Public Administration and Public

Public Administration and the Role of the Whistleblower

The role of the whistleblower in Public Administration is one that continues to be controversial. On the one hand, some members of the public view the whistleblower as an important player in the maintenance of public service offices and agencies. Individuals like Edward Snowden are seen as patriots because they expose overreach and illegal activity by agencies like the NSA which overstep their mandates. Others view the same individuals as threats to the State or to the public offices and agencies to which they belong. This view holds that the agency or office should not be exposed to public scrutiny and that theft of information or "leaks" produced by hacking are a crime that should be punished: the actions are not viewed as blowing the whistle on criminal or unethical activity within the agency or organization -- instead all of the focus is placed negatively on the whistleblower. These two opposite perspectives produce tensions in society that are exacerbated by the media, by political pundits, and by real-world events, such as acts of terror, espionage, corruption, and diplomatic scrutiny. This paper will examine the role of the whistleblower in an attempt to illustrate why the whistleblower is a necessary and important function in a free, open, and democratic society and why Public Administration stands to benefit from the scrutiny brought about by whistleblowing.

There are many cases of whistleblowing in the public administration sector throughout American history. Some are more famous than others. The whistleblowing of Mark Felt, a top level administrator in the FBI -- better known as "Deep Throat" -- helped to bring down the Nixon Administration after the Watergate scandal erupted (Weiner, 2012). That case like many other cases in the history of whistleblowing in public administration sectors -- while potentially embarrassing for the agency, organization or administration overall -- still serves a purpose of shedding light on actions or policies within the agency, organization or administration that require attention in order to be righted. In the case of Public Administration positions, that attention typically comes from the public and its representatives in government. Oversight committees, Congressmen, governors, mayors, the attorneys general -- each and any of these players can launch an investigation or help to assist in an investigation designed to hold public administrators accountable for wrongdoing. The press and media also serve a role in the whistleblower's function by helping to raise attention for a situation that would otherwise go unnoticed. The whole point of blowing the whistle is to be heard, to raise awareness and eventually bring about change that would otherwise not occur because of obstacles within the administration itself. Outside pressure has to be applied in order to break down those barriers in the administration and allow ethical decision-making to be restored. This is what happened with Nixon once he was implicated in the Watergate scandal: feeling the pressure from the public, he resigned and a new Administration took over the office of the White House. In this case, the whistleblower "Deep Throat" was heralded as a hero.

That is not always the case in the whistleblower's story. The situation in Corcoran prison is one in which the whistleblower was vilified by the administration and punished for leaking information about corruption at the state prison to the media (Dryburgh, 2009). What happened at Corcoran was that prison guards were race baiting prisoners so that they could enjoy watching and betting on fights in the common area where prisoners gathered for recreation. The guards would use violence against the prisoners and eventually death was the result. When two prison guards decided to go to the administration about the situation that was out of control, the administration did nothing to respond. Thus, the guards took it upon themselves to take the matter to the FBI -- and they did so by going public with the information. By getting the support of the media, it helped the whistleblowers to bring pressure upon officials to act in response to the killing and race baiting going on at the prison. Eventually, the state prison was reformed -- but the whistleblowers were never lauded or thanked by the administration for bringing about this change. In fact, upon releasing the information, the guards were punished by administrators -- they were taken out of their positions and placed in lower level positions (Dryburgh, 2009). Administrators were not happy that the whistleblowers were causing the prison's public image to be tarnished.

