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Comment by chernevik | Hacker News Reader

The lack of information about who got the award and why seems like a huge problem.

Who's to say that someone at the SEC didn't get a kickback for this? Or that this didn't go to some friend of the President?

Whoever this is, they didn't inform on the mob. Maybe disclosure would be awkward for them professionally -- but with $17mm in hand, I'm not sure how much that matters.

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I'm sure if the whistleblower thinks their name should be public, they'll do an interview somewhere soon. It's good the SEC doesn't treat this like you're winning the lottery, and requiring you do a press conference holding a big check for free PR for Powerball.

This sounds like a terrible way to disincentivize whistle blowing. Could easily ruin your career or be life threatening

I think whistle blowers should potentially even be eligible for WitSec. These people are likely giving up their career and ability to provide for their family. This is the least we can do for their service.

Maybe if someone inside the SEC finds corruption they can get a meta-whistleblower award.

There’s probably an exclusion in the law that prevents employees of the SEC from getting a bounty. But the SEC IG would absolutely investigate a report of something like that, and the civil service has robust protections for whistleblowers against retaliatory actions like getting fired or demoted.

Whistle blowers have gotten death threats before, hence the privacy.

Plus the guarantee that if your name is published, you’ll have a hell of a hard time getting another job in your industry (not that this should be true, but I suspect that it is anyway).

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