Whistleblowing in a Wikileaks World : A Model for Responsible Disclosure in Homeland Security

Abstract

Whistleblowing serves as a check/balance system to the government bureaucracy, helping to bypass administrative roadblocks and to provide a mechanism through which homeland security can monitor and increase efficiency in its operations. However, homeland security also deals with information that can be of a sensitive or secret nature, the unauthorized disclosure of which can cause damage to both homeland security efforts and national security. The current process for the authorized submission of whistleblowing information fails to provide whistleblowers the protections they require, instead encouraging whistleblowers to disclose information to the media or through stateless news organizations like Wikileaks to prevent reprisals. The technological capability to provide whistleblowers protections through anonymity currently exists, and has been demonstrated to be effective. By leveraging those technologies and setting up an authorized process for responsible disclosure, through which homeland security employees can submit whistleblowing information without fear of reprisals, it may increase the likelihood of whistleblowers reporting issues in the first place, and reduce the number of leaks to unauthorized recipients (media/stateless news organizations).