whistleblower

 

exposure of fraud and abuse by an employee. The federal law that legitimated the concept of the whistle-blower, the False Claims Act (1863, revised 1986), was created to combat fraud by suppliers to the federal government during the Civil War. Under the act, whistle-blowers can receive a percentage of the money recovered or damages won by the government in fraud cases they expose. The act also protects whistle-blowers from wrongful dismissal, allowing for reinstatement with seniority, double back pay, interest on back pay, compensation for discriminatory treatment, and reasonable legal fees. Federal legislation in 1978 barred reprisals against those who exposed government corruption. Harassment and dismissal of and the revelation of widespread waste and fraud in defense contracting led Congress to strengthen the position of whistle-blowers in 1989. Many states also have employment laws that deal with discriminatory treatment of whistle-blowers.

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A whistleblower is an employee, former employee, or member of an organization, especially a business or government agency, who reports misconduct to people or entities that have the power and presumed willingness to take corrective action. Generally the misconduct is a violation of law, rule, regulation and/or a direct threat to public interest, such as fraud, health/safety violations, and corruption. One of the most publicized whistleblowing cases involved Jeffrey Wigand, who exposed the Big Tobacco scandal, revealing that executives of the companies knew that cigarettes were addictive while approving the addition of known carcinogenic ingredients to the cigarettes. Wigand's story was the basis for the 1999 movie The Insider. Another famous whistleblower is Dr. Frederic Whitehurst, who exposed irregularities at the Federal Bureau of Investigation's FBI Crime Lab.

Overview

Origins of the term whistleblower

The term whistleblower derives from the practice of English bobbies who would blow their whistle when they noticed the commission of a crime. The blowing of the whistle would alert both law enforcement officers and the general public of danger.^[1]

Defining who is a whistleblower

The majority of whistleblowing cases are based on relatively minor misconduct. The most common type of whistleblowers are internal whistleblowers, who report misconduct to another employee or superior within their company or agency. In contrast, external whistleblowers report misconduct to outside persons or entities. In these cases, depending on its severity and nature, whistleblowers may report the misconduct to lawyers, the media, law enforcement or watchdog agencies, or to other local, state, or federal agencies.

Under most U.S. federal whistleblower statutes, in order to be considered a whistleblower, the federal employee must reasonably believe his or her employer has committed a violation of some law, rule or regulation; testify or commence a legal proceeding on the legally protected matter; or refuse to violate the law. If the disclosure is specifically prohibited by law or is specifically required by executive order to be kept secret in the interest of national defense, the reporting by a whistleblower might be considered by a few to be treason.^{[citation needed]} However, in the United States, there are not any cases in which the whistleblower has been tried for "treason" and it is not treasonous to blow the whistle on illegal conduct by government officials. And, of course, the vice-versa is true; a whistle blower may also report activities that are treasonous, thus validating the concept of whistleblowing.^{[opinion needs balancing]} However, the fact is, a whistleblower dealing with a matter of national security who claims they have suffered retaliation likely will see their lawsuit quashed as to litigate it would compromise national security.

There are those who view whistleblowing narrowly and try to limit the impact of whistleblowing by arguing that so-called role-prescribed whistleblowing, for example whistleblowing done by quality control personnel or internal auditors, does not constitute whistleblowing in the traditional sense, because the purpose of the employment is to report such things.^{[citation needed]} However, the U.S. courts have uniformily held that persons who hold quality control or auditor positions are protected from retaliation for reporting violations of law or regulations.

There is a false dichotomy between "internal" and "external" whistleblowing, and under U.S. federal law, many courts have failed to distinguish between the two. For example, in the field of federal environmental whistleblowing the federal courts have held that protecting "internal" whistleblowing is wise as a matter of public policy because whistleblower statutes are intended to encourage the free flow of information to prevent violations, "internal" reporting promotes resolving problems at the earliest possible stage, and discouraging "internal" reporting can have disastrous consequences^{[opinion needs balancing]}.

