
agencies. The legal underpinnings of our corporate front are
our first line of defense against audit-attacks and other
methods of economic warfare that the authorities use to
suppress dissent, protest, and activism. They are also
determined to prove their hypothesis that Spy and CounterSpy is
funded by a foreign intelligence agency or terrorist group -
but our double entry accounting record of corporate revenue and
expenses is our shield against fabricated evidence by an
overzealous investigator or case officer.
Contents Copyright ©1998 Lee Adams. All rights reserved.
Published by Lee Adams Seminars. Provided for entertainment and
information purposes only. Spy and CounterSpy and Spy
school for the rest of us and How To Make People Say
Yes! are trade-marks in USA, Canada, and/or other
countries. Lee Adams Seminars is a division of Here's-how,
Right-now! Seminars Inc.
OFFICE: 3273 Tennyson Avenue, Victoria, British Columbia,
Canada.
MAIL: PO Box 8026, Victoria BC, CANADA V8W 3R7.
TELEPHONE: (250) 475-1450. FAX: (250) 475-1460.
EMAIL: reader_service@SPYCOUNTERSPY.com
HealthQuest grew out of the Government Medical Office (GMO)
which was (and is) headed by the Government Medical Officer.
The GMO provided a service to Public Sector organisations for
assessing staff who were having health problems at work. They
either helped employers to readjust the staff member to their
position, helped find another position for the staff member, or
medically retired them. Public sector organisations are legally
obliged to maintain the good health of their employees, so the
GMO services were part of a package. The GMO gave all staff
members a medical exam upon employment. Some public sector
organisations still use GMO to fulfil the requirements of the
legislation.
For bulk of people who go to HealthQuest there is no problem
because everyone involved in the process - employer and
employee - agrees that there is a problem. The employee is
genuinely ill and needs medical help. The employer is not
qualified to give that medical help and so can rely on
HealthQuest. As well, some people collude to get themselves
medically retired.
However, some people are subjected to collusion by other
people. Some are railroaded into medical retirement by
employers and unions alike. These people are troubleshooters
who become "troublemakers" (see Peter Anderson).
There are, as you would expect, guidelines for HealthQuest.
That the guidelines are not always followed is not necessarily
a problem because by and large everyone involved in the process
wants the same outcome. The problems arise when the employer
and employee have different outcomes in mind.
One set of guidelines is the Premier's memorandum 98-1 which
sets out that:
*A public sector employer shall give full account to the
employee of what documents and information they're providing
HealthQuest.
* The employee should be given the option not to attend.
* The psychiatrist should not interview a person they know is
there without consent.
* During the consultation process leading up to the HealthQuest
interview, the employer should encourage the employee to bring
along a support person or witness.
Psychiatrists and doctors all have professional and ethical
guidelines with which they should comply. For example, they
should encourage and facilitate support persons and witnesses.
The relationship they have with the employee is not a
therapeutic relationship - they take role of investigator at
the behest of the employer. They are there to investigate and
report; therefore they should encourage a third party in the
investigation. Instead doctors and psychiatrists do the
opposite. Further, they should go to some pains to explain that
theirs is an investigative, not a therapeutic, role.
In writing their report psychiatrists should take
responsibility. HealthQuest should only be providing statements
to employer that the employee is fit or unfit. In the worst
sort of case, instead of this, the employer gets told the
nastiest details of the psychiatrist's report: the employee is
paranoid or delusional or suffering early onset Alzheimer's or
has several personalities. The employer gets a diagnosis and
that diagnosis is blabbed around town. Many people believe that
HealthQuest makes fraudulent diagnoses. A person who wants to
be medically retired doesn't care about the diagnosis because
they know it's a fraud but it gets them the result that they
want. A person who is fighting for justice does care.
Whistleblowers NSW invited Helea Gapper along to the 1997
seminar so that she could state her case. As a result, a
dialogue started and she offered to talk and an appointment was
made. However, when she learned that Stewart Dean was going
along, she cancelled, claiming that he wasn't a fit person for
an interview. So Cynthia Kardell wrote to her outlining our
objections to the way HealthQuest practises its medicine. Her
reply was simply - read my paper. We began to demonstrate.
The first demonstration was held in March outside HealthQuest
and that was a small, well run affair, just a run-up to the
main events. The next demo was held at Missenden road (outside
the Central Sydney Area Health Service). That one was louder
and resulted in a dialogue between the inappropriate Stewart
Dean and Michael Wallace. After a promising dialogue we
received a disappointingly bureaucratic reply and Stewart
prepared the last demonstration, a noisy and well attended
demo, and no doubt not the last. In the interim, a number of
our members have been contacted by ICAC to let them know that
ICAC is investigating the wider issue of HealthQuest's modus
operandi, although it will not be addressing any individual
matters. That investigation is being conducted by ICAC's
Education and Prevention of Corruption Unit. That Unit just
looks at systemic problems, not at individual instances. The
Unit with which most whistleblowers will have had dealings with
is the Investigative Unit.
In early 1998 to June 1998 Whistleblowers Australia ran a
survey of our members regarding their treatment at the hands of
HealthQuest. The results were sent off to the Ombudsman and we
have made a complaint to the Ombudsman that HealthQuest is
guilty of maladministration. They've asked for more information
and a list of people who responded to the survey along with
their employers. Val Kerrison and Charles Willock were largely
responsible for drafting the survey. Val managed the whole
process with Cynthia Kardell and was largely responsible for
collating results.
So all in all, Whistleblowers NSW and Whistleblowers Australia
have made slow but steady progress in the ongoing battle with
HealthQuest. We have our vigorous and inappropriate members to
thank for a lot of the work: Stewart Dean for indefatigable
protest organisation and for annoying Helea; Gerard Crewdson
for his street theatre (what is demo without costumes?); Val
Kerrison and Charles Willock.
The need for constructive criticism must have been
recognised from the day humans were able to analyse any part of
their life. Even within the first Ur-family (whatever that
means in anthropology or archaeology cannot concern us here),
discussions existed (even heated ones) on how to solve
problems. And as soon as several families formed a group, and
especially when larger communities were established, the first
signs of social disharmony must have arisen; i.e. numerous
types of deleterious situations arose in particular when
'cliques' formed who then developed 'policies' to ascertain
that certain demands will be fulfilled. Thus, the stage of the
'first Ur-whistleblowers' was set there way back in history,
although one might guess that other names were applied to such
individuals. Also, the contexts and ways of handling and
redressing whistleblowing were very different from today.
As a result of the phenomenon of 'ubiquity of conflicting
interests' in all societies, everywhere, for thousands of
years, constructive analysis, evaluation or criticism became
absolutely necessary, not only to solve daily enigmas and
conflicts, but for progress in general. Also, the perspectives
of criticism changed and with them the types or styles of
criticism -- indeed the phenomenon of physical and conceptual
arguing (to put it mildly, euphemistically) has intensified;
that, in turn, led to coining of many words that represent
'criticism' (using it as a collective, umbrella, group, or
taxonomic term). It is the purpose of the present essay to
deliberate these names, which are either synonyms or, more
likely, near-synonyms or analogous expressions of
whistleblowing and its derivatives. For a need to distinguish
between these three terms, see Webster's New Dictionary of
Synonyms: a Dictionary of Discriminated Synonyms with Antonyms
and Analogous and Contrasted Words, Merrian-Webster Inc.,
Publishers (1984). By necessity, the present discussion is all
too brief, but is a start in comparing/contrasting some of the
available hotchpotch information.
At the outset there is at least one important clarification
needed: on first consideration it may appear to stretch logic
beyond reason to compare, for instance, 'criticism' with
'whistleblowing', let alone with the 'legal definition' of the
latter. As well appreciated, for several reasons the word
whistleblowing (WB hereafter), and derivatives like
whistleblower, requires in today's world a precise
definition-cum-explanation, as discussed in publications
available from the Whistleblowers Australia Inc. However, there
is more to the concept, phenomenon, or process of WB, because
the stages/phases that lead up to the WB act need to be
precisely understood. If one accepts WB being the 'final,
ultimate stage or pinnacle of criticism', then the important
question arises as to what preceded WB. All these stages
involve synthesis of information, analysis/evaluation,
comparisons, interpretations, extrapolations - all to be
founded on independent, critical judgements. Can one consider
these as 'preparatory stages', culminating in WB? If so, can
one formalise and name these preparatory stages? In some
situations, these stages may either constitute part of a
'continuous, unbroken sequence of activities'; or constitute a
'continual battle, punctuated by inactive periods'. Another
question arises: by examining closely the hundreds of WB cases
on record, can one identify several 'models of WB' (there may
be several different models depending on circumstances), which
comprise stages/phases? Can these be formally named to put some
order into this social phenomenon? Each of these stages, so
common sense would tell us, would have certain characteristics.
For instance, 'the degree of intensity of involvement by the
WB' increases; 'the types of techniques in obtaining crucial
information' may change over time; 'the type and intensity of
counter-activities against the WB' changes; 'the emotional and
physical prices to be paid by the WB' evolves; and so forth.
Hence, the present critical discussion of names referring to
'critical, evaluative human activities' may not seem to be as
far-fetched as a quick superficial look might suggest! Perhaps,
in future issues of The Whistle this problem can
be given some consideration. Write in, dear reader!
Also, the familiarity with terms that are somehow related, even
if only vaguely, to WB can assist in investigations during
which a search for information is commonly required. For
example, the following incredibly comprehensive database uses
all of the below-cited near-synonyms, which can be easily
cross-referenced with WB: Encyclopedia of World Problems and
Human Potential (1995), Union of International
Associations, Brussels, Belgium, 3 volumes, 3100 pages; also
available on CD-ROM.
