Why We Should Try To Keep The Whistleblowers Anonymous

You can’t escape it. Whether you frequent Twitter, Reddit, and QAnon, or are more of a New York Times browser, the race for journalists and residence sleuths alike to reveal the identity in back of the White Home whistleblowers has enveloped much of The world wide web. And, honestly, I get it: the statistics these whistleblowers revealed could end Donald Trump’s presidency, land private citizens in jail, disrupt the U.S.’S already-contentious international relationship, and rattle the 2020 presidential race for Democrats and Republicans alike. This is juicy stuff. However that’s just it: The statistics the whistleblowers revealed is interesting — who the whistleblowers are don’t actually matter.


News of the most well known whistleblower broke on September 9, and speedily unfurled from then on. Here’s what we know: On August 12, a unnamed whistleblower sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General William Barr and Chairman of the Home Intelligence Committee Rep. Adam Schiff alleging that President Trump urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to dig up dirt on political rival and former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, and to investigate a conspiracy theory linked to the FBI inquiry of Russia’s 2016 election interference. The letter also mentioned that Trump dangled a meeting with Zelensky as a reward if the Ukrainian President did help him. Finally, the whistleblower noted that the White Home attempted to bury the transcript of that call.


Upon hearing the news, Trump immediately fired back, likening the whistleblower to a spy and cagily threatening, “You know what we used to do in the old days as soon as we were smart with spies and treason, right?” the New York Times reported. Since the opening report, there have been at least two Ukraine-related whistleblowers and another tax-related whistleblower, all of whom talked on condition of anonymity.


It could be naive to assume that such anonymity could be a given. We reside in the 21st century, a time of social media eats and 24-hour news cycles; most people have some order kind of presence on the world wide web, and there’s a certain undeniable rush you get by hunting down statistics on Google. However just because this case feels like an internet stalking challenge, doesn't mean we should strive to solve it.


“I don't visualize any argument for revealing identity as the identity isn't important,” Allison Stanger, author of Whistleblowers: Honesty In the
U.S. From Washington to Trump, told MTV News. “It doesn't really matter who the person is. It's really what intelligence they are bringing to light — that's what we should focus on.”


And the intelligence that these whistleblowers released is pretty damning. One whistleblower supplied possible evidence that Trump used “inappropriate efforts to influence” the IRS from auditing his personalized tax returns, the Washington Post reports. It’s raised a lot more questions about what the heck Trump might be hiding in those tax returns, especially given that he broke presidential precedent because the opening person to withhold that statistics since 1973 as soon as — you guessed it — Richard “Not A Crook” Nixon underwent a little bit of a tax return scandal.


“The president's and vice president's tax returns are kept in a top-secret vault,” one Justice Department veteran told Organization Insider. “It's codeword-protected, the full nine yards, and not just anyone can get in there. There really are very few people — the head of the Treasury, the head of the IRS — who have access.”


This is just one of the many financial scandals that Trump has been at the center of — and while it likely won’t kick him out of office, it doesn’t bode well for him.

"The misconduct that was revealed — that's where we should be judging. Not why the whistleblower did what they did."

The whistleblower complaint with higher stakes is that associated with Trump's call with Ukraine's president. This one is so damning that the Residence of Representatives launched a formal impeachment inquiry into the president with the support of well over 200 members of Congress.


Despite there being plenty concentrate on in back of the identity of the whistleblower — like, I don't know, the fact that our president is very likely tainting his office with shady company practices — Trump, his supporters, and plenty of others speedily latched onto the unknown variable for a myriad of reasons. Some people believe that if they find out who the whistleblower is, @they could have the ability to dig up enough dirt on them to discredit them. Look no further than how, on September 27, the president claimed through the tweet that the whistleblower would be a “partisan operative.” He also called their statistics “Another Fake News Story” and their actions “a political hack job,” according to NPR.


Nevertheless as Stranger points out, “motives don't matter. The misconduct that was revealed — that's where we should be judging. Not why the whistleblower did what they did.”


And case in point, the whistleblower statement, while cooperative, isn’t all that needed anymore. Trump himself admitted on live television on September 29 that he pushed Ukraine’s president for dirt on Biden. And on October 3, he called on China to investigate the Bidens, also in front of reporters. Then, on October 18, Trump's chief of personnel Mick Mulvaney admitted to quid pro quo and instructed them media to “get over it.” (Mulvaney has since attempted to walk back his statements about quid pro quo, yet the Trump campaign is selling “get over it” t-shirts.)


So that indicates one of the only implications of sharing a whistleblower’s identity could be to hurt the whistleblower themself.


David Colapinto, a lawyer and one of the founders of the National Whistleblower Center, told MTV News that whistleblowers risk losing their careers, damaging their reputations, and even “bodily harm.” Edward Snowden, the former CIA employee who leaked classified data from the NSA that showed the extent of the global surveillance programs in 2013, was sued by the U.S. Government and right now lives in asylum in Russia. Frank Serpico, a New York City policeman who confronted corruption in the police department, lived through being shot in the face soon after his spiteful colleagues left him while in a botched drug raid.


“It's an extraordinarily dangerous situation,” Stranger mentioned. “We should be very concerned about the whistleblower's safety.”


Technically, it isn’t against the law try to uncover a whistleblower’s identity, although anonymity permits us to remove politics from proper concern. The public and investigators can give attention to the matter in this instance — the complaint — without having to think about the politics at play. It makes sense, then, that most of the laws on the books pertaining whistleblowers to start with, including the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act of 1998 and the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2012, don’t actually issue any protections for whistleblowers. As a substitute, they describe the process by which people can file complaints and share data. There really are also two presidential policy decrees, made by President Barack Obama: The Presidential Policy Decree 19 and Intelligence Community Directive 120, both which also outline the process for reporting and prohibit retaliation against whistleblowers, yet neither actually mention anything about keeping their identities secret. So, the only thing keeping whistleblowers anonymous is that process and the secrecy of the people who know the identity in the opening place.


There’s one way to create ensure that the whistleblower stays anonymous: a collective agreement to protect a civilian, by both the current administration and the public. It doesn’t appear that Trump will be doing that as soon as soon, as he has actively fought to discover the whistleblowers’ identity — however there might be some hope in the American people.


“It's very crucial for the American people to insist that the whistleblower be protected,” Stranger mentioned. “Because if the American people want that to be so, politicians will ensure it is. If they think the American folks are indifferent about the whistleblowers’ fate, you can visualize very different outcomes.”