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  • Legal

Talking to Family and Friends

  • Written By: The Signals Network

It can be useful to get a consensus from your family and those close to you on how to move forward so they understand how they will be impacted by your speaking out.”

Tom Devine, Legal Director of the Government Accountability Project

“It’s important to make sure your family is starting this journey with eyes wide open. While you can’t prevent all of the damage that may occur, it helps to be honest about what the potential consequences are.” Tom Devine, Legal Director of the Government Accountability Project

“Assessing the strength, safety, and trust in your relationship with family and friends is crucial in whistleblowing. You’ll need someone who can provide an objective perspective as well as a mechanism to de-stress and recuperate.” Erika Cheung, Theranos whistleblower

Tips

Be mindful as your family and friends could be pressured into getting involved in legal proceedings or they could have professional interests that could be negatively impacted based on your exposure. 

Talk to your lawyers about these risks for your family and closed ones.

RELEVANT LINKS

Disclaimer

The Signals Network does not request, encourage or counsel potential whistleblowers to act unlawfully. This section covers some key information to be aware of based on the experience of other whistleblowers who have been through this before and the people who helped them. This section doesn’t offer legal advice, and potential whistleblowers are encouraged to consult with counsel about their particular situation.

Statement of transparency

This entire project is worthless if the tech workers who come to it cannot trust where the information is from, who is behind its creation, and who manages the site. For that reason, I have identified every organization and individual who has been instrumental in its development.

The time and resources required to put together the Handbook were funded by Omidyar Network. This is a wholly independent project owned and managed by me. No identifying data will ever be collected or shared about who accesses this site — with anyone. That said, I do NOT advise accessing this from a company device. Your employer can, and will likely, track visits to a resource like this Handbook. 

You can find a list of the data WordPress automatically collects about site visits here.

 

— Ifeoma Ozoma, Founder of Earthseed, Creator of the Tech Worker Handbook