For some time, I have collected the above-mentioned terms that
might represent the activities and opinions of people engaged
in critically evaluating society, among which WBs constitute
one such group. Here is the list of the individuals we deal
with at present, prior to deliberating at least some of them:
anti-bullyists, freedom-of-speech advocates, esprit forts (free
thinkers), critics, analysts, intellectuals, independent
scholars, heretics, perfectionists, free-lancers, outsiders,
peer-reviewers, idealists, dissenters, mavericks, debunkers,
guru-(and quackery-, fraud-, sham-, etc.) busters, iconoclasts,
agnostics/atheists, reformers, superstition exposers,
provocateurs, Devil's advocates, pacifists, activists,
crusaders, true believers and fanatics (cf. Eric Hoffer's,
1951, True Believer), moderators, rationalists, and
sceptics. Of course, there are derogative words given to WBs,
such as 'dobbers', 'rats', 'troublemakers', 'betrayers',
'fanatics', 'defectors', and 'traitors', among others. There
are 'perspectives' and 'perspectives', eh?!
Although all these words or expressions are defined (sometimes
in various ways) in dictionaries, and as stated above, WB may
be the most-exactingly defined term for legal reasons, there is
still room for a comparative/contrastive philosophical and
especially linguistic (nomenclatural or terminological,
semantic) approach. This is particularly so because many of the
above terms, although all falling under the large umbrella of
'critical analysis', do in fact represent
slightly-to-considerably different human or social activities -
some even overlapping with WB. More importantly, some of the
variable types or contexts of WB actually incorporate some of
the philosophies expressed by the one or more of the above
terms; and vice versa. Examples: (a) a WB is simultaneously
also a freedom-of-speech advocate and a dissenter
and an idealist and an outsider (not by choice,
of course) - and so forth. (b) Conversely, an anti-bullyist
must be a WB, if s/he wishes to alleviate the negative social
impact of bullying. Many other such abstract/conceptual and
concrete (practical, applied) terminological exemplars exist.
Is this playing with words only? No! This only to whet your
intellectual appetite to read on!
Even more fundamentally, 'low-intensive critical work' may
gradually change into 'more-intensive dissension' until there
is no option left but to engage in WB. Thus, there are many
potential situations where, for instance, mere reviewing of
research data passes through several stages (e.g. critical
analysis by an independent scholar; and scepticism, debunking,
exposing, etc., by a free thinker) into full-blown WB.
Another point: some of the terms of critical analysis represent
human activities distinct enough for certain social groups to
have established associations. This may raise the query:
shouldn't these groups of 'concerned citizens' be in continual
contact with each other for increased effectiveness? At least
two other associations come to mind immediately: (a) the
Beyond Bullying Association Inc, PO Box 196, Nathan,
Qld. 4111 (with members of the University of Queensland) - cf.
their book by P. McCarthy et al., editors, 1996. Bullying:
From Backyard to Boardroom. Millennium Books, Alexandria,
NSW 2015; and (b) the Australian Skeptic Inc, PO Box
268, Roseville, NSW 2071. The latter publishes a regular
magazine of interest to many professional groups. The
Whisleblowers Australia Inc surely have/has a lot in common
with these groups and, of course, vice versa. A reciprocal
intellectual relationship ought to be considered, and perhaps
move onto the international scene!
Also, from the psychological and social viewpoints, the terms
dealt with here may stand for, or require, certain personality
traits/characteristics, attitudes, life philosophies,
world-views (or 'Weltanschauung' as generally known) that
constitute the guiding conceptual framework for individuals and
groups. For example, a peer-reviewer may have a 'personality'
sufficient to do 'reviewing' which does not require to stick
his/her intellectual neck out too far (he/she may annoy the
department head and be refused tenure!). But if fraud is
detected, what personality traits are necessary to expose the
situation? And if the 'institutionalised internal mechanisms'
refuse to deal with this, what type of personality
characteristics are then resorted to for WB, when indeed your
job is on the line (and your wife is expecting twins, and you
are paying off the house and car, etc.)?! So, perhaps, the
linguistics (including rhetoric and semantics) of one's
'nomenclature, terminology or classification of conflict
resolution' is not that 'abstract' or 'academic' after all -
life provides too many practical/applied settings for the need
of a precise approach.
Let us specifically look at the above terms. Some are best
dealt with in pairs or groups of three or more, namely,
starting with a recent practical/applied economically
fraudulent case: (1) technical + economic data synthesist
(descriptive stage), scientific tester + analyst,
independent/external reviewer (interpretive/extrapolative stage
based on genetic or formative models), and WB as applied to
salting of gold-containing rock samples; (2) investigative
journalist, anti-censor, independent scholar, intellectual, and
WB - in the political, industrial, and economic context; (3)
peer-reviewer, scientific analyst, independent scholar,
moderator, intellectual, and WB - in the research and
publishing context: intellectual-property conflict resolution;
(4) maverick, sceptic, debunker, and WB in the scientific
research context; (5) dissenter, outsider, idealist, and WB in
the context of environmental problems; (6) pacifist, activist,
idealist, free-thinker, freedom-of-speech advocate analyst,
etc., and WB in the macro-economic context (mega-corruption of
governments and global business); (7) sceptic, superstition
buster, etc., and WB in the pseudo-religious context; (8)
research analyst, intellectual, independent scholar,
peer-reviewer, and WB in (a) the traditional medical vs.
alternative-medical context, (b) predicting/forecasting complex
human/social and natural systems; (9) maverick and WB, e.g.
neo-Luddite's critical analysis of computerising society; and
(10) religious and academic intellectual exposing ludicrous
behaviour of some students.
(1) The first example deals with an investment and financial
fraud/hoax/scandal widely reported by the media during May
1997, i.e. the Busang/Bre-X gold exploration and mining scam.
In my article 'Salting the Mine' in The Skeptic
Magazine, v.17, No.3. Spring 1997 (copies available on
request), I outlined some of the geological/technological
reasons why such a fraud should never have been possible,
because we have had to deal with them for hundreds of years.
One additional good discussion is provided by Anthony Spaeth's
article 'The Scam of the Century', in TIME, May 19,
1997, pp. 90-95, among several newspaper articles. Speculators
and investors eventually lost millions of dollars.
Unique about this case is that even the most experienced
economic analyst, scientific sceptic, external investigator or
reviewer would have had great difficulties because of the
remote location (in Borneo) of the gold mineralisation. Thus,
the geographic accessibility has prevented proper examination
of the data supplied by the 'interested parties'. The
information was so plausibly falsified/concocted to fool even
the most experienced, and the fraud could not be detected from
a distance, i.e. the data had to be re-rechecked on the spot,
so to speak.
Here, then, is a situation where a group of allegedly
fraudulent people remained silent for a considerable period and
felt safe from being exposed, because of unavailability and
inaccessibility of the data to any outside evaluators. No one
of those 'in the know' was willing to WB, as they were in on
the scam. Obligatory, requested, external scientific
investigators finally detected the purposively-concocted
fraudulent geological data and were able to WB, but only after
the huge financial damage was done.
(2) Investigative journalism and anti-censorship. These two are
accompanied, of course, by others such as intellectualism,
independence, critical research and scholarship, idealism, and
so forth. Journalists are often dependent on WBs to get
important information. See the fine article by Bill Mellor
'Integrity and Ruined Lives: ... WBs who expose corruption and
mis-management ...' in TIME, October 21, 1991,
46-51. Much has been written in particular about censorship as
it is a fundamental problem in all free societies, i.e. in
democracies - cf. 'Essay--Who cares about a free press?'
by Henry Grunwald, TIME, May 8, 1995, p. 80.
The 'powerful' have been using censorship for several hundred
years to avoid scrutiny, frequently employing defamation laws
against even their own employees to prevent the divulging of
unethical or unlawful activities. See 7-page pamphlet
Defamation law and free speech issued by the
Whistleblowers Australia. The report by Roy Eccleston
'Defamation City', The Weekend Australian, December
21-22, 1996, provides an insight into Sydney's misuse of
defamation laws to curtail freedom of speech. In the article
'The Return of the Wowsers' in the Spectrum-section,
The Sydney Morning Herald, July 6, 1996, indicates that
'censorship is back ... expanding into ever more areas of our
lives'. See also 'Defamation shake-up plan to end big payouts',
by J. Fife-Yeomans, The Weekend Australian, October
28-29, 1995, p. 3, comparing the greater freedom of speech in
the United States.
Censorship is required to eliminate filth, fraud, criminality,
and such from society. However, it is a totally different
matter to stifle fact-based criticism of political falsehoods,
incompetence of financial advisers, mismanagement in government
departments and industry, corruption in any institution,
inappropriate behaviour of a teacher or superior, and so on -
no-one should be prevented from 'speaking up' through threats
or actual-application of defamation laws when a proper approach
has been used to identify deleterious activities. Many case
studies ought to be summarised to demonstrate (a) the various
approaches used through (b) numerous sequential steps taken by
'concerned individuals' to rectify damaging social situations -
the final phase often being WB.
Those interested in the Australian history (starting about 1800
to recent times) of censorship, freedom of speech, WB, and
related phenomena will find an excellent read the book by
Michael Pollak (1990)Sense and Censorship: Commentaries on
Censorship Violence in Australia. Overly-busy people should
at least consult the Introduction, Conclusion,
and Bibliography. Ah, and there are dozens of other
books dealing with recent cases of WB and censorship, e.g.
