Whistleblowing in an Age of Fraud

Nov 2, 2019

Ralph welcomes Tom Mueller, author of “Crisis of Conscience: Whistleblowers in an Age of Fraud,” where they discuss the heroic stories of the brave men and women, who at great personal cost, have called to account corruption across government and industry. Plus, Ralph answers your questions.

 

Tom Mueller is a free-lance writer of non-fiction and fiction, whose work has appeared the New Yorker, National Geographic, New York Times Magazine, Atlantic Monthly, and elsewhere. His first non-fiction book, Extra Virginity, is a New York Times best-selling account of olive oil culture, history, and crime. His latest is Crisis of Conscience: Whistleblowing in an Age of Fraud.

“Bill Binney had the awful irony of having created this structure to surveil foreign targets and winnow out at top speed potential terrorists and seeing his own work… being used against Americans. It was a thing he had sworn every day of his working life not to do… So, he backed away from the agency (NSA) when he felt they were fundamentally violating their mission. And what would Edward Snowden take away from this message? If you follow protocol and you surface your concerns about mass, warrantless surveillance through channels, what happens to you? Well, all he had to do is look at Bill Binney and Tom Drake and see that his only hope of getting the word out was to take another route.”

Tom Mueller, author of Crisis of Conscience: Whistleblowing in an Age of Fraud

“If you look at what Donald Trump is today and his coterie of bandits that he’s put in charge of our government, you can see the price that is paid when you do not pay attention to recidivist white-collar criminality over a generation or more. You get Donald Trump… Donald Trump didn’t come from Mars. He is the logical extension of the corruptions we’ve allowed to creep into our political and social system.”

Tom Mueller, author of Crisis of Conscience: Whistleblowing in an Age of Fraud

RALPH NADER RADIO HOUR EP 295 TRANSCRIPT (Right click to download)