> just wanted to suggest that an individual being arrested for doing the right thing probably decreases the likelihood of them doing the right thing in future.

Agree. Again, the system sucks, and will always suck.

> so perhaps discretion is a good idea when doing the right thing, to increase chances of the right thing being done long term.

Agree. I lean utilitarian philosophically. If we lived in a society akin to Russia where Doing The Right Thing would get you thrown out of a window, then I would not be telling people to do so.

> there doesn't seem to exist a logical reason that corporations would avoid using the letter of the law to defend themselves, regardless as to how right that defense may be?

I admit I'm having trouble parsing this. But if you're saying corps use lawfare to get away with as much as they can: I agree.

I'm not saying that you should Always Do The Right Thing At The Cost of Everything. I'm only saying yall are indexing very, very hard on 2 edge cases that were dropped and led to no arrests or jailtime. My anecdote/advice does NOT apply to those living in authoritarian regimes where the tallest nail gets hammered down. (You could argue that Hong Kong is such an authoritarian regime; I won't disagree.)

Let me phrase it this way: if you're too risk-averse to report when you see security issues because you fear charges, then you should also always stay within the speed limit, come to a complete stop at stop signs, never jaywalk, loiter or consume alcohol in public. Heck while we're at it you should also stop driving; the risk of death is much higher than that of being arrested for reporting a security issue. We all have different risk tolerances, but I think the numbers here are in my favor.