Brian Toohey and William Pinwill, 1989, Oyster: the Story of
the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (the book the
Government took to Court); Robert Pullan, 1994, Guilty
Secrets: Free Speech and Defamation in Australia; and, of
course, Phillip Knightley's 1975, The First Casualty: the
War Correspondent as Hero, Propagandist and Myth Maker,
laying bare the censors' role in suppressing and creating
facts. The latter book paints an alternative and shaming
portrait of received truth--'the first casualty is truth'--and
that applies too often also in times of peace! Of course,
during 'hot wars' the act of WB would be considered as
'treason'! Yet, the threat of 'treason' has been used, even in
peace times, by governments (including so-called democratic
ones!) to silence critics - see below for recent British
examples..
And those who believe that 'All that evil requires to flourish
is for good men to do nothing' may find satisfaction that a few
are pro-actively doing something; as exemplified by Frank
Cain's, 1983, The Origins of Political Surveillance in
Australia; Phil Dickie's, 1988, The Road to
Fitzgerald--Revelations of Corruption Spanning Four
Decades; and Evan Whitton's 1989, The Hillbilly
Dictator--Australia's Police State. Many citizens (but not
enough!) feel that the control of information by the government
and its various 'secret agent services' has to be scrutinised,
and any wrongdoing exposed, if necessary by WB; see below.
The press is truly one of the most important media to 'keep an
eye' on all aspects of society, but even in a democracy it is
too frequently not functioning freely for various internal and
external reasons. Although the media has been criticised quite
frequently, let me refer to only one article by William A.
Henry III 'Journalism Under Fire--a growing perception of
arrogance threatens the American press', in TIME,
December 12, 1983. He is rather critical of journalists,
offering a few complimentary comments and, more importantly,
declarations of the fundamental importance of factual, truthful
reporting. Can this journalist's exposé be considered
'WB on his professional colleagues', or is it just plain good
journalism/reporting?! Some may think it is WB, but
professional self-criticism should not be misconstrued as
'ratting'.
That there often is a conflict of interest among journalists
became rather clear to me when I worked for the BMR/AGSO in
Canberra. Our 'institutional journalist(s)' (acting frequently
as public relations-type officers), defended our status
quo instead of providing the full picture of our sometimes
incredible inefficiencies, for example, to journalists of the
Australian media. Withholding information is manipulation, or
even lying, by any definition. A 'company journalist' cannot
really perform truthfully his/her professional duties when
he/she is forced to merely represent the employer's interests
without complete adherence to fact/truth. Read the Code of
Conduct/Ethics of the Journalists Association! If it
doesn't provide guidance to those implicitly or explicitly
asked to manipulate information, then the Code is rather
incomplete. If the Code demands respect and absolute
adherence to the truth, then a journalist is almost compelled
to WB. If not, to put it differently, he/she is not a true
journalist - just an 'Institutionalised Public Relations
Officer'. The latter officer, almost by definition, is
automatically, inherently, there to describe, define, or
explain, the policies of his/her employer to any outsider,
including the public. And by the 'job description', the PR does
not entail offering deleterious information which might amount
to genuine WB. There may lie a real dilemma for a
conscientious, by nature critical, analytical, ethical person,
who wishes to act like a 'true, genuine journalist'!
(3) Peer-reviewers in science. Geology (or geosciences or
earth-sciences, whichever you prefer) offers here too examples
where WB was absolutely necessary to keep researchers (in this
case paleo-anthropologists and paleontologists) honest. Case A.
A recent situation was reported in the New Scientist,
v.156, Nos. 2113/2114, p. 72: a geologist was acting as a WB
exposing certain paleo-anthropologists' ignorance about
'geological and relative-age contexts' in the study of 'human
ancestry and evolution'.
Case B. Professor of Geology, Dr. John A. Talent, Macquarie
University, exposed purposive fraudulent paleontological
studies perpetrated by an Indian scientist who through
plagiarism, database-pollution, dis-/mis-information, creation
or scrambling of spurious geological locations, recycling of
fossil specimens, alleged stealing of specimens, etc. (all
expressions used by Talent and others to describe the
fraudulent activities), has created a confusion of the
geological (e.g. stratigraphic) history of certain parts of the
Himalayas.
Many publications, by numerous authors, have discussed this
sorry affair; here are three, each with references to other
publications which will allow one 'to work back' to the earlier
literature: J. A. Talent (1989), 'The case of the peripatetic
fossil'. Nature, v.338, No. 6217, 613-615; J. A. Talent
at al. (1990), 'Himalayan palaeontology database polluted:
plagiarism and other anomalies'. Geological Society of India
Journal, v.35, No .6, 569-585; and J. A. Talent (1995),
'Chaos with conodonts and other fossil biota: v J. Gupta's
career in academic fraud: bibliographies and a short
biography'. Courier Forsch.-Instit, Senckenberger,
v.182, 523-551. Talent (based on his decades of scientific
training, of course) had to synthesise, compare/contrast,
interpret and extrapolate geological, stratigraphic,
paleontological, and environmental information in order to
offer a fool-proof analysis in demonstrating that an
unequivocal fraud had been perpetrated. There was no way out:
he had to WB! Others have tried (e.g. associates in India), and
allegedly were 'forcefully' prevented from doing so!
These cases could have been listed also in the next section on
'sceptics in science', yet it seems appropriate to highlight
the need for the thousands of pro-active peer-reviewers to do a
bit of 'reactive' WB, when they smell unethical information.
This can make it different from 'normal sceptical or
maverick'-type scientific or editorial involvements.
(4) Mavericks/sceptics in the sciences. The difference from the
previous section is that there is no fraud involved, but the
sceptical or maverick attitude is fundamental here to overcome
a state of 'intellectual denial or refusal' as perpetrated by
'orthodox scientists' who may ignore and reject certain
proposals or even facts. For example, there are numerous
'taboo' topics: e.g. ESP and 'proved' alternative medicine,
among many others, are systematically misrepresented,
ridiculed, and starved of funding by the 'traditionalists'. See
the book by Richard Milton (1994) Forbidden Science:
Exposing the Secrets of Suppressed Research.
When one considers the many failures in scientific
predicting/forecasting, one ought to be very cautious in
calling any idea 'absurd' based purely on gut-feeling.
Remember, Sir William Preece FRS opined: 'Edison's electric
lamp is a completely idiotic idea'; others believed that
'powered human flight was utterly impossible, which would
require the discovery of some unsuspected force in nature'; and
that 'space travel is bunk' as well as 'the atomic bomb will
never go off, and I speak as an expert in explosives'. There
are many more such examples.
Thus, independent intellectuals ought to openly deliberate such
negative attitudes. It may well involve minor WB through public
debates and publications on associates who cannot see the tree
for the forest of data. A world-renowned British geophysicist
ones stated that continental drift-cum-plate tectonics is
impossible because of the physical impossibility of the earth
crust to move such continent-sized plates. Now we have all the
'evidence' to support such movements. So many 'opinions' and
'interpretations' are involved here that continual research is
required. More about this latter.
One may well argue that the airing of 'genuine differences in
scientific opinions' does not constitute WB. In most instances,
that may be so, but consider Milton's arguments in his chapter
on 'The Research Game', where he compared 'the psychology of
military incompetence' to that in other hierarchical
organisations which selectively attract and promote a certain
type of personality that, in turn, have a preferential
influence. His arguments applied also to many academic,
government, and industrial research institutions, so that under
such circumstance WB may well be the only way to
improvements.
There are other scientific projects that definitely needed, and
still need, mavericks in the true sense of the word. Many
relate to proto-, or pseudo-, or quasi-sciences, as they may be
called philosophically--as well as derogatively by those in
opposition - but which may become eventually accepted
disciplines of orthodox science. Here belongs the research on
the various types of parapsychology, e.g. Extra-Sensory
Perception (ESP). Many researchers refuse to get involved in
this type of investigation, unless they have tenure and cannot
be penalised, because it is considered hocus-pocus by many
departmental heads or university presidents. But consider this.
According to Walter Bowart's book of 1978 Operation Mind
Control, he 'has uncovered a huge government
"cryptocracy" dedicated to controlling and manipulating human
minds. Through hypnosis and drugs, ordinary citizens became CIA
"zombies": human computers, spies, trained assassins, with no
control over or consciousness of their actions. Only
unexplained memory gaps, or a separate personality which
emerged on a trigger cue, showed the victim that something was
amiss.' The Americans felt they had to engage in this sort of
research and 'applied/practical activities' to keep up with
similar work by the Russians. Ridiculous? Fantasy? Well, Jana
Wendt a few years ago interviewed on TV a man who made similar,
or identical, claims! Allegedly, he was 'programmed' to kill
himself through causing a car accident because he knew too
much, so he claimed. As a form of protection, the man blew the
whistle.
(5) Environmental idealists/dissenters. Much has been published
on environmental/ecological problems. Literally thousands of
books and articles are available now, cf. the excellent
Australia--State of the Environment, 1996, by the
Commonwealth Minister for the Environment, which on one hand
merely described the dilemmas we are facing worldwide. However,
less common are the publications by WBs revealing against
opposition the misdeeds of their employers, for instance. One
must mention this setting of whistleblowing, but no details can
be presented here. Already in 1981, Brian Martin reported on
'The Scientific Straightjacket--the power structure of science
and the suppression of environmental scholarship' in
The Ecologist, v 11, No. 1, 33-43. Ian Lowe also
published a warning in his 'Scientific objectivity and values'
in CSIRO's Australian Tropical Rainforests (Chapter 13),
edited by L. J. Webb and J. Kikkawa. WBs in the mining, timber,
fishing, agricultural, etc., industry are as much required as
ever. They too started in the past with low-key critical
comments to colleagues and supervisors, and finally to the
upper-hierarchies; and when ridiculed or worse, some were
compelled to become WBs.
