Review:
This is a very nice short video put out by the Taxpayers Against Fraud
organization on the occasion of the 1986 amendments to the False Claims Act.
The content of the video is directly related to whistle blowing.
There are short summaries of three whistle-blowing cases that
involved legal action under the False Claims Act.
None of the three cases are specific to the computing industry,
but this is a minor point.
There are short clips of the whistle-blowers describing the fraud and what happened to them.
The video clearly makes the points that whistle blowing is often done at great personal
cost, that it often involves saving lives as well as government money, and that it requires
gathering and presenting information carefully.
The video presents some of the history of the False Claims Act.
The law was originally adopted when Abraham Lincoln was president, during
the civil war, to fight fraud in the purchasing of military supplies.
The video also presents some statistics for the amount of money recovered by the
government in recent times, and argues for how the law helps to fight fraud generally.
There are short clips of several politicians from the late 1980s,
emphasizing the value of the False Claims Act and its 1986 amendments.
Overall, the video seems very effective and well produced.
I highly recommend it for classroom use when you cover the topic of whistle blowing.
Use of this video will work best if students do a short assignment before watching the video. Students should read a summary of the False Claims Act, so that they know the meaning of the term qui tam, and know basically how the act works: civil legal action by citizen, possibly joined by the government, citizen to share in funds recovered. This is important because the video does not explain the operational details of the law. Students can get more information by, for example, browsing the TAF web site at www.taf.org. (See a possible worksheet for this purpose.) The pre-video assignment could be followed up with a post-video assignment to take one of the cases mentioned in the video and use news/legal sources to find out the details of the final resolution of the case.
Video Format/Length:
The video is just over 17 minutes long, VHS format videotape.
Ordering Information:
I obtained a copy of this video for free by contacting the Taxpayers Against Fraud organization.
The video is listed on their web site as an educational resource provided by TAF.
Contact information for TAF is: