Crisis of conscience Whistleblowing in an age of fraud

Tom Mueller

Book - 2019

The author forces readers to confront fundamental questions about the balance between free speech and state secrecy, and between individual rights and corporate power as he traces the rise of whistleblowing through a series of riveting cases.

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Subjects
Published
New York : Riverhead Books 2019.
Language
English
Main Author
Tom Mueller (author)
Physical Description
596 pages ; 24 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages [539]-581) and index.
ISBN
9781594634437
  • Chapter 1. Becoming a Whistleblower
  • Chapter 2. Question Authority
  • Chapter 3. The Money Dance
  • Chapter 4. Blood Ivory Towers
  • Chapter 5. Reaping the Nuclear Harvest
  • Chapter 6. Money Makes the World Go Round
  • Chapter 7. Ministries of Truth
  • Epilogue The Banana Republic Wasn't Built in a Day
  • Notes
  • Index
Review by Booklist Review

Beginning with a quote from Martin Luther King Jr., A time comes when silence is betrayal, Mueller explains why he considers Americans who expose corruption as moral, patriotic, and self-sacrificing heroes, not as snitches, traitors, or tattletales. Watchdogs reveal horrifying corporate and government misconduct, often at great cost to their own well-being. On occasion, whistleblowers receive big payouts. (The 1986 False Claims Act lets insiders reveal fraud and get a reward.) But employers may hesitate to hire individuals they view as troublemakers and co-workers may shun them. Mueller, who interviewed more than 200 people, notes the historical importance of people like Ralph Nader, Watergate's Mark Felt, and President Jimmy Carter, who committed to empowering watchdogs. How do seemingly good people end up complicit in wrongdoing? Research shows they accept the power of an authority and will carry out orders that dehumanize and harm others. In this hefty account, Mueller at times overdoes the descriptive details, but overall this is a fascinating history of the self-deputized referees who blow the whistle on illicit activities that put Americans' freedom, money, health, and lives at risk.--Karen Springen Copyright 2010 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Journalist Mueller (Extra Virginity) explores "the nature of the whistleblowing act" and profiles insiders who have exposed fraud in America's public and private institutions in this exhaustive account. His subjects include Franz Gayl, a civilian military adviser and former Marine who went public in 2008 with claims that the Department of Defense was preventing frontline soldiers from receiving lifesaving equipment. Florida hospital administrator Elin Baklid-Kunz filed a whistle-blower suit alleging that her bosses had overbilled Medicare and paid illegal kickbacks to doctors, some of whom were performing unnecessary procedures. Citigroup underwriter Richard Bowen's warnings that 80% of the mortgages bought by the bank in 2007 were "defective" went unheeded until the 2008 financial collapse. Mueller chronicles the serious repercussions faced by these and other whistle-blowers and sketches similarities in their backgrounds (early life struggles; rural upbringings; "straightforward" temperaments) before concluding that there is no "whistleblower 'type.' " He distinguishes between "anonymous leakers" in the Trump administration and "authentic whistleblowers" who buttress their claims with "professional gravitas" and "personal conviction." Such broad characterizations occasionally mar Mueller's analysis, but he efficiently synthesizes a vast amount of material. This exceptionally timely book is sure to strike a chord with readers paying close attention to the political landscape. (Oct.)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review

Whistleblowing is a vital weapon against organizational fraud according to former banker Mueller (contributor, The New Yorker; Extra Virginity), who begins this book by reviewing the federal False Claims Act, which gives citizens the right to sue on the behalf of the government, and its resulting recovery of some $60 billion since 1986. The author also considers cases involving hospital overbilling, toxic mortgages at Citigroup, the fraudulent marketing of psychotic drugs, the My Lai Massacre, Hanford Nuclear Reservation safety concerns, and others. Mueller profiles whistleblowers' backgrounds, motivations, and the retaliations they suffered, while interweaving personal accounts with a deep analysis of the meaning of whistleblowing in the context of organizational authoritarianism, greed, moral ambiguity, conflicts of interest, and secrecy. Government agencies are often apathetic or even hostile to whistleblowers, says Mueller, because of the revolving door between government service and private enterprise. VERDICT Mueller's powerful but disheartening story of pervasive fraud and a general collapse of ethical behavior with only glimmers of hope from the bravery of whistleblowers is fully accessible to general readers and substantive enough for academic audiences; a must-read.--Lawrence Maxted, Gannon Univ. Lib., Erie, PA

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

An unusually deep dive into whistleblowing."This is the age of the whistleblower," writes Mueller (Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil, 2011). Beginning in the late 1960s, informants like Ralph Nader and Daniel Ellsberg "galvanized" America over wrongdoing, "from cybercrime to credit card scams to identity theft, from criminal college admissions conspiracies to systemic wrongdoing by automobile companies to wholesale money laundering and looting of national treasuries by banks." Drawing on interviews with more than 200 whistleblowers and many lawyers and experts, the author offers revealing human stories about numerous insiders and outsiders, both well- and little-known, who have engaged in this "vital crime-fighting paradigm" under federal laws that provide job protection and financial incentives (a percentage of money recovered by the government). "Since 1986," writes Mueller, "the False Claims Act has been used to recover some sixty billion stolen tax dollars, and has deterred an estimated $1 trillion more in fraud." Whether writing about drug companies that conceal unfavorable evidence, hospitals that engage in needless admissions, or nuclear facilities that waste public funds, the author engrossingly examines the ethics, mechanics, and reverberations of whistleblowing of all kinds, emphasizing how bitterly controversial the practice remains, posing a clash between group loyalty and individual conscience. "Even if we admirethe whistleblowers' devotion to justice, we may still mistrust them for their betrayal of coworkers, superiors, and the organization itself," he writes. Animus against whistleblowerswho generally undergo scrutiny and retribution and face considerable challenges finding new jobsstems from "the instinctive aversion" that employees who choose to work for large, hierarchical organizations have for "people who question authority." Mueller also looks at conflicts of interest, societal changes, and the neuroscience of blowing the whistle. He harshly criticizes "national security mandarins" who abuse public trust for private gain. Begun before the rise of Donald Trump, the book deems the president the "incarnation" of the present era of corruption.Superb reporting on brave people who decided, "It would have been criminal for me not to act." Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.