August 30, 2006If at First You Don’t Succeed, Post on YouTube
What do you do if you work for a company that holds a government contract for Coast Guard patrol boats, you know there are alarming defects and dangerous security flaws, but your attempts to alert your company all the way to the CEO and the Board of Directors result in private affirmations and public denials? What if you talk to your representative and attempt to warn the client but no one listens?
If you are Michael De Kort, what you do is sit down at your kitchen table and make a video that you post on YouTube.
YouTube is a social Web site that allows users to upload, view, and share video clips. Common types of clips posted are clips from films and television programs, music videos, and homemade videos. This is the first time a whistleblower has been known to use this outlet.
Anyone can post on YouTube, and of course the accused are innocent until proven guilty (with the apparent exception of John Mark Karr, JonBenet Ramsey’s once-suspected killer.) However, it things are as this video represents them, Michael De Kort is a courageous man who risked his own well-being to speak out about a situation that puts the security of others at risk.
De Kort had some company in speaking out recently. Martha Mendoza wrote an article about over 100 women who were preyed upon by their recruiters. Mendoza applauded the women who came forward to do something about it. She said, “ They mostly live in small communities, where if this plays in their local paper, even if their name is not included, it’s tough to protect their anonymity.” She said, “They are preventing it from happening to someone else.”
That’s why SpeakingStrong is so important.
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