(6) Pacifists/activists/idealists exposing mega-corruption of
governments in global business/finance, political
manipulations/manoeuvres, and spying. (a) In the 'Cancer of
Corruption--a World War on Bribery' James Walsh
reported in TIME (July 13, 1998, 36-43) about 'the
costs of corruption reaching earth-shaking proportions to be
cleared by an Herculean international effort to clear the
muck'. The World Bank, International Monetary Fund, large
global companies, and numerous countries' governments were
involved in passively accepting bribery, baksheesh, payola, or
whatever it is called in particular cultures. In some
countries, bribery-cum-corruption when 'attempting to get a
deal' was even (allegedly) legally accepted, even encouraged,
in contrast to others where it was just implicitly/explicitly
accepted without any ethical/moral compunction. However, slowly
various worldwide problems (e.g. huge financial waste,
non-fulfilment of projects at the expense of the poor,
breakdown/turmoil of whole societies and cultures, etc.) demand
some sort of rectification/nullification of this 'cancer'. For
example, finally 'the IMF and World Bank, sister agencies, are
readier to "blow the whistle" and cancel multi-million/billion
dollar financial support, for instance, unless corruption is
reduced if not eliminated'. Individuals and groups within
particular countries and the financial institutions exhibiting
a combination of personality traits must operate to identify,
record, analyse, combat, and WB. These are, as for example in
several Asian countries: free-thinkers,
freedom-of-speech-advocates, activists, dissenting
intellectuals with particular training/experience to collect
and critically analyse the required data, sceptical economists,
and so on. Here is an example where groups of investigators are
engaged in WB as members of an institution, in contrast to the
more familiar lone individual WB.
As to the failures of financial institutions (e.g. the World
Bank) which meant to alleviate the world-wide inequities,
Catherine Caufield's book comes immediately to mind: The
World Bank and the Poverty of Nations (1996), and
especially Susan George's four books: How the Other Half
Dies: the Real Reasons for World Hunger (1977); Ill
Fares the Land: Essays on Food, Hunger and Power (1984):
A Fate Worse than Debt (1988); and Faith and Credit:
the World Bank's Secular Empire (1994).
(b) Noam Chomsky began his career as an academic linguist. He
examined the language (terminology, writing style, logic,
reliability, testability, etc.) of American policy-makers and
politicians, finding so many were lying (including withholding
information, which is merely one style of lying), and
misrepresenting facts/truth that he had to do something about
it. He offered his research results in numerous books, such
as: Manufacturing Consent: the Political Economy of the
Media (1988) [Edward S. Herman, co-author];
Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies
(1989); and Deterring Democracy (1991).
Certainly, the above researchers/authors acted as 'informal
WBs' in behalf of society at large. Of course there are many
more, some world-renowned, as Ralph Nader, others lesser known
individuals, so well described in Peter W. Huber's (1991)
Galileo's Revenge: Junk Science in the Courtroom. There
is a book for you! No doubt, all combined a 'host of
fundamental characteristics' to engage in their self-appointed
exposes, because they covered a wide spectrum of social
problem, utilising various approaches. These demands are traits
of free-thinkers, freedom-of-speech advocates and defenders,
independent scholars, idealists, scientific synthesists and
analysts, critics, reviewers, sceptics, mavericks, outsiders,
dissenters and even pacifists - and last, but not least,
WBs.
Were all of them threatened through the many, now
well-recognised, styles of intimidation? Certainly, Nader and
Chomsky were; both described their 'ordeals' in interviews. The
latter, for instance, mentioned that when he started to expose
the 'fact-engineering', 'falsification of history', etc.,
within his supposedly democratic university and country, the
steps taking by many to shut him up made him believe he might
lose his job. His wife believed in his 'political linguistic
exposes', and returned to university to get an education to
allow her to financially support the family. However, 'true
democracy' prevailed; he never lost his job - on the contrary,
he became famous and is in great demand. Does that mean that
'the louder the noise a WB makes' and 'worldwide fame' are the
best insurance/protection, aside from having all your facts
well worked out and supported by incontrovertible
evidence?!
Harry Wu ought to be considered here as an example of a 'WB
extra-ordinaire and par excellence' as he is exposing the many
human rights' abuses in his book (1997) Troublemaker: one
man's crusade against China's cruelty. He has returned to
his former home country to spy on China's activities. See also
below.
(c) Public Intellectuals are absolutely a necessity in any
democracy - the more we have, the better, especially of the
independent kind in contrast to the institution-dependent
academic intellectuals who are too frequently muzzled, i.e.
cannot speak their mind. In 'Conversations with truth', The
Australian Review of Books, July 1997, 22-24, numerous
Australian 'public intellectuals' are mentioned. All could be
considered 'sceptical analysts and critics' (in the literary,
social, political, and economic contexts), as well as
'dissenters', 'mavericks', and 'idealists'--plus WBs as many
tend to expose deleterious, even unethical/corrupt, parts of
society. The article calls them also 'outsiders': 'It is only
by being an outsider that the intellectual has the freedom of
speaking the truth to power'. (See the 1956/1971 book 'The
Outsider' by Colin Wilson.)
One rather successful 'public intellectual' (simultaneously
being a maverick, independent, idealistic, constructively
critical, social analyst) is John Ralston Saul. His three books
Voltaire's Bastards: the Dictatorship of Reason in the
West (1992), The Doubter's Companion: a Dictionary of
Aggressive Common Sense (1994); and especially The
Unconscious Civilization (1997) clearly had some
policy-making influences.
(d) Spying on the international scene. The exposure of
governments' activities in treason and spying plus
counter-spying is another type of WB. Again, only a few
comments are possible here. Peter Wright's 1987, Spy
Catcher ought to be known to all English-speaking people.
The British authorities tried desperately to suppress his
explosive revelations about the government MI5-agency operating
outside the law, where the only rule was the 11th
commandment: 'Thou shalt not be caught'. Even over 50 years
after WWII, exposes are still being written, and since several
governments are still sitting on secret documents (no WBs
there, even though we live in peacetime!), more will be
revealed far into the future, no doubt. A recently published
contribution is by Desmond Ball and David Horner, 1998,
Breaking the Codes: Australia's KGB Network, about
leakages from a Canberra source to the enemy. (Cf. review in
'Nest of Traitor's--Stalin's spies down under', Sydney
Morning Herald, August 8, 1998.)
The most recent attempt to WB on the British MI6's bumbling,
secrecy, deceptions, corruption, and incompetence, for
instance, is that by former British spy Richard Tomlinson, who
is being prevented from writing a book a la the Spy
Catcher. He went to jail for sending an e-mail synopsis to
an Australian publisher. After his release, when he was
convinced that he would be re-arrested on some pretence or
found dead in a pre-arranged car accident, he slipped out of
Britain. For more information, see 'The spy out in the cold' in
the Sydney Morning Herald, August 15, 1998, p. 35. Let's
hope Tomlinson is being 'annoyed' enough by his former
so-called colleagues to do the book-based WB on the British
secret service!
What one might call 'reverse spying' was undertaken by Harry Wu
(born and raised in China), who exposed the brutalities of the
Chinese prison system, for example, by returning to his home
country several times to gather written and video information.
See his book Troublemaker: one man's crusade against china's
cruelty (1997). One might say, simplistically, that his
present life is taken up by 'constant no-holds-barred WB' to
expose China's human rights abuses, such as selling of human
parts taken from executed prisoners!
(7) Heretics, sceptics in religious matters. There are numerous
aspects to this as covered by many older and recent books. (a)
One is the science-vs.-creationism debacle, as well outlined by
Ian Plimer's (1994) Telling Lies For God: Reason vs.
Creationism (cf. my review in The Australian Geologist
Newsletter No. 94, 31. March 1995). Young people may have
been brainwashed by their parents and pseudo-religious
associates to believe the creationist claptrap, and ones they
have joined formally creationist groups, there is absolutely no
way to object but to either leave and/or WB, because even the
slightest internal critical questioning is usually not
permitted. Thus, in contrast to other situations described
here, in the fanatical religious context (just as under
dictatorial, political ones), no gradual sequential increase
from a mere 'subtle doubting stage' to a 'more intensive WB
stage' is possible, because only a 'sudden exposition' may be
the alternative.
(b) Heretics and reformers have existed as long as religion and
its several 'alternatives' have. Let me refer you to a couple
of books: Peter Cameron's, 1994. Heretic, and Father
Paul Collins' (1997) Papal Power provide Australian
contexts. There are others of interest: William Safire's, 1992,
The First Dissent-- the Book of Job in Today's Politics,
really ought to tickle your intellectual fancy; as also H.
