I fully understand why this is true, but it seems to ignore any retaliative measures that the management could take against the person who says no.

With the benefit of hindsight, any such retaliation would be weaker than ending up in an orange suit. But the person has to find the guts to say "no" without that hindsight.

Of course I found out that he was going into our billing software and adding hours to me. I had to talk to a lawyer and he recommended I report it to the gao. I compromised by quitting and reporting it to the liaison on the project (a professor). It was very stressful because if I hadn't reported it he could say that I reported those hours, not him, and I could have ended up in prison.

I think the liaison just buried it in the end.

People who work in the Valley for fifty, a hundred times more than the poorest in their own country often do not seem to feel the same way anymore.

This is not a question of abstract ethics, but a question of simple professional integrity. If the thing is bad and risks harms, you don’t do it.

It’s part of why I work for myself now; it’s not difficult to spot people who do not have a strong sense of ethics and simply not work for them. I work in a couple of fields where there are many non-ethical players, and can do so with a clear conscience.