Common reactions to whistleblowing

Ideas about whistleblowing vary widely. Some see whistleblowers as selfless martyrs for public interest and organizational accountability; others view them as 'dobbers' or "snitches" (slang), solely pursuing personal glory and fame. Because the majority of cases are very low-profile and receive little or no media attention and because whistleblowers who do report significant misconduct are usually put in some form of danger or persecution, the latter view is generally less held.^{[citation needed]}

Persecution of whistleblowers has become a serious issue in many parts of the world. Although whistleblowers are often protected under law from employer retaliation, there have been many cases where punishment for whistleblowing has occurred, such as termination, suspension, demotion, wage garnishment, and/or harsh mistreatment by other employees. For example, in the United States, most whistleblower protection laws provide for limited "make whole" remedies or damages for employment losses if whistleblower retaliation is proven. However, many whistleblowers report there exists a wide-spread "shoot the messenger" mentality by corporations or government agencies accused of misconduct and in some cases whistleblowers have been subjected to criminal prosecution in reprisal for reporting wrongdoing.

As a reaction to this many private organizations have formed whistleblower legal defense funds or support groups to assist whistleblowers; one such example in the UK is Public Concern at Work [1]. Depending on the circumstances, it is not uncommon for whistleblowers to be ostracized by their co-workers, discriminated against by future potential employers, or even fired from their organization. This campaign directed at whistleblowers with the goal of eliminating them from the organization is referred to as mobbing. It is an extreme form of workplace bullying wherein the group is set against the targeted individual.

Only a few years ago, the General Services Administration was racked by indictments and report after report of inefficiency and waste. Today at GSA, Jerry Carmen has not only put the whistleblowers back in charge, he’s promoted them and given them new responsibilities. Just listen to this little set of figures. Today, General Services Administration work-in-progress time is down from 30 days to 7, even while the agency has sustained budget cuts of 20 percent, office space reductions of 20 percent, and the attrition of 7,000 employees. President Ronald Reagan Conservative Political Action Conference Washington, DC February 18, 1983^{[opinion needs balancing]}

Legal protection for whistleblowers

Legal protection for whistleblowing varies from country to country. In the United Kingdom, the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 provides a framework of legal protection for individuals who disclose information so as to expose malpractice and matters of similar concern. In the vernacular, it protects whistleblowers from victimisation and dismissal.

In the United States, legal protections vary according to the subject matter of the whistleblowing, and sometimes the state in which the case arises. In passing the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the Senate Judiciary Committee found that whistleblower protections were dependent on the "patchwork and vagaries" of varying state statutes. (Congressional Record p. S7412; S. Rep. No. 107-146, 107th Cong., 2d Session 19 (2002).) Still, a wide variety of federal and state laws protect employees who call attention to violations, help with enforcement proceedings, or refuse to obey unlawful directions.

The first U.S. law adopted specifically to protect whistleblowers was the Lloyd-La Follette Act of 1912. It guaranteed the right of federal employees to furnish information to the United States Congress. The first U.S. environmental law to include an employee protection was the Water Pollution Control Act of 1972, also called the Clean Water Act. Similar protections were included in subsequent federal environmental laws including the Safe Drinking Water Act (1974), Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (also called the Solid Waste Disposal Act) (1976), Toxic Substances Control Act (1976), Energy Reorganization Act of 1974 (through 1978 amendment to protect nuclear whistleblowers), Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA, or the Superfund Law) (1980), and the Clean Air Act (1990). Similar employee protections enforced through OSHA are included in the Surface Transportation Assistance Act (1982) to protect truck drivers, the Pipeline Safety Improvement Act (PSIA) of 2002, the Wendell H. Ford Aviation Investment and Reform Act for the 21st Century ("AIR 21"), and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, enacted on July 30, 2002 (for corporate fraud whistleblowers).

