I understand and agree with your nobility, but I think you are missing one point. The "exercise" is to get the guilty perpetrators behind bars, anyone else's reputation is secondary and what is most important is that no innocent lives are at risk. I'd rat the bastards out the safest way. It's the deceased victim we are concerned about, not being particularly heroic ourselves. It just takes an anonymous note containing substantiated information dropped in a mail box.
No it has nothing to do with being noble, it has to do with the trustworthiness of the information. If I were to make public information like this anonymously, how could you trust that I'm being truthful when you don't even know who I am? Maybe I'm naming someone that I have a grudge against. Remember that thread about the woman who had run a daycare in Alberta who was found to have been falsely accused of abuse? Now, that was not done anonymously but just look at the havoc that was wrought by those lies? How much easier would it be for someone to lie, to fabricate "evidence" and put it out for the public to see, where it can never be taken back, if it was anonymous? You say that
what is most important is that no innocent lives are at risk
and that's exactly my point. How vilified would someone be should they be named as a culprit? And what if, just what if, it wasn't them? At least by coming forward, publicly, you're "putting your money where you mouth is" so to speak.
I stood by the truth of my convictions on a number of occasions when I was in the Army- a few were up against Senior Officers- Always paid a price- The last time it cost me my career, my livelihood and repercussions for years.
So I have been there, done that and paid the price to many times.
I hope I'm never put in such a situation of such importance. But I think, well I know, that if I was, I'd have to follow my conscience. You understand why.
I think the cost of not following my conscience could be far worse than anything I could possibly lose. I know it might not
feel that way, but I do believe that ultimately that is the case.
Has anonymous done anything damaging to the general public?
Could they?