Kersten and E. R. Gruber's, 1992, The Jesus Conspiracy: the
Turin Shroud and the Truth about the Resurrection. The
latter is a thrilling and sensational expose of the faking of
dating evidence, which puts into question the most fundamental
doctrines of the Christian Church. The authors encountered
determined resistance while obtaining clear evidence as proof
of their revelations. Well, what's your opinion? Here is a
dilemma: in philosophy one recognises various Sources of
Knowledge, one being Knowledge of Authority. Truly,
one of the shakiest 'authorities' must be that based on
religious research, because too much is interpreted,
extrapolated, and based on 'faith'! If doctrines are well
established, then those who are called mavericks, heretics and
reformers by those in power can be nicely defined as WBs. The
latter may have experienced even the upper hierarchy's
doctrinal self-doubts (not to speak of the 'unspeakable
unethical conducts') withheld from the 'lower ranks in
society', which by the nature of religion have to be bamboozled
continuously! Only WBs can 'induce' a change!
(8) Independent researchers/scholars--(a) Traditional Medical
Practices (TMP) vs. Alternative Health Practices (AHP). Much
has been written and spoken about this increasingly widespread,
often acrimonious, debate. It is particularly here where one
can demonstrate the need for the full, comprehensive
application of 'The Scientific Method' to sort out the
lunatic fringe of AHPs from the genuine AHPs. And the more
cooperation is furnished from 'patients' who have resorted to
the AHP philosophy, the earlier a decision can be made as to
the viability of the numerous 'alternative' approaches in order
to deal properly with the present chaos, confusion, and
contradictions. Even the science-trained/educated TMPs differ
widely in opinion among themselves, although many universities
are teaching now their future medical practitioners about the
'alternatives'. Even university-based research in some fields
of the alternatives is being conducted, e.g. on herbal medicine
and acupuncture, among others.
The Australian Skeptics Inc. has for some time battled in
several articles in The Skeptics magazine/journal
the way-out, lunatic fringe of the AHPs (see vol. 18, No
.2, p. 4, 10-14, 15-19, 20-22, for instance). A healthy young
lady was sent to several AHPs - she was told that she suffered
from several ailments/illnesses, which were
'fictitious--concocted'! Well, of course the planted young lady
then WB, as pre-arranged, on these fake AHPs.
(b) Predicting complex systems. Which computer-expert and
information-specialist or teacher, researcher, scientist,
economist, engineer, politician or other public servant, or
anyone else in any responsible position, is willing to admit
that predicting, forecasting, anticipating, and similar
procedures applied to unravel the future of complex social and
natural complexes is nothing but 'intelligent guessing', with
probabilities of the results ranging from one extreme to
another, depending on many entities, factors, parameters and
variables (EFPVs)?
There are literally thousands of examples demonstrating that
the 'prediction/forecasting business' is well alive. But
increasingly sceptics, outsiders, or whatever you may wish to
call them, act as unofficial and official WBs, often warning
their own professional colleagues to make more honest
pronouncements, e.g admit our human limitations. Even the most
powerful computers with the best software cannot as yet (will
we ever be able to?) forecast climate/weather, say, 300 years
into the future (as one ANU researcher claimed). Neither can we
predict earthquakes and associated volcanism, tsunamis (see
recent case in Papua New Guinea wiping out several
communities), coastal erosion, landslides, floods (e.g. recent
ones in QLD and NSW), droughts (ditto); nor can we anticipate
landslides (cf. recent cases in WA and NSW killing many
people); etc. [Cf. my publications on Artificial
Intelligence and Expert Systems listed below, and 'W(i)ther
geological research' in The Australian Geological
Newsletter (TAG) No. 94, March 1995, p. 67-68.]
Note that often research funding is based on 'false promises of
success' (see 'Earthquake "forecasters" face their critics in
Japan' in TAG No. 95 June 1995, p. 39-40). The
latter article is a good example of WB by a scientist.
Of course, the failures of financial/economic forecasts by
'honest experts' handling millions of investment dollars have
become almost proverbial, not to forget the purposive
fraudulent manipulation of finances. In all these cases,
'professional WBs' have been active. See the following books,
among others: The Fortune Sellers: the Big Business of
Buying and Selling Predictions by W. A. Sherden (1998);
Predicting the Future: an Introduction to the Theory of
Forecasting' by N. Rescher (1998); and the earlier The
Art of Anticipation: Values and Methods in Forecasting
edited by S. Encel et al. (1975).
(9) Maverick intellectuals: e.g. neo-Luddites in the
computerisation context. Aside from the failures of computers
in predicting/forecasting complex systems mentioned above,
there are numerous other limitations and negative aspects of
computerising society. Much has been written about this in the
context of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Expert Systems (ES)
[see my comments in 'AI and ES', in Ore Geology
Reviews, v.9 (1994); 'AI--still too simplistic', in The
Australian Geologist Newsletter No. 90. March 1994, p. 6;
241-243; and 'On predictions: neo-luddites on computerisation
and climatic predictions--geniuses or morons?' in The
Skeptic magazine/journal, v.17, No. 3, 61-63].
Which teacher has enough courage to tell his headmaster that
one ought to give students (and parents!) a list of the
disadvantages of computers? Which computer company or
sales-person would warn parents about the potential
psychological and physical health and numerous social problems
(including education), if a counter-philosophy is ignored to
achieve a logical balance? It should be emphasised that neither
I nor most (all?) of the often derogatively called neo-Luddites
are anti-technology/science or anti-progress - we are merely
advocating 'reason in applying computers', knowing full well
the many contributions computers have made and will make.
Well, without trying too hard, I have collected the references
of 22 books (as well as many articles) by so-called
neo-Luddites who have attempted to expose the computer-hype.
Just a few here: H. L. Dreyfus, What Computers Still Can't
Do: a Critique of Artificial Intelligence (1972, 1993); N.
Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Effect of Electronic
Media (1985) and Technology: the Surrender of Culture to
Technology (1992); R. S. Wurman, Information Anxiety:
gap of what we understand, black hole between data and
knowledge (1989); T. Roszak, The Cult of Information: a
Neo-Luddite Treatise in High-Tech, Artificial Intelligence, and
the True Art of Thinking (1994); L. Talbott, The Future
Does Not Compute: Transcending the Machines in Our Midst
(1995); T. K. Landauer, The Trouble With Computers:
Usefulness, Usability, and Productivity (1995); and
C. Stoll, Silicon Snake Oil: Second Thoughts on the
Information Highway (1995). Enough for a start!
(10) Ludicrous behaviour of some university males. Hopefully,
this applies only to a very small percentage, but there is one
case that reveals much about one of Australia's elite
educational institutions, exemplified by some 'old guards'
running a university college who were setting the agenda and
thus determined the culture! Peter Cameron (1997) described in
Finishing School for Blokes: College Life Exposed how
the students were involved in sport and alcohol, including
binge-drinking, spew competitions; bizarre freshers'
initiations; the quaint and other-worldly atmosphere;
manoeuvres of prominent business people; archaic attitudes
toward women; etc. After longer unsuccessful attempts to
rectify the situation, the principal resigned, and in his
1997-book then WB on the college!
Conclusions. From the above discussions it seems apparent that
WB is only one type of 'social criticism' and that it entails
many different abstract perspectives or contexts, viewpoints,
physical environments, methodologies or processes (manoeuvres
and counter-manoeuvres), interpretations, types of people
involved (e.g. their personality traits/characteristics), and
so forth. Has the time come to put some conceptual order into
what appears to be a pell-mell of information on social
criticism, including WB? For instance, the time may have
arrived to establish a 'sociology and psychology of WB
typology'. This may not be too far-fetched considering
the literature already available, such as S. Bok's two books on
Lying (1978) and Secrets (Ethics of Concealment)
(1982), as well as Cheats at Work (1982) and
Industrial Sabotage (1979), respectively, by G.
Mars and P. Dubois, among many others listed in my article 'The
Ubiquity of Dishonesty' in The Whistle of July
1998, 2-5.
To put order into this deleterious human activity (i.e.
dishonesty) and the approaches used to deal with it, one could
commence with definitions-cum-explanations of all terms and
phrases involved. For example, one ought to establish the
similarities and differences of the 21 words listed (i.e.
dishonesty, ..., WB, inexactitude; and there are others to be
added) in my July 1998 article. Likewise, the many
terms/phrases listed above in the present article that are
near-synonymous to WB must be defined-cum-explained as
accurately as possible to prevent confusion in our
communications. Then, possibly, one can identify related
activities that can be grouped or classified. Most importantly,
one should also search for features, criteria or
characteristics that permit identification and distinction.
Additionally, the various types of jobs and environments where
fraud, etc., can occur ought to be classified. Take, for
example, the classifications by G. Mars (1982): he offered a
table of 'Typology of work and its rewards' as well as a
figure of 'Using grid and group to classify occupations'; the
latter in the chapter on 'A classification of occupations and
their associated fiddles'. Both are conducive to understanding
the environments of different types of cheating. Thus, ideas or
concepts that seem to be unrelated make 'more sense' if one can
find them to be 'parts' of a 'system' or a 'whole'. Once this
has been achieved, one can create tables (e.g. grids) that
indicated 'the mode of interrelationships'. To convince
yourself, here is one more general example. Ask yourself what
the differences and similarities are, as well as what the
conceptual/abstract relationships are, between humour, wit,
satire, sarcasm, invective, irony, cynicism, and the sardonic?
For the answer, see the (what I call comparative/contrastive)
table on page 253 in Fowler's Modern English Usage,
Second Edition (1968).
