Sometimes in the course of their employment with a private company an individual will come to information that the company is defrauding the state or federal government in its financial relationship to the government.  This often comes up most frequently in the context of a contractor doing work on behalf of the government, or perhaps pursuant to a government grant.  

It comes up a lot in the medical field, where certain medical providers are committing Medicare or Medicaid fraud.  If an individual comes to that information in the course of their employment they should not immediately disclose it anywhere, including to the government.  

The government, both the state and federal governments, have a specific law which we call qui tam.  They are prevention of fraud laws that provide specific monetary compensation and rewards to individual whistleblowers who become what we call relaters, and who bring sealed, secret lawsuits with the assistance of counsel, against the defrauding party on behalf of the federal government.  But if you reveal this information to third parties, except to an attorney, well then the game is up.

So what the purpose of these qui tam laws serves is to allow you to stand in for the government and on behalf of the government attack that fraud.  When you do that with the help of counsel the government often shares the benefit of that attack with you.