People who try to blow the whistle on corporate malfeasance or government scandal are often punished, without recourse to the courts. Kei Sugaoka, an American of Japanese descent, was quickly dismissed from his job as a safety inspector for General Electric after he disclosed a cover-up of safety violations at a nuclear reactor in Fukushima. Sugaoka said he watched his supervisors carefully erase videotapes showing cracks in a critical component of the reactor, yet when he blew the whistle and told regulators, his name was improperly disclosed to the utility and his employer.