The more we understand about the WB-phenomenon and related
'critical activities', the better the chance that WB
will be accepted as a 'normal' (well, maybe not so normal, yet
absolutely necessary!), by-law-protected, activity. This has
been discussed in the American and Australian contexts by the
above-named article on 'Integrity' by Bill Mellor in the
TIME magazine of October 1991, as well as by 'Protect
the whistleblowers', Sydney Morning Herald of 7 March
1992, p.22; 'Time of for Whistleblower Bill', Sunday
Telegraph, 29 November 1992, p.51; 'Services target
cheats', Sunday Telegraph, 24 March 1991, p. 4; among
others. Apparently, in the United States WBs are more accepted
and the defamation laws are not as easy to apply against
exposes, in contrast to Australia. To curtail the need for WBs,
perhaps companies, governments (see need for 'Fraud and
corruption detection workshop' in Canberra as advertised in
Department of Primary Industry and Energy Bulletin, No.
19/May 1993, p.6), industries, educational institutions, ought
to consider 'ethics doctors' (cf. 'Whoyagonnacall? Ethics
Doctors', by David Dale, Sydney Morning Herald, August
7, 1986)!
The WB phenomena ought to be investigated further by
sociologists and psychologists to allow a fuller comprehension
from several perspectives. (a) For example, what are the
personality traits/characteristics that 'make' a WB, i.e.
'induce or compel him/her', to go through the various stages of
'critical analysis' that often culminate in WB - in contrast to
those individuals who 'cannot bring themselves' to engage in
any criticism? For instance, even during a very low-level
communication (like in a meeting or conference), there are many
who never ask one simplistic question, in contra-distinction to
those who shift around in their seats eager to get
clarifications, pose queries, offer counter-arguments or some
additional data. Shouldn't one teach and encourage the latter
philosophy in schools, for instance? (b) Psychologists could
assist potential WBs in determining the 'emotional signs' that
would warn any individual during the various stages of
'critical analysis' when the whole process may become too
dangerous for that individual's 'mental health'. Readers might
wish to supply information on this for discussion and
publication. For example, to some WBs, the whole process may
become a 'trap without the possibility to escape', whereas
others may feel 'an emotional release' through being able to
expose fraud, or whatever, and make a social contribution, even
if in general unacknowledged.
One more point: recent and future social trends will, no doubt,
increase the phenomena of WB, as indicated by J. D. Davidson
and W. Rees-Mogg in their 1997 book The Sovereign
Individual: The Coming Economic Revolution--How to Survive It
and Prosper in It; see the sections on 'Heresy and Treason'
and 'Defection from Citizenship' (p. 245), and the
chapter 'Morality and Crime in the "Natural Economy" of the
Information Age'.
[This essay appeared first in The Australian
Geologist Newsletter No. 95, June 30, 1995, p. 7-8, with
the subtitle of 'A Little, Gentle, Whistleblowing.' It is
offered here in a slightly modified, updated, and expanded
(hopefully improved!) form, because I believe that more studies
are required of the 'responsibility, accountability, and
loyalty phenomena', among others. Although the essay was
addressing mainly scientists, the arguments do apply to just
about any social setting.]
Barry Jones once suggested that scientists (and others?) are
wimps as they don't argue their case, being too meagre in, or
shying away from, taking full responsibility in enhancing
science/technology; in demanding their rights; and so on. (In
stark contrast, look at the recent case of the union-backed
wharfies who forcefully fought for their rights, e.g. to have
their numerous proverbial metaphoric cakes and eat them too!)
Although Barry Jones has a point, as usual, such
opinions/beliefs are half-truths, i.e. being both wrong and
right, depending on many factors. One basic question: where do
professional (and personal) loyalties lie?
First, one must recognise different types of loyalties:
(a) absolute/universal vs. flexible/relative/comparative
or value-laden; (b) personal vs. institutional (e.g.
priority and policy-founded); (c) based on
preferentially-selected data, philosophy and methodology;
(d) economy-controlled; (e)
work--colleagues-related; (f)
group/class/age/family/region/nation/race/culture/religion-based;
(g) expediency-controlled; (h) long/short-term
(time-based) types; (i) etc. (Add your own types.)
As to synonyms, near-synonyms or analogous words that could
replace in certain contexts the word 'loyalty', there are
numerous ones. For example, (i) positive ones:
allegiance, responsibility, duty, respect, devotion, fidelity,
etc.; and (ii) negative ones: obedience, submission,
servility, passiveness, compliance, etc.
Take the professional loyalty, which can be either
conceptual/abstract or concrete/physical, or both in nature and
context. (Of course, this two-fold division may be somewhat
artificial.) 'Conceptual loyalty' is exemplified, for example,
by a company's philosophy of dealing with employees and
customers, how truthful or factual their advertisement is; a
university department's tenure and hiring procedures (often
manipulated to merely propagate the status quo, ignoring
teaching in favour of fund-raising research); and a scientific
fraternity perpetuating their own narrow interests and/or
opposing certain hypotheses for the same reasons. There are
many other instances available. Conceptual/abstract loyalty may
also refer to the 'emotional attachment' of employees to their
company, industry, and profession.
'Concrete/physical loyalty', on the other hand, may
refer, for instance, to a belief in the physical
outputs/products; to the physical presence of employees in a
particular industry or profession; and physical representation
of an industry and profession. One may ask whether there is
really a possibility of separating the abstract/conceptual from
the concrete/physical loyalty. Of course, when both comprise a
harmonious relationship, it is commonly (but not always)
beneficial to all. However, a conflict may arise in one's
conscience when the two are in opposition: i.e. the conceptual
does not correlate well with the concrete. This is particularly
the case in ideological and political situations, and in such
settings the two can either run in parallel or even be
operative separately or sequentially. Even certain industrial
problems are the consequence of the disharmony between
conceptual and concrete philosophy, loyalty, responsibility,
and accountability between employees, management, customers,
banks, and government. In all these cases, whistleblowing is
often needed.
Many enigmas related to loyalty, liability, and accountability
arise in the context of academia, research, teaching,
exploration, consulting, or managing/administrating: some are
purely inherent to one's profession, whereas others are based
on personal preferences--many negative, some positive in both
cases. Dilemmas arise daily, so that conflict resolution is
potentially needed continually; more so in some human
activities than in others. Do you know of any lifestyle where
differences of opinions or interpretations are absent over a
one-month' period, for instance? And when the 'right attitude'
(whatever that means!) is absent, even the smallest problem is
easily blown out of proportion. Then the 'loyalty question'
arises: to whom, what, when, where, why, under what conditions?
The points-of-reference or conceptual goal-posts constantly
shift daily, even within minutes, from one situation to the
next when various demands are made on loyalty, responsibility,
accountability. One's self, individual associates, the group,
the company, the family, and society all make demands, which
are often implicit/hidden, invisible, unwritten, but still need
to be considered. If the problem cannot be solved, should one
engage in dobbing-in, ratting, or whistleblowing (but then
leave the family out)?
To assist in setting conceptual and concrete standards, one has
resorted to the preparation of Code of Conduct documents
that comprise a list of fundamental ethical rules without which
society cannot properly function. When these 'ethical
agreed-upon rules/laws (written and unwritten)' are broken,
then here too the WB-question arises: can the misconduct be
tolerated or not, and can the problem be resolved internally to
prevent WB? The basic ethical/moral demands are really
indisputable (with a few exceptions) in many situations, but
other lesser-agreed-upon ones exist and then 'truths' or
'facts' are elusive or information is incomplete to make a
decisive decision. This applies to research in just about all
disciplines where there is a continuous search for truth, i.e.
in philosophy (numerous sub-disciplines), politics, sociology,
psychology, medicine, economy, and in all the sciences (even in
the supposedly most reliable, most accurate mathematical
ones).
What does 'A Little, Gentle, Whistleblowing' mentioned
above specifically refer to? Well, here are several
all-too-brief accounts of personal experiences. More could be
furnished!
(1) While employed for 10 years (until my retirement at
age 65) by the Bureau of Mineral Resources (BMR), now
the Australian Geological Survey Organisation (AGSO) in
Canberra, ACT, we underwent several internal reviews and at
least two major external reviews to determine, for example, the
relevance, contributions, and efficiency of the Survey. As one
of the Senior Geological Editors, I was quite aware of many
deleterious aspects, which had to be made known to all
officials to enable them to 'induce' improvements in the
future. The situation was so bad that many complaints about the
Survey's poor performances were received from industry,
individuals, and State Geological Surveys. Rumours had it that
it was considered to even 'close down' the Survey, which of
course would have been ludicrous considering the size and
importance of our natural resources: no-one in his/her right
mind would go that far! Yet, the Survey had to be 're-made',
're-invigorated', up-dated, and modernised. Journalists,
exploration companies, etc., argued in favour of retaining the
Survey - and I likewise in two 12-14 page submissions pointed
out the fundamental contribution our national Geological Survey
has made in the past 50 years and should make far into the
future. However, not once did I see, hear or read
information in the media that unequivocally pointed to the
urgent need of re-organising and re-directing our geoscience
activities. That is, the enormous, incredible deficiencies and
inefficiencies (including refusal to cooperate or work,
institutionalised systemic go-slow attitudes among some staff,
false claims of professional activities, widespread
near-anarchy, unethical carrot-stick methods used by the
so-called superiors/supervisors and staff, etc.), absence of
priority-setting resulting in multi-million dollar wastage,
chaos/disorder of much of the administration and research
hierarchy, and so forth, remained hidden. I preferred facts and
truths as I saw and experienced them, rather than
'half-truths-and lies-based loyalty', always pointing out that
I am willing to be convinced otherwise. Inasmuch as I started
to analyse and constructively criticise the system almost from
the day I arrived (at age 55 I was glad they actually gave me a
chance to out-do professionally some much younger scientists!),
but several upper-hierarchy administrators soon told me: 'Karl,
you'll never get a promotion, unless you shut up!' And one
director: 'If you don't like it, you can always resign!' By two
upper-echelon individuals I was informed that my comments are
libellous, defamatory, slanderous - so that I deleted the names
of specific individuals from my oral and written
communications, but continued to complain-cum-WB in general!
