Whistleblowers and Why They're Important

Recently, my class listened to our classmates speak on different topics revolving around corruption in the media and their importance. One specific topic that stood out to me was the idea around Whistleblowers. If you're unaware of the subject, according to Find Law, a whistleblower is "an employee who reports a violation of the law by his or her employer." (Whistleblower Protections, 2019) These infractions, or "violations", could be related to unlawful acts, general violations within a company, or something related to or around sexual harassment. Whistleblowers can technically be any employee within a company that discloses information to a third-party source but, they're typically someone whose supposed to be there for whistleblowing purposes.

One recent pharmaceutical company got into trouble with whistleblowers in late April. Two employees reported that company doctors asked that representatives higher prices for a rare infant seizure medicine to boost their sales (Drash, 2019). The prices for these very helpful drugs increased by $97,000%, starting at a price of $40 in the year 2000 to almost $39,000 a vial (Drash, 2019). As of right now, the Justice Department has interfered with this case and has started an investigation of their own. The government doesn't normally intervene with cases from whistleblowers, with a history of only 25% (Drash, 2019). This is a good and bad sign. A good sign because the government actually believes that fraud is happening and they're willing to stop it. But, the government feels that its real enough that tthey need to intervene which is unfortunate. According to Wayne Drash at CNN, "Under the current administration, there does appear to be a real effort to combat various forms of healthcare fraud, and I do know the DOJ is using data analytics to identify doctors who are defrauding the government," she said. "The data could be used very effectively in a case like this" (Drash, 2019). This has been one of the highest increases in medicine today and hopefully it will be the last.






Drash, W. (2019, April 30). Whistleblowers: Drug company bribed doctors to boost sales. Retrieved from https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/30/health/mallinckrodt-whistleblower-lawsuit-acthar/index.html

Whistleblower Protections. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://employment.findlaw.com/whistleblowers/whistleblower-protections.html

False Flag Operations

False Flag operations are covert operations performed by governments, corporations, or other organizations, which are designed to mislead the public in a way that makes it seem like the operations were made by other people. This began in the wooden ship days where one ship would fly the flag of their enemy and attack their own fleet.

The Nazi's often used False Flag operations to encourage foreign invasions. They would attack their own troops and destroy their own resources, posing as Poland to justify an invasion. Russian KGB also did something similar with Chechnya. They bombed apartment complexes in Moscow and Volgodonsk and blamed in on Chechnya because Vladimir Putin believed they had a corrupt new leader. Even the United States has used these operations with the United Kingdom in 1953. They hired Iranian U.S CIA agents to bomb Iran after they were under new leadership in order to help gain control of more oil. There are some people that believe that 9/11 was a false flag operation as well and theres a lot of information online about that. These operations still happen today and are now seen as terrorism. Many can and have been affected by this and it's sad that governments and corporations perform them.

Are You Being Tracked Online? Not With DuckDuckGo

It's been a popular topic in my class this year about privacy and your digital footprint. I bet anyone with an IPhone has said something out loud and then look at their phone to an ad about that same specific topic, because i have many times. its creepy and somehow almost unavoidable. Whatever you search or click on online is tracked somehow whether its through Google, Cookies, or another software, someone knows about it. Maybe that can stop. If you've never heard of the search engine DuckDuckGo, i advise you look into it. DuckDuckGo is like Google or FireFox except it doesn't track what you search. Created by Gabriel Weinberg in a basement, it's designed to allow a better and safer way to use the internet. DuckDuckGo has finally established a way to use the internet without creepily being watched. On May 1st, 2019, DuckDuckGo announced their federal legislation act "Do Not Track", in effort to add a tab on all web browsers that will not track your internet searches (Hetrick, 2019).

So many people nowadays don't even pay attention to the "Do Not Track?" notifications and let the foreign softwares track everything they do. Most of these programs collect your personal information and you're targeted and marketed. From a business perspective, I can kind of understand why they do it because it's not aimed to harm anyone, but to help their virtual awareness. For my job, I use a good amount of social media, Facebook and Google specifically. I just recently learned about Facebook Pixels which targets the audience you want to reach with your ads and tracks who interacts with it within Facebook. I understand why businesses and corporations use these applications, how it doesn't harm people, and how it benefits them.

I think DuckDuckGo is awesome and I think it will be very beneficial in keeping personal information confidential. If you are online shopping and fill in personal addresses and emails, I would advise you use DuckDuckGo. If you use Dropbox or other applications that normally go through Google, I'd use DuckDuckGo for safety reasons. You never know what they're watching and saving. But if you're just browsing news websites or scrolling through Facebook, I don't think it matters what web browser you use. Advertisements online will always be around, even DuckDuckGo has them. They just don't target specific people and take personal information to you. Whatever advertisement you see, many others are as well, because they have taken many donations (Hetrick, 2019). I recently just changed my default browser to DuckDuckGo to ensure I don't forget to use it when I should.





Hetrick, C. (2019, May 02). No means no, says DuckDuckGo as it pushes to make 'Do not track' the law of the land. Retrieved from https://www.philly.com/business/duckduckgo-online-privacy-legislation-do-not-track-browser-setting-20190501.html

Online Footprint

I love my phone and I'm addicted to social media like the rest of my generation, I can't lie. Though that's true, I'm still very careful as to what I put online for the world to see. All of my accounts are extremely private although I have given some my email address, I've never given my phone number. I've searched myself and I'd like to believe I have a positive online footprint. I currently use the applications Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube. Facebook isn't my favorite because of the privacy issues it's had in the past, so I mainly use it for work reasons. I post pictures of family and friends, share funny videos, and stories I felt were important. My social media shows exactly who I am in person and I have nothing to hide. I've always been careful because of the obvious: future employers and my entire immediate family is very active on all media platforms socially and for business. Proper usage of social media is something parents and educators should teach. I love social media but I like to use it to look at and save memories. Others use it for different reasons and I do believe that social media is linked to depression and loneliness like The Atlantic article stated.

One software I think most people overlook, including myself is Cookies. I didn't realize until after my research that it's part of our active digital footprint. Other examples of an active digital footprint are simply posting on social media like Snapchat and Facebook or filling out applications online. If you've never heard of Cookies, it's a data storing software that saves files about what you search and for advertising purposes. One thing most don't know about Cookies is that when you click the "Remember Me" button, a continuous cookie keeps your login information and stays on that browser. That's why I use the password saving software, LastPass. It's free to download and use and it saves all of your usernames and passwords on a vault on your computer, protected by another master password.Another more common, and less risky use is for advertising. When you click on an ad, Cookies will track which website you found that ad on. (J.P, 2019)


J. P. (2019, February 15). Browser Cookies: What Are They & Why Should You Care? Retrieved from https://www.whoishostingthis.com/resources/cookies-guide/