This fear of the administration -- that whistleblowing leads to tarnishing of the institution, administration, or organization -- is understandable, but in reality it is unwarranted. With the rise of club rule administrations -- agencies, organizations and offices that essentially overseen by a big fraternal club wherein those who are supposed to be providing oversight are friendly with those who are supposed to be acting responsibly (but are not) -- the role of the technological citizenship has increased. The technological citizenship is a term used to denote persons, individuals, groups or organizations devoted to holding administrations and public organizations accountable: they research, analyze, gather data, and publish information so as to essentially bring about the same kind of changes that a whistleblower aims to bring about -- corporate and social responsibility. The technological citizenship often works closely with today's whistleblowers as digital media allows information to be shared instantaneously with people around the world. For instance, the publication of Edward Snowden's documents dump could not have been accomplished without the help of journalist Glenn Greenwald and many others within the technological citizenship who promoted his findings and spread the word about the NSA's overreach. Did this make the NSA particularly comfortable? No -- but the comfort level of NSA administrator's is not the issue -- the issue is that the NSA acts within the boundaries of its mandate. The Obama Administration likewise felt embarrassed by Snowden's documents dump and immediately called for his arrest. Snowden sought asylum outside the country and eventually was given it -- by Russia -- and since then Russia has been vilified in the mainstream media, by political pundits and by members of the Obama Administration, who view it as a threat to American interests.

Here, then, is an example of how an administration and a whistleblower can be at odds -- and what makes matters worse is that the public opinion of Snowden's actions is manipulated by the mainstream media, which -- as in the case of the Corcoran prison guards -- should rally behind whistleblowers; but, here, the mainstream media is mostly antagonistic to Snowden. Journalists like Greenwald and other members of the technological citizenship -- the so-called alternative media -- are supportive. Organizations like DCLeaks and Wikileaks support such whistleblowing -- but the mainstream media in the U.S. gives plenty of air time to individuals who speak ill of Snowden. Thus, the tension that should have been resolved by his whistleblowing continues to be manifested and in some ways worsened by the continuation of animosity between administration and whistleblower. Instead of admitting wrongdoing and accepting responsibility, the NSA and the Obama Administration simply attempted to divert negative attention away from themselves and place it all on the whistleblower for "stealing" documents that did not belong to him.

This one example raises the issue of how a public administration should react to a whistleblower who identifies unethical and/or criminal activity within agency and shares that information with the public. Should a public administrator respond by vilifying the whistleblower and calling for his arrest because of the release of classified intelligence (which was never lawfully gathered in the first place)? The hypocrisy of an administration that does so is evident when one remembers that a state's public administration is there to serve the people and not the other way around. That hypocrisy is worsened when the same administration that threatens to prosecute Snowden refuses to prosecute one its own top-level employees who carelessly shared classified intelligence without following federal protocol -- an action that has resulted in lower level administrators facing serious punishment. This is, of course, a reference to the email scandal surrounding Hillary Clinton and both the FBI's and the Department of Justice's refusal to prosecute her even though there is overwhelming amounts of evidence (brought to the public thanks to the technological citizenship) that Clinton acted with intent to destroy subpoenaed evidence and to circumvent protocol. Administrations that act in such a capacity -- that protect cronies even in the face of serious political and social backlash rarely stay in power long. The rise of the angry Right and the charged campaign of Trump -- the political outsider who threatens to sweep out the "crooked" politicians who are not being held accountable by the public administrations -- is a sure sign that the people of the U.S. are ready to take action at the polls since their public administrators are not taking action according to their mandates.

Thus, the relationship between whistleblowing and administrations or organizations as well as the public is a tenuous one. As more allegations arise -- the latest coming from The Wall Street Journal as well as other media outlets -- that the Obama Administration actually helped Clinton cover-up her scandal, the faith that the public has in the offices of the administration can crumble -- which can lead to drastic and sweeping counter-effects in upcoming elections cycles (Durden, 2016). The effect of this, of course, is that what should be a law-and-order type of situation in which wrongdoing is uncovered and the administration reacts as it should -- by holding wrongdoers accountable -- succumbs to club rule pressure and lets the offenders off the hook. The public then reacts by moving to support the opponent of the administration -- the opponent represents the public's anger at the lack of accountability enforced by the administration. The whistleblowers are in the meantime criticized as villains and dismissed as renegades by members of the mainstream media: in fact, former Clinton strategist Bob Beckel announced on-air that Assange of Wikileaks should be assassinated for his role in facilitating whistleblowers (Lacapria, 2016). This type of aggressive and hostile behavior -- aired publicly -- against those who blow the whistle on criminality and unethical activity within public administrations creates public tension and dissonance to such a high degree that it should be no surprise to see the oppositional party rise to such prominence in an election cycle. The public's voice is its vote in such cases and it will move to vote out of office those who do not follow up on evidence made public by whistleblowers regarding high-ranking officials' carelessness.