The threats were very standard tricks, as well known. In
contrast, the then-minister thanked me in writing 'for being so
honest'!
The Geological Survey (i.e. BMR/AGSO) over the past decades
hired quite a few 'New Australian geoscientists', who
individually and collectively made invaluable contributions.
Yet, many appear (allegedly) to have been marginalised. At
least seven told me on several occasions that 'they didn't have
the right accent/dialect' and were considered as 'outsiders',
not part of the 'in-group', or whatever euphemistic phrase one
likes to offer. Thus, many of these 'foreigners' (yet
Australian citizens!) were stuck at one level without hope of
ever getting a promotion. I have seen some of the ridiculous
reasons (in written reports) why a certain person was denied a
promotion. Yet, it can be unequivocally proven that many of
these individuals made scientific contributions; even far above
the average. Reasons for denial were personality-based, totally
science-and quality-of-work-and output-unrelated. Guess where
many of 'those in charge' originally came from! Where should
loyalty, priority, liability, responsibility, accountability
lie under such idiotic conditions, where so-called colleagues
form gangs/cliques to screw certain individuals. More energetic
WBs are definitely required. The Government has Codes of
Conduct', but who cares really? Many public servants never
read them; don't have a copy anyway; and don't give a damn.
Many of these so-called 'foreigners' (and others) were
reluctant to engage in WB, but just accepted their fate. Barry
Jones was correct: because one of these, even world-renowned
'foreign' researcher, told me: 'I am a scientist and any denied
promotion doesn't matter; money is not that important!' Well,
let the family suffer then! And let the bastards get away with
their dirty politics!
Incidentally, it must be made absolutely clear that (a)
there were quite a few scientists and others who always did
their work efficiently and made excellent contributions through
their laboratory and field investigations, and were always
personally friendly and ethical in conduct. But a fair number
were not! (b) Today, the Geological Survey is a
very much-improved organisation. (c)
Not-so-incidentally, there are several other national
geological surveys (e.g. the USGS, GSC, etc.) that had to
undergo similar intensive reviews and upgrading. The efforts
were worthwhile.
(2) An extension of the above story is related to
writing, by an outside scientist, the history of
BMR/AGSO in form of a book for the Survey's 50th
Anniversary in 1996. While this was in progress, I challenged
those responsible to describe not only the successes and
invaluable contributions made by the Survey, but also the
failures (in personal, administrative, and scientific matters)
experienced by many in the past and recently. Of course, I
fully realised that any history of anything is always selective
or preferential in approach (cf. books on historical
methodology, e.g. What is History? By E .H. Carr, 1990,
Penguin Books, England, reviewed by me for the Government's
Department of Primary Industry and Energy Bulletin, No
.20/93, 19. May 1993, p.5.). Yet, a truthful good-vs.-bad
balance is unequivocally required. The external author (Rick
Wilkinson) of the Survey's history did indeed do an excellent
job, much based on interviews of the staff. His Rocks to
Riches: the Story of Australia's National Geological Survey
was published on time in 1996. However, for my literary,
personal, and professional taste he had ignored too many
deleterious aspects. I am certain that as an 'outsider' he was
not told many of the negative occurrences about which the
Survey cannot be proud, in spite of the many important
contributions made to Australia's welfare. Consequently, I
published a critical review in The Australian Geologist
Newsletter No. 100, September 30, 1996, 45-46. Read it!
All the above may well fall into the realm of whistleblowing.
Actually, I was, and still am, surprised at the freedom granted
to me to continually criticise (constructively!) the system,
while experiencing only some setbacks as a consequence of my
persistent criticisms. Of course, attempts were made to 'retire
me early', but for every move made against me, our 'democracy'
enabled me to counter with unequivocal evidence, thus
demonstrating my superior professional output in contrast to
the meagre output of some so-called colleagues. Do you wish me
to prove this? One lesson I learnt long ago: always cover
yourself with written material! More about that later.
(3) As a member of a geological consulting group in the
Middle East, I was also responsible for six years (up to
1980) to build up a scientific/technological library for the
national geological survey, among my other geo-science duties.
I noticed that an overseas (Western) publisher, who had the
contract to purchase and ship to us all the books, charged the
Arabs nearly twice the books' normal international price. The
choice: loyalty to either the Western world (even if it was
legally-permitted overpricing or cheating) or to ones 'foreign'
employer who hired us to do an honest job assisting them to
enter our world of commerce, etc.? Such ethical decisions are
not easy, in particular since the 'foreign' government treated
us very generously in many ways. See next point.
(4) While in the Middle East, it became apparent
that Western civil engineering and/or construction companies
used salty water for concrete roads, airports, buildings,
foundations in general, etc. Within a comparatively very short
time the concrete developed 'cancer', as it is called; i.e. it
'disintegrated'. Where were the whistleblowers? A westerner
might have been branded a 'traitor' no doubt, if he/she had
pointed to the cause of the concrete cancer. I have no idea how
the Arabs finally rectified the problem.
Too often, we did not pass on our experience from the West,
although it was our sole purpose to do so. Of course, many of
the Arabs refused to be 'taught', which is another, actually
different, story. However, when the sole responsibility rested
with us Westerners, and we could have 'done the right thing',
we too frequently did not pass our experience on, even if it
would have enhanced our reputation to increase our profits.
Take huge family-housing projects. From experiences in the USA,
Canada, Australia, United Kingdom, and several European and
other countries, we have known for some time that large
apartment buildings, even when clustered around a 'court yard'
or park-cum-playground, can eventually change into slums (any
exceptions?) for several reasons beyond the present essay's
scope. Yet, I have seen such large apartment blocks being
erected in several Arab cities' central districts, which didn't
even have a court-yard, playground, or park. To put many of the
desert-and tent-raised people into small, very confined,
high-rise apartments was another mistake we could have
prevented through proper consultation by Western town planers
and architects, who ought to be able to predict/forecast the
sociological impacts by now! Incidentally, I had no way of
expressing my opinion officially, and have no idea how the
Arabs took to the apartment blocks since we left December 1980.
A sociologist should inquire, for everyone's benefit, perhaps.
As you realise, many such run-down, filthy blocks in Western
cities were detonated to bits or bulldozed as they failed to
provide proper living conditions, just as our Mt. Druit social
experiment illustrated. 'Common sense is not so common', as one
philosopher said.
(5) Two university situations I personally experienced.
(a) As a university professor in a Canadian
university, my colleagues asked me to be part of concocting
'evidence' against another associate who they wanted to deny
tenure and thus get rid of (all that just before Christmas for
special Christian effects, no doubt). I refused, and eventually
was seconded to the Saudi Arabian Government for six years.
(b) While I was a professor at a US university,
the geology department applied for a Ph.D. program - a report
had to be prepared, checked and passed by several other
universities. From the start I expressed my opinion that we did
not have the infrastructure, staff, etc., to establish a Ph.D.
program; I felt it was not even sufficient for a M.Sc. program.
The report even made misleading or false claims of experience,
abilities, etc., of the staff presented despite my objections.
The external committee refused to grant this Ph.D. program for
various reasons; one was that only two (including myself) of
eight staff members were sufficiently qualified! (I can prove
this in writing.) Result: I went to Mexico for a company into
silver exploration. Ever since I am blowing the whistle on
'institutional manipulations'.
That scientists are all-too-human in their behaviour has been
pointed out by numerous philosophers, sociologists, and
psychologists of science. As the British John Ziman stated in
Minerva, vol. 9 (1957), p. 456: 'It is refreshing to
be reminded that eccentricity and anarchy, serendipity and
obsession, counter-suggestion, jealousy, paranoiac suspicion,
spasmodic laziness, arrogant virtuosity, and other
individualistic traits are still to be regarded as essential
ingredients in scientific creation. Some of the
authors/researchers could only work quite alone; others when in
company; some need to be unhappy; others prefer serenity; some
are spurred on by desire to do other men down; others are
motivated by pure curiosity.'
So, there you are - where is the perfect society, country,
culture, or religion?! It just doesn't exist. You have to keep
on battling to improve social and natural environments - and
whistleblowing is just one method!
Whistleblowers are well aware of what it is like to come
under attack at work. Ostracism, petty harassment (slighting
comments, loss of files, inconvenient postings), threats and
reprimands are just some of the techniques used. Yet it is not
only whistleblowers who suffer abuse at work. This can also
happen to individuals who are singled out for whatever reason,
such as their sex, ethnicity, personal style or good
performance, or just because they are a convenient target. Some
workplaces are so toxic that virtually everyone suffers in
ongoing battles involving tantrums, put-downs, set-ups and
physical assaults. In many such toxic workplaces, one
person-the scapegoat-becomes a convenient target for everyone's
abuse.
The problems are familiar enough, but what to do about them is
less obvious. For those who have already blown the whistle, it
is often too late. They are either out the door, having been
dismissed, or are so stigmatised or traumatised as to have
little chance of contributing constructively to change.
Rather than confronting management by making a formal complaint
or public claim, is there any other alternative? One, of
course, is to do nothing, which is indeed the most common
thing. But what if you come under attack, or if one of your
colleagues comes under attack? What can be done to survive in
the job?
Consulting books on management and organisations doesn't give
much guidance. There are stacks of books on dynamic leadership,
empowering the workplace and creating positive change.
