[Fnoord]

What if you'd die from a genuine accident?

[noworriesnate]

Then there's no more point to keeping that leverage, is there? Might as well make it freely available.

[maeil]

I'd love to see a statistical analysis of whistleblower deaths on the US over the last 15 years. I'd be extremely susprised if it wasn't enormously anomalous.

[kremi]

It’d be hard to draw any conclusion. A whistleblower must be under extreme stress and pressure which in itself in some way or other will increase the risk of death — so that has to be taken account before saying the plausible cause for the excess deaths is assassination.

[ethbr1]

If whistleblowers are committing suicide at abnormal rates, then maybe we should provide them with more mental health support as a public good.

Publicly making claims and being named as a potential witness in a court case seems a clear line.

F.ex. the resources listed on the US House's Whistleblower Ombuds page: https://whistleblower.house.gov/whistleblower-support-organi...

[draugadrotten]

Let's start with keeping the whistleblowers alive and we have more time to figure out the cause and effect later.

[chollida1]

Are you suggesting we put them all under suicide watch? How would we keep these people from killing themselves otherwise?

This guy had plenty of money for a therapist to help with his mental health issues.

What more do you think we could we do for them?

[s1artibartfast]

How? do we lock them up?

[Bluestein]

Point.-

[dmurray]

I was intending to release the information, so releasing it when I'm dead seems fine.

So why didn't I immediately publish it all while alive? Perhaps I preferred to control the flow of information, redact certain parts, or extort the organisation I was blowing the whistle on. None of those seem all that important to me compared to deterring people from assassinating me in the first place.

[pavel_lishin]

Right. There's no reason to let your opponent see the cards you're holding.

[addicted]

You still release it?

[_blk]

That's the whole point, otherwise it's not safe against "make it look like an accident."

[riwsky]

Crash-only peopleware

[Fnoord]

Creates a feedback loop to make any death of a whistleblower statistically look like a conspiracy.

[stavros]

That's the second best incentive you have, after "making sure they don't die".