4 ms·

I’m disappointed but not surprised that the title is editorialized. It specifically leaves off “whistleblower alleges”. It’s literally one disgruntled former em

I’m disappointed but not surprised that the title is editorialized. It specifically leaves off “whistleblower alleges”. It’s literally one disgruntled former employee claiming this. But as usual for HN these days a tiny populations claim - in this case a population of one - is stated as fact.

treis 5y ago
The piece written by the whisteblower includes links to documents: https://www.lioness.co/post/microsoft-is-using-illegal-bribes-in-the-middle-east-and-africa-why-is-the-sec-turning-a-blind-eye https://www.lioness.co/post/microsoft-is-using-illegal-bribe...
- hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
  I think this is an excellent document that should really be the main article. One of the things I think this really highlights, and that absolutely infuriated me during the Trump impeachment hearings, was that categorizing a whistleblower as a "disgruntled former employee" does not negate the evidence that they show of malfeasance. I mean, of course whistleblowers are usually disgruntled about something, but a major point of whistleblower protection laws is that the motives of the whistleblower do not matter. To the GP comment's point, it's true we shouldn't just take accusations as proof, but the whole role of a whistleblower is to provide the "thread" that investigators can then pull on to get detailed evidence of what was going on. And, given the links to documents in the above post, I think this looks really, really bad for Microsoft.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
sha256sum 5y ago
What’s your point? One whistleblower alleged the NSA of the US was illegally conducting bulk surveillance across the entire world, including its own citizens. A court later ruled this program was illegal and unconstitutional. Are you saying we should discount all whistleblowers because it doesn’t fit some preset narrative?
- stickfigure 5y ago
  Not the parent, but I'm saying we shouldn't rush to judgement based on an accusation. Not everyone is Edward Snowden.
pcurve 5y ago
Bribery is pretty common. In many countries you almost cannot do anything without greasing wheels. My Father was a head of publicly traded pharma. Stories he had about China and India in particular were fascinating and sad at the same time. One time he was told that somebody dumped a huge pile of paper trash in front of his newly opened drug packaging facility in China. He investigated to find there culprit. It turns out it was from a paper factory owner nearby. Asked why he did it, his answer was : “you didn’t use my company as your paper supplier”. My fathers response: “how was I supposed to know there was a paper supplier nearby!! And why didn’t you come and introduce yourself before ?!?!” He ended up using the supplier and they did haul away the mountains of trash.
qiskit 5y ago
Did you expect an army of whistleblowers? Aren't most whisteblowers solitary and generally disgruntled former employees? Your first point has some merit but is diminished by your attack on the whisteblower. Whistleblower laws exist to encourage disgruntled employees to expose wrongdoing in corporations/governments/etc. Not sure why you are so quick to dismiss the whistleblower in this case.

treis 5y ago

The piece written by the whisteblower includes links to documents: https://www.lioness.co/post/microsoft-is-using-illegal-bribes-in-the-middle-east-and-africa-why-is-the-sec-turning-a-blind-eye https://www.lioness.co/post/microsoft-is-using-illegal-bribe...

hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
I think this is an excellent document that should really be the main article. One of the things I think this really highlights, and that absolutely infuriated me during the Trump impeachment hearings, was that categorizing a whistleblower as a "disgruntled former employee" does not negate the evidence that they show of malfeasance. I mean, of course whistleblowers are usually disgruntled about something, but a major point of whistleblower protection laws is that the motives of the whistleblower do not matter. To the GP comment's point, it's true we shouldn't just take accusations as proof, but the whole role of a whistleblower is to provide the "thread" that investigators can then pull on to get detailed evidence of what was going on. And, given the links to documents in the above post, I think this looks really, really bad for Microsoft.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

sha256sum 5y ago

What’s your point? One whistleblower alleged the NSA of the US was illegally conducting bulk surveillance across the entire world, including its own citizens. A court later ruled this program was illegal and unconstitutional. Are you saying we should discount all whistleblowers because it doesn’t fit some preset narrative?

stickfigure 5y ago
Not the parent, but I'm saying we shouldn't rush to judgement based on an accusation. Not everyone is Edward Snowden.

pcurve 5y ago

Bribery is pretty common. In many countries you almost cannot do anything without greasing wheels. My Father was a head of publicly traded pharma. Stories he had about China and India in particular were fascinating and sad at the same time. One time he was told that somebody dumped a huge pile of paper trash in front of his newly opened drug packaging facility in China. He investigated to find there culprit. It turns out it was from a paper factory owner nearby. Asked why he did it, his answer was : “you didn’t use my company as your paper supplier”. My fathers response: “how was I supposed to know there was a paper supplier nearby!! And why didn’t you come and introduce yourself before ?!?!” He ended up using the supplier and they did haul away the mountains of trash.

qiskit 5y ago

Did you expect an army of whistleblowers? Aren't most whisteblowers solitary and generally disgruntled former employees? Your first point has some merit but is diminished by your attack on the whisteblower. Whistleblower laws exist to encourage disgruntled employees to expose wrongdoing in corporations/governments/etc. Not sure why you are so quick to dismiss the whistleblower in this case.