[thenberlin]

A deterrent to prevent additional whistleblowers from coming forward? If the issues are as massively systemic as facts to date suggest, it seems like there might be a number of other shoes that could drop. Boeing's reputation (as well as that of its higher ups) could get a hell of a lot more tarnished and even breach further into legal culpability territory.

I'm not fully convinced that's what's happening here, but two whistleblowers on a massive US company that also happens to be a defense contractor dying in suspicious and unusual ways (especially that first one "killing himself" after he said if he died it wasn't suicide and also smack in the middle of his deposition days...) certainly warrants a non-trivial amount of concern and a deeper investigation.

[htss2013]

This assumes the risk of getting caught offing whistleblowers is less than the risk of more whistle-blowers coming out. Does it really make sense that you'd risk exposing a whistle blower murder program as opposed to whatever corporate problems they have? Not to mention, it's a lot easier to smooth over corporate screw ups than getting caught hiring hit men.

[LightHugger]

If these are hits, i would think it's one or two rogue execs or stakeholder with a lot of personal money to blow doing this, OR they are leveraging US military contacts to get it done. It's probably impossible to keep an assassination program from leaking carried out in any other way.