The patchwork of laws means that victims of retaliation need to be alert to the laws at issue to determine the deadlines and means for making proper complaints. Some deadlines are as short as 10 days (for Arizona State Employees to file a "Prohibited Personnel Practice" Complaint before the Arizona State Personnel Board; and Ohio public employees to file appeals with the State Personnel Board of Review). It is 30 days for environmental whistleblowers to make a written complaint to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration [OSHA]. Federal employees complaining of discrimination, retaliation or other violations of the civil rights laws have 45 days to make a written complaint to their agency's equal employment opportunity (EEO) officer. Airline workers and corporate fraud whistleblowers have 90 days to make their complaint to OSHA. Nuclear whistleblowers and truck drivers have 180 days to make complaints to OSHA. Victims of retaliation against union organizing and other concerted activities to improve working conditions have 180 days to make complaints to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Private sector employees have either 180 or 300 days to make complaints to the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) (depending on whether their state has a "deferral" agency) for discrimination claims on the basis of race, gender, age, national origin or religion (but here an example of retaliation can be seen, as these anti-discrimination agencies change their areas of discrimination to suit their needs. An area of discrimination in California was if a complaining party had a civil servant relative. The state Department of Fair Employment and Housing quickly called an end to this practice. The state's RALPH Act has also proven to be non-functional.) Those who face retaliation for seeking minimum wages or overtime have either two or three years to file a civil lawsuit, depending on whether the court finds the violation was "willful."

Those who report a false claim against the federal government, and suffer adverse employment actions as a result, may have up to six years (depending on state law) to file a civil suit for remedies under the U.S. False Claims Act (FCA). 31 U.S.C. § 3730(h). Under a qui tam provision, the "original source" for the report may be entitled to a percentage of what the government recovers from the offenders. However, the "original source" must also be the first to file a federal civil complaint for recovery of the federal funds fraudulently obtained, and must avoid publicizing the claim of fraud until the U.S. Justice Department decides whether to prosecute the claim itself. Such qui tam lawsuits must be filed under seal, using special procedures to keep the claim from becoming public until the federal government makes its decision on direct prosecution.

Federal employees could benefit from the Whistleblower Protection Act (5 U.S.C. § 1221(e)), and the No FEAR Act (which made individual agencies directly responsible for the economic sanctions of unlawful retaliation). Federal protections are enhanced in those few cases were the Office of Special Counsel will uphold the whistleblower's case.

The Military Whistleblower Protection Act (10 U.S.C. § 1034), protects the right of members of the armed services to communicate with any member of Congress (even if copies of the communication are sent to others).

The HOPE Scholarship in Georgia is the only incentive to report corporate, government, or religious crimes. This scholarship provides four years of free tuition to a tech school or University in Georgia for children of whistleblowers or those researching corporate crime.

For more information about how whistleblowers can file an initial complaint, see External links

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Whistleblower Protection Act of 2007

The U.S. Supreme Court's dealt a major blow to government whistleblowers when, in the case of Garcetti v. Ceballos, 04-473, it ruled that government employees did not have protection from retaliation by their employers under the First Amendment of the Constitution. [2] The free speech protections of the First Amendment have long been used to shield whistleblowers from retaliation by whistleblower attorneys. In response to the Supreme Court decision, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 985, the Whistleblower Protection Act of 2007. President George W. Bush, citing national security concerns, promised to veto the bill should it be enacted into law by Congress. The Senate's version of the Whistleblower Protection Act (S. 274), which has significant bipartisan support, was approved by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on June 13, 2007. However, it has yet to reach a vote by Senate as a hold has been placed on the bill by Senator Tom Coburn(R-OK).[3] According to the National Whistleblower Center, Coburn's hold on S. 274 has been done to further President Bush's agenda.[4]

