Whistle-blowing

By: Maureen Busam

About Maureen Busam:

I am a native of Virginia Beach I graduated from Green Run H.S. in 1983 I am a senior at Virginia Wesleyan College I have been employed with GEICO for 21 years I have been married for 20 years and I have 2 children

What is whistle-blowing?
It is when person takes a concern (such
as suspected abuse or fraud) outside of the organization in which it is occurring The person with the concern must be affiliated with the organization

Generally..
The misconduct is a
violation of law, rule, regulation and/or a direct threat to public interest

How whistle-blowing relates to computer technology:

Computer forensics is the process of examining
digital evidence for use in a criminal or other legal investigation Computer security professionals play a role in identifying, proving and stopping computer fraud Computer forensics is an excellent means of uncovering critical information & tracking the flow of information

There are two types of whistle blowers:

Internal whistle
-blowers report misconduct to another employee or a superior within their organization

External whistleblowers report misconduct to outside persons or entities

Reasons why someone would blow the whistle are:

A violation of a law, rule or regulation Gross mismanagement A gross waste of funds An abuse of authority A substantial and specific danger to public
health or safety

Reactions to whistle-blowers:
They are ostracized by their co-workers Discriminated against by future potential
employers Fired from their organizations

Examples of retaliation on whistleblowers:

In the school district of Albany, a computer
network specialist found pornography on the school superintendents computer. As a result, he expects to be out a job

More.
In Washington DC, employees of Northrup
Grumman were threatened with the loss of their jobs if they disclosed computer problems that caused thousands of e-mail messages to escape reach of a congressional subpoena

Issues with computer data:

Computer data can mysteriously
disappear when an investigation is underway
In the case of the White House scandal, the
problem is being blamed on improper scanning, logging and archiving of incoming and external e-mails.

Whistle-blower law:
In the UK, the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 In the US, Sarbanes-Oxley Act 2002 Whistle-blower Protection Act (for federal employees) No Fear Act Military Whistleblower Protection Act I was unable to locate any laws strictly pertaining to computer whistle-blowers at this time

Famous Whistle-blowers:
Cynthia Cooper (WorldCom) and Sherron
Watkins (Enron) both exposed corporate financial scandals Coleen Rowley (FBI) who outlined the agencys slow action prior to 9-11 attacks Joseph Darby (MP) who in 2004 alerted the U.S. military command of prisoner abuse in Abu Ahraib, Iraq

In closing..
A whistle-blowing is exposure of fraud or abuse
by someone with in the organization Computer forensics is now being used to blow the whistle on fraud (corporate fraud specifically) There are 2 classifications

Whistle-blowers are often ostracized,

Internal External

discriminated against or fired. Laws have been enacted to protected those who blow the whistle.

For more information:

You can view the following websites: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistleblower http://onlineethics.org/glossary.html http://www.bartleby.com/65/wh/whistlebl.html http://www.va.gov/oig/hotline/whistle.htm http://www.informit.com/articles/article.asp?p http://www/recordonline.com/archive/2005/05/18. htm http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/stories