Financial Transparency Coalition

We are big fans of human rights organisations, generally speaking, but we’re going to say some uncomfortable things about some of them here. Yesterday we noted that Rudolf Elmer, the Swiss whistleblower who has been persecuted for years by the Swiss tax haven industry, via the Swiss courts and other arms of Swiss state, collapsed in court during a trial where he is accused of breaking Swiss banking secrecy laws. He has already spent five months in prison and he faces more: read the background here. The Swiss establishment and media has mostly focused on Elmer the...

This week Edward Snowden, the whistleblower who leaked information about the National Security Agency’s data collection program, may be allowed to leave his temporary station at the Moscow International Airport, where he has been staying since he fled Hong Kong in June. Snowden’s leak has brought the concept of whistleblowing into sharp focus in our headlines lately, including the controversies over the relative benefits and costs of these individuals and programs that support them. As in the case of Snowden, the concept of whistleblowing can be controversial, and it is always painful for the entity or government who is...