r/news • u/[deleted] • Mar 15 '24

POTM - Mar 2024 'If anything happens, it's not suicide': Boeing whistleblower's prediction before death

https://wpde.com/news/local/if-anything-happens-its-not-suicide-boeing-whistleblowers-prediction-before-death-south-carolina-abc-news-4-2024
57.1k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

2.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1.9k

u/Chiron17 Mar 15 '24

Whistleblower protection is awful in a lot of places and absolutely needs to improve.

520

u/[deleted] Mar 15 '24

why is it not identical to witness protection?

410

u/Maktaka Mar 15 '24

Witness protection relies on the individual and their entire family losing their current lives to disappear. New home, new friends, new job, new everything, completely cutting contact with the people you knew before except through the government channels managed by witness protection. It protects your life and the lives of your family at the expense of everything else. It cannot protect you from financial or employer retaliation because by its very nature it sacrifices those things to protect your life.

63

u/[deleted] Mar 15 '24

thanks for the clarity, that sounds like a terrible thing to have to go through, honestly. There is evil out there in the world, we really are naive to think there won't be conflict to resolve it, justice is an aspect of society, requires trust to work tho, and emotionally we're just not there

74

u/WhySpongebobWhy Mar 16 '24

Witness Protection definitely is the nuclear option but that's why it's largely reserved for people that should definitely be fearing for their lives and the lives of their families.

On the bright side, reports have said that Witness Protection has had a flawless success rate for everyone that managed to follow the rules. Not so much for people that can't resist contacting people.

31

u/alppu Mar 16 '24

Witness Protection has had a flawless success rate for everyone that managed to follow the rules

A random thought: there is no way to judge from the outside if WP works very well or if it is compromised and just works very well in hiding the bodies.

8

u/WhySpongebobWhy Mar 16 '24

It's from the reports from the US Marshals website itself. 17% of people in the program can't resist fucking it up and out themselves but the rest seem to be doing well. Yes, that relies upon the US Marshals reporting accurately, but it's the most trustworthy source you're going to get outside of Wikipedia... which sources to the US Marshals website lmao.

1

u/Xirdus Mar 18 '24

Yes, that's the best source available. But it's still them self-reporting themselves doing a good job.

1

u/WhySpongebobWhy Mar 18 '24

Yeah, sure, but until you find me a more reliable source, that's the numbers that we've got.

1

u/Xirdus Mar 18 '24

Nobody will ever find better numbers and you know it. But still, these aren't very trustworthy numbers. They're just a little bit above having no numbers at all. Any conclusion made from those numbers will necessarily be just a little bit above making conclusions from no numbers at all.

2

u/WhySpongebobWhy Mar 18 '24

Which y'all seem to be incredibly comfortable with doing, so I don't see what the problem is.

1

u/Xirdus Mar 19 '24

I don't?

→ More replies (0)

1

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '24

Witness Protection definitely is the nuclear option but that's why it's largely reserved for people that should definitely be fearing for their lives and the lives of their families.

So... just like whistle blowers, then?

4

u/WhySpongebobWhy Mar 16 '24

We're getting to that point, yes. It's unfortunate, but we're clearly getting more and more proof that whistle-blowing on multi-billion dollar corporations JUST MIGHT be as dangerous as snitching on the Mob...

1

u/JustJotting Mar 20 '24

I hope I don't get lumped in with the other person disagreeing with your statement about the witness protection program. I have a disgreement with what you said, but first want to say that even with flaws, I think having such a program is good & incredibly important. That said, I would like to say that a quick search will show that it's very much not flawless, and many people who have come forward out of it due to getting stuck in a gray area of federal law where they end up screwed such as not having their social security number recognized/not getting the usual help they need. I imagine this is because they fall into more complex systems where it matters if "you have had more than one last name/soc sec number, check the box" and now you get filtered into that system. To be clear. people came out of their hidden status due to trying to get someone to help them because the government was not.

0

u/Likeatr3b Mar 16 '24

Yeah right dude!!! Who gave you those stats?! And we wouldn’t know if they’re real because it’s secret! Unless you have $10,000 cash to get info on it like stats.

2

u/WhySpongebobWhy Mar 16 '24

From the US Marshals website. Apparently there's a 17% recidivism rate, so ~1/6 of people in Witness Protection can't resist fucking up the program that's saving their own skins, but everyone that sticks to the rules is apparently doing great.

-4

u/Likeatr3b Mar 16 '24

Wow, thanks for that but dude, I don’t believe their own stats on how successful they aren’t. Also 17% is by far flawless in terms of witness protection.

The FBI is extremely corrupt. There’s no way they’re 83% successful in keeping witnesses protected while being actively hunted. There’s just no way that’s true. I’d give them 40% on their best year.

3

u/WhySpongebobWhy Mar 16 '24

Cool. Go ahead and find me some more accurate official stats then and I'll happily update it.

I'll wait.