I want to be a whistleblower!

 Actually I don't. Or I would, if I had anything to be a whistleblower about. But I think we should encourage whistleblowers, there should be a process.

So, what's important to a whistleblower? Money? Secrecy? Accountability? Maybe just a way to say "I was a whistleblower before I was fired", since I've often heard of whistleblowers being described as "disgruntled ex-employees"?

I think whistleblowing applies to crimes. There should be a state-level process to provide concrete and detailed accusations, with no possible blowback. The process should allow people to provide information they are not otherwise legally allowed to disclose. It should be infeasible to determine if someone has given information. Most importantly, the person should be able to demonstrate that they did provide information about a crime in a timely manner.

I think this could easily be implemented as a web site, so I'm surprised that it doesn't already exist. To enter into the web site you would enter a number that you can easily remember - say your credit card or mobile phone number, combined with your postcode or year of birth. These numbers should not be verified, allowing the submitter to add a deliberate mistake. However there should be a "Captcha", to prevent fishing expeditions. Ideally under duress you could "prove" that you DID NOT submit any information, while being able to prove that you DID in a court-of-law situation.

Whistleblower reports should be available to police, anonymously. If a whistleblower reconnects, they should be able to see feedback from the police. Statistical aggregations should be used to highlight problems at a company or discrimination across an industry.

A whistleblower submission does not have the same value as a complaint lodged with the police, but if the information provided is sufficiently detailed and credible the police should not be prevented from opening an investigation.

This seems so easy it should be obvious. Who is scared of building a system like this? The police are overworked? The police would be accused? Industry would be scared? Journalists would be out of work? Wikileaks and other anonymous disclosure hotlines exist, but they need journalists to publicize information, meaning that small problems are ignored, and they offer no legal protection.

Should whistleblower submissions be made public after 50 years?