When Whistleblowing Is Foolish

When Whistleblowing Is Foolish

We like to think our whistleblowing is heroic.  We stand by our consciences.  Setting selfish interests aside, we act to benefit the community.  But lots of times, especially in retrospect, it’s clear we are simply fools, going about it as we do.

Terry Albury was born in Northern California in 1979.  While studying at Berea College in Kentucky, he interned with the FBI.  After graduation he joined the FBI, becoming an agent in 2005.  From 2009 to 2010, he served in Iraq with duties that included interviewing Iraqi detainees.  He returned to the US in 2012 and was stationed in the Minneapolis field office where he served in an counter-terrorism squad.

Albury was a straight arrow.  Perhaps because his mother was a political refugee from Ethiopia, he had a well-developed sense of social justice.  He was a Big Brother.  At the time of his arrest he was happily married.  His wife, whose parents were Cambodian refugees, thought of following him into law enforcement but put her career on hold to raise their two children.  He won many awards from the FBI.  At his sentencing, his attorneys described him as a consummate professional. 

Life can be difficult for people of color in America.  Minnesota ranks 8^th among states in the percentage of whites in its population.  The FBI has had issues with diversity, and Albury was the only black in its Minnesota office.  He complained of racial jokes and hazing.  He felt alienated and isolated.

Between February 2016 and January 2017 Albury collected information about how the FBI recruited informants and identified potential extremists.  The tactics reeked of profiling and intimidating minority communities, he thought.  He could have filed complaints with the FBI, but he didn’t believe that would do any good.  So he leaked the documents to a journalist at The Intercept, where it formed the basis for a series on FBI practices.  He became a whistleblower.

Albury could have approached the problem differently.  He might have decided that he was just stressed and the problem wasn’t that big a deal after all.  And not one that he was going to change any time soon.  He could have complained internally if it made him feel any better. 

He might have held on for three years to get his retirement, and then complained to The Intercept or anyone else who cared.  Or he could have helped the people the FBI mistreated.  That might have been good.

Instead he got sucked into the whistleblower role.  Maybe he was going to be the next Daniel Ellsberg or Edward Snowden.  Unfortunately he played the fool, setting the stage for Reality Winner.

Similar to Snowden, Winner was an intelligence contractor who grabbed NSA information. Hers was a May 5, 2017 report on Russian cyberattacks.  Four days later she decided the government was going to conceal the information.  She mailed a copy to The Intercept, which then called the government about its story.  The FBI learned about the call on June 1, and they arrested Winner on June 3.  Her big disclosure was soon common knowledge from a variety of sources.  Winner was sentenced to 5 years in prison.  Burned by The Intercept.  For nothing.

Albury took more care than Winner would, he sent his 25+ files to The Intercept in encrypted emails.  He changed file formats to avoid detection.  But The Intercept burned him too.  They sent a FOIA request to the FBI about two of the secret documents.  The agency was surprised the requester knew the name of a secret document.  It checked who had accessed the files.  A few did, but Albury was the only one who copied portions of the files into another document.  Office cameras caught Albury taking photos of his computer screen while he was accessing other files.  A January 2018 search warrant led to the discovery of more classified files at his home.  In April he agreed to a guilty plea, and he was sentenced to four years in prison.

For some, blowing the whistle is quite rational.  It’s like a business decision to get an expected return.  Maybe their employer cheated them out of wages or illegally discriminated against them, and they want what is due to them.  Or they file an FCA lawsuit hoping to recover a reward.

The rest of us are “ethical” whistleblowers, driven by emotions and moral judgment.  The outcome from our whistleblowing will determine how foolish we were in our projects.

I thought I was justified in my complaints about the behavior of HomeFirst Services of Santa Clara County.  They were all ignored or considered immaterial.  After I was fired, the State of California determined that I was no whistleblower at all and did not deserve the protection I sought.  But I was close enough to retirement to manage, and I stopped legal action before it cost me too much.  I was just a little foolish.

Albury and Winner proved to be quite foolish whistleblowers.  They had a lot at stake because they were both fairly young and Albury had a family to support.  They went up against very powerful organizations that have a sympathetic audience in today’s America.  They used a media outlet that would inadvertently reveal their identities.  Their disclosures were not big news to anyone.  Nor did they disclose striking moral or legal violations.  Although they were both sentenced to years in prison and ruined lives, they accomplished nothing.

Even if other options are available, we are attracted to becoming whistleblowers.  We are pushed by some dissatisfaction.  Maybe some anger.  Possibly a sense that the situation is unjust.  We are pulled along through the dangers by the myth of the idolized whistleblower.  If we are lucky, we stop short of being too foolish.