Famous whistleblowers

• Stanley Adams, a former Hoffmann-LaRoche executive, who discovered evidence of price-fixing in 1973. He passed the evidence to the European Economic Community, who erroneously leaked Adams' name back to Hoffman-LaRoche. Adams was arrested for industrial espionage by the Swiss government and spent six months in jail. He fought for ten years to clear his name and receive compensation from the EEC.
• Ingvar Bratt, a former Bofors engineer who revealed himself as the anonymous source in the Bofors Scandal about illegal weapon exports. An act that led to a new Swedish law (SFS 1990:409) concerning company secrets which commonly is referred to as Lex Bratt.
• Shawn Carpenter, a former member of the technical staff at Sandia National Laboratories who discovered that a sophisticated group of hackers were systematically penetrating hundreds of computer networks at major U.S. defense contractors, military installations and government agencies to access sensitive information. After informing his superiors at Sandia, he was directed not to share the information with anyone, because management cared only about Sandia's computers. He, however, went on to voluntarily work with the U.S. Army and the FBI to address the problem. When Sandia discovered his actions, they terminated his employment and revoked his security clearance. His story was first reported in the September 5, 2005, issue of Time. On February 13, 2007, a New Mexico State Court awarded him $4.7 million in damages from Sandia Corporation for firing him. The jury found Sandia Corporation's handling of Mr. Carpenter's firing was "malicious, willful, reckless, wanton, fraudulent, or in bad faith."
• Richard Convertino, a former federal prosecutor who obtained the first conviction of a defendant in a terrorism case post-9/11. After Convertino testified before the U.S. Senate Finance Committee in September 2003 about the lack of Bush Administration support of anti-terrorism prosecutions post-9/11, Convertino alleges the Justice Department leaked information and violated a court order to publicly smear him in retaliation for his whistleblowing. Additionally, the Justice Department indicted Convertino for obstruction of justice and lying, which Convertino alleges is further whistleblower retaliation.
• Cynthia Cooper of Worldcom and Sherron Watkins of Enron, who exposed corporate financial scandals, and Coleen Rowley of the FBI, who later outlined the agency's slow action prior to the September 11, 2001 attacks. The three were selected as Time's People of the Year in 2002.
• Allen Cutler, the first whistleblower on the Canadian "AdScam" or sponsorship scandal. Without WB protection, he was fired by the Canadian government.
• Joseph Darby, a member of the United States military police who in 2004 first alerted the U.S. military command of prisoner abuse in the Abu Ghraib prison, in Abu Ghraib, Iraq.
• Walter Denino, a student who questioned Eric Poehlman's integrity.
• Pascal Diethelm and Jean-Charles Rielle, Swiss tobacco control advocates and alumni from the University of Geneva who revealed the secret ties of Ragnar Rylander, professor of environmental health, to the tobacco industry. In a public statement made in 2001, Pascal Diethelm and Jean-Charles Rielle accused Rylander of being "secretly employed by Philip Morris" and qualified of "scientific fraud without precedent" the concealment of his links with the tobacco industry for a period of 30 years, during which he publicly presented himself as an independent scientist, while obeying orders given by Philip Morris executives and lawyers, publishing articles and organizing symposia which denied or trivialized the toxicity of secondhand smoke. After a long trial, which went up to the supreme court of Switzerland, all accusations were found to be true.[5] Following this judgment, the University of Geneva prohibited its members from soliciting research subsidies or direct or indirect consultancies with the tobacco industry.[6]
• Satyendra Dubey, who accused employer NHAI of corruption in highway construction projects in India, in letter to Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. Assassinated on November 27, 2003. Enormous media coverage following his death may lead to Whistleblower Act in India.
• Sibel Edmonds, a former FBI translator naturalized American citizen of Turkish descent who was fired in 2002 by the FBI for attempting to report coverups of security issues, potential espionage, and incompetence. She has been gagged by the State Secrets Privilege in her efforts to go to court on these issues, including a rejection recently by the Supreme Court of the United States to hear her case without comment. She is now founder of the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC) that is looking to lobby congress and help other whistleblowers with legal and other forms of assistance.
• Daniel Ellsberg, a former State Department analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971, a secret account of the Vietnam War and its pretexts to The New York Times, which revealed endemic practices of deception by previous administrations, and contributed to the erosion of public support for the war.
• Janet Howard, Tanya Ward Jordan and Joyce E. Megginson, who blew the whistle on widespread systemic racism and retaliation within the Department of Commerce against African-American employees. http//www.feldf.com
• Marlene Garcia Esperat, a former analytical chemist for the Philippines Department of Agriculture who became a journalist to expose departmental corruption, and was murdered for it in 2005. Her assailants later surrendered to police, and have testified that they were hired by officials in the Department of Agriculture.
• W. Mark Felt, (aka