Does your organization really want to be known for having a CEO who actively works to unmask whistleblowers? If you have such a CEO, what does that communicate to your employees and what will be the echo from the bottom, where employees on the front lines of your organization are in a better position to observe and report wrongdoing? And what are the implications of the Supreme Court stripping whistleblowers of Dodd-Frank anti-retaliation protections, unless they go directly to the Securities and Exchange Commission?
These questions and others were raised in the recent U.S. Postal Service Inspector General’s report on the use of U.S. Postal Service inspectors to try and unmask the whistleblower at Barclays, whose identity CEO Jes Staley allegedly ordered be uncovered. According to the allegations, Barclays communicated to the USPS that security concerns were raised by a whistleblower’s letter to the bank’s board about a crony of CEO Staley. Barclays’ security department then asked the USPS to investigate who might have mailed the letter.