Unfortunately, these sorts of optimistic writings give little
recognition of the really terrible dynamics of so many
workplaces. Furthermore, they are invariably oriented to
managers, especially top managers. They assume a sincere will
to bring about beneficial change. There is virtually nothing
directed to middle and lower-level workers who would like to
change things but have no support from, or are actively
sabotaged by, their superiors.
Given this situation, it is exciting to find a new book that
provides some real hope for workplace victims: Judith Wyatt and
Chauncey Hare, Work Abuse: How to Recognize and Survive
It (Rochester, Vermont: Schenkman Books, 1997). This is a
comprehensive guide to surviving harassment, scapegoating,
humiliation and undermining. It is by far the most helpful
manual that I've come across.
The authors have years of experience in counselling work abuse
victims. They are blunt in stating that most workplaces are
abusive and that there's no easy way to change them. Therefore,
they argue, the individual who is a target of abuse needs to
develop personal skills to understand the situation, change
their emotional response and rehearse new behaviours.
Their underlying premise is that in order to survive, change
the situation or leave successfully, one has to change oneself.
Although this will not be welcomed by those who seek to
confront and expose management, the approach nevertheless has
useful insights for organisational activists, especially in
understanding what may be happening to others and learning how
to support them.
The authors rely on the concept of shame as the driving force
behind organisational dynamics. People are shamed (humiliated)
in various ways, for example by being exposed or criticised for
doing an inadequate job, by having suggestions ignored or
laughed at, by being revealed as too emotional or caring, and a
host of other ways.
To develop a method of coping with the dynamics of shame in
organisations, the authors examine the psychology of both
individuals and groups. They develop the ideas of "cims"
(childhood individual maintenance strategies) that shape
individual psychology and of "norms" (native organisational
maintenance strategies) that shape group dynamics. Both cims
and norms are unconscious, and their interaction affects how
individuals cope.
Wyatt and Hare's basic strategy for workers is to learn how to
analyse people and the organisation (cims and norms) and to
develop the capacity to not be affected by shaming, but instead
to psychologically distance oneself. In other words, rather
than being caught up in toxic behaviours at work, they believe
it is possible to emotionally separate oneself, maintaining
integrity internally and helping to survive and promote
beneficial change. They are quite clear about how difficult it
is to get others to change, especially managers, who have a
stake in their power and who are threatened by those who
demonstrate competence (not to mention a direct challenge).
They elaborate two major methods for survival: "empowered
awareness" and "strategic utilisation." Empowered awareness is
basically becoming conscious of what is happening, including
all the abuse, rather than denying it. It is a process of
developing the skills for building one's own inner
psychological world. It involves observing your own feelings,
evaluating other people's character styles and observing the
organisation's norms and power structure. It includes
generating meaning and purpose in one's own life, coping with
shaming by others, avoiding self-shaming and avoiding futile
power struggles.
Strategic utilisation involves setting goals, planning and
preparation, evaluating alternatives and taking action. One
important part of this is working out one's own self-interests
and also the self-interests of others, and then aligning one's
self-interests with those of others, especially superiors, in
order to achieve one's own goals while not threatening
others.
The authors give some lengthy examples, showing how shaming,
abuse and their recommended strategies operate. Their analysis
is based largely on experience with US workplaces, but most of
it would apply readily in Australia.
Work Abuse is a long book. It is not something to read
in a day or even a week. It does not provide a quick fix to
urgent problems. Rather, it is best studied slowly and
thoughtfully. The process of changing one's own habitual ways
of responding to abuse is not easy. The authors recommend
finding either a therapist or a friend to help, especially in
recovering from a crisis. But most important is being willing
to undertake the process of change and putting in the effort to
do so.
The book needs to be ordered from the US (just ask any
bookseller to get it for you) and will cost about A$60. That's
not cheap. But it is a bargain if it gives even a chance of
avoiding work abuse, which can cause suffering for years, not
to mention substantial financial losses.
To a considerable extent, the reader must take what the authors
say on trust. There is no detailed justification for the
analysis (such as their assumption that shame is the key
driving force in abuse), nor any statistics on the
effectiveness of their methods compared to other techniques.
Their case rests primarily on how well their explanation fits
with readers' own experiences and understandings. In other
words, you need to ask, does what they say ring true? To me it
does!
In several places their observations mesh with views of those
familiar with whistleblowing. For example, they say you
shouldn't expect justice from top management. In fact, they
say, "Justice is a myth, a story; expecting it to happen within
a negative-norm workplace is always
self-destructive."
The authors' focus is on surviving personally and developing
strategies to move ahead. In most cases, blowing the whistle
leads only to grief for the whistleblower and no change in the
organisation; the authors argue against any such
self-destructive path. However, they don't say what to do about
large-scale corruption or dangers to the public. Just ignoring
it in order to survive hardly seems enough. Their approach has
value, I believe, even for those who decide to take tackle such
problems.
Whistleblowers Australia has had its own share of interpersonal
and organisational problems, which of course are not unique to
the paid workforce. Undoubtedly, many of the techniques
provided here could be applied within WBA as well as in
members' workplaces. I look forward to hearing from members who
have practised the skills presented in Work Abuse.
At the demonstration we held recently outside HealthQuest, a
friend of mine happened to hear another demonstrator say that
"somebody" should make a sign with certain words on it. My
friend suggested that perhaps the demonstrator making the
suggestion could be the "somebody" who made the sign. My friend
was then informed by way of a tirade just how busy the
suggestor was and that they certainly didn't have the time to
make any such sign.
This incident caused me to cast my mind back to the late 1940s
(yes, I'm that old). Around that time there was a revival of
what is known as traditional jazz or Dixieland music. It is
sometimes also referred to as New Orleans jazz. Many such bands
appeared on the scene and jazz clubs were formed.
One such jazz tune called 12th Street Rag stayed at the top of
the hit parade for months and months. In these days the chart
consisted of the top ten. Message boys on their delivery
bicycles could be heard whistling this tune and apprentices
drove tradesmen to distraction doing the same thing.
The tune was released as a single and of course there was a
flip side. The band that made this recording was called Pee Wee
Hunt's. In these days they were called bands, not groups as
now. I never possessed the record myself but one of my mates
was a proud owner.
One day when I was at my mate's place, we were repeatedly
playing Pee Wee Hunt's 12th Street Rag. Now I have always been
of an enquiring nature and curiosity got the better of me. I
decided to find out what was on the flip side of the
record.
It was titled "Somebody else not me". It was a vocal number and
it went on to describe a series of incidents that called for
action, usually of a heroic kind. The punch line of each verse
of the song was "It's a wonderful opportunity for somebody but
somebody else not me."
The kind of incidents that offered opportunities to "somebody"
were, for example, a tiger had escaped from the zoo and needed
recapturing. It was a wonderful opportunity for "somebody but
somebody else not me."
There were several such incidents in the song and if my memory
serves me correctly there were similar opportunities involving
a bank hold-up and an escaped dangerous criminal.
This record was a revelation to me. It was the nearest thing to
a meaning-of-life experience that I have encountered.
How often have you heard "somebody" should do this, "they"
should do that or "we" should do something? The "somebody", the
"we" or the "they" does not include the speaker making the
proposal.
In my 67 years on this planet, I have belonged to a few
organisations, but in none of these organisations has
"somebody", "they" and "we" been so often called upon to
perform as in Whistleblowers Australia.
Somebody should do something about it.
Editor's comment. Years ago in Friends of the Earth
(Canberra), we spent a lot of time discussing proposals raised
by members, but in many cases nothing ended up being done. So
we instituted a rule. On hearing a new idea, we went around the
group asking whether anyone was willing to work to help make it
happen, assuming we agreed on it. If no one volunteered, the
item was dropped: no more discussion on that topic. This put an
end to lots of futile discussion of "good ideas."
The Whistle welcomes contributions. They should deal
with whistleblowing or related topics. This gives considerable
scope, since it covers corruption, bureaucratic struggles,
strategies of changing behaviour, law reform and specific areas
where whistleblowing is relevant, among other topics. Some
possibilities are:
* personal reports from or about whistleblowers;
* reports about group activities;
* updates on political or legal issues;
* reviews or summaries of books, articles or meetings;
* notes on useful skills;
* commentary on previously published articles;
* letters commenting on virtually any topic.
We are also on the lookout for items from the media (including
newspapers, magazines, books and the Internet). Thanks to Don
Eldridge and Cynthia Kardell for sending items used in this
issue's Media Watch and to Bill Sheridan for typing.
If you can send your contribution by email or computer disc,
that makes things easier for us. We also welcome volunteers
willing to type up articles (on computer).
The Whistle is printed and sent to members and
subscribers and also published electronically on the World Wide
Web (see
http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/dissent/contacts/au.wba/).
The tentative deadline for the next issue is 15 December.
Send all contributions to Brian Martin, editor, at PO Box U129,
Wollongong Uni NSW 2500; email brian_martin@uow.edu.au; fax
02-4221 3452. If you have queries, feel free to ring at 02-4221
3763 (work), 02-4228 7860 (home).
The NSW Branch is keen to get hold of some software for an
Apple Mac. What we require is everything from the operating
system to say Microsoft Office Suite (or equivalent) with a
scanning capability. We want this software to outfit a Mac in
order to establish some graphics facility to enhance WBA
publications and website. Please, no pirate software!
Contact NSW committee member Grahame Wilson on (02) 9744 3610
or on email at wilsongr@ozemail.com.au.