Yet, in the case of Clinton's email scandal, not only has the highest public office holder in America dismissed the charges brought against Clinton by the technological citizenship (and still being pursued by Congressional Committee Oversight members like Congressman Chaffetz) but so too have officials in the FBI and DOJ -- indicating that the corruption does not start and stop with Clinton but extends through various sectors of the government. When such is the case, what power does the whistleblower have but to turn to the public and ignite a movement?

Many agencies now have in place whistleblower lines, through which whistleblowers can internally report ethical or criminal violations that they see in the administration or organization so that the matter is handled appropriately without the public becoming too aware of the situation. This course, however, presupposes that administrations and organizations are predisposed to addressing issues that need correcting. When the problem of unethical and/or criminal activity is ingrained within the culture of the administration or organization and reaches to the very highest levels, the idea that such lines of communication will result in change for the better is naively optimistic. This is why whistleblowing is almost always tied to the act of letting the public know what is going on. The public spotlight is what helps to bring that actual pressure that, once applied, leads to beneficial changes (Dekker, 2009).

The motivations behind the act of whistleblowing have analyzed by researchers such as Cho and Song (2015) who have shown that determinants and variables that lead whistleblowers to act vary but are identifiable and depend on a mixture of both the whistleblower having a sense of self-protection and on the degree to which the activity that is being called out is a threat to American values. As Cho and Song (2015) report, "proactive personality, less co-worker invalidation, and leverage in the specific situation lead to whistleblowing" -- while at the same time the cost-benefit ratio must not be so high the individual is unwilling to sacrifice all in order to bring attention to a particular crime or unethical behavior (p. 450). In fact, their study found that the more an organization or administration supported whistleblowing, the more likely an individual whistleblower was to feel a high level of personal cost and therefore the more likely the individual would be to raise awareness about an issue. In this sense, administrations and organizations that support whistleblowing by offering whistleblower protection (guarantees of not being persecuted or of receiving retribution) promote a better sense of disclosure, transparency and accountability -- and this in turn helps to promote a more positive and law-abiding culture throughout the administration or organization (Kass, 1986). When such a culture is not in place or promoted the opposite is more likely to occur -- the "business as usual" mantra (aka, "anything goes" mindset) can quickly take over an administration and lead to acceptance of and perpetuation of unethical behavior throughout an administration or organization (Anand, Ashforth, Joshi, 2005).

The administration that attempts to rationalize bad behavior and justify it either ahead of time or after the fact only shows a willingness to "forestall guilt and resistance" or to "ease misgivings" about their lack of ethics (Anand, Ashforth, Joshi, 2005, p. 11). Ethics, in other words, is essential to proper administration and oversight and when the administrators themselves act in a way that undermines their ability or proclivity to act ethically, the administration (as well as the public as a whole) suffers. When such happens, the whistleblower rises up to identify what is happening behind the veil: it is an attempt to outsource responsibility since administrators who should be responsible are not doing their job.

Whistleblowing can also be seen as a type of guerilla government, in which participants take uncommon action by exercising uncommon virtue in an unorthodox manner with the aim being to subvert the unethical or criminal activities higher up the chain of the administration (O'Leary, 2014). That it should come to this poses serious questions about the future of public administrative service in America and the need for such guerilla tactics and for whistleblowing. Implications for the future of Public Administration are serious and grave -- and the possibility of a Trump presidency is a sure sign of that. Judging from polls, at least half of the American public wants accountability and wants the highest levels of public administration to adopt a more law-and-order approach to governance.