Don't you think whistle blowing needs a meta-layer? Say I'm some guy in some room and on my desktop sits a very nasty excel about illegal or unethical party payments. What do I do? I can send them to a newspaper, which may not publish them (for a long list of reasons). I may send them to several newspapers, in which case there is a better chance that they will be published. But then I have a pretty big chance of being found - several emails to several people, at least some not prepared to deal with confidential information. The more sensitive my documents are, the more risky it is.<p>Whistle blowing is often a very grey business. My actions may be somewhat but obviously illegal, and the bag guys may not be very but not so obviously so. It can backfire.<p>This is why the meta-layer is important. I just send one email, and I'm pretty secure that my actions are confidential. Worst case scenario is they decide not to publish it, in which case i'm not really worse of. If I want, I can try again with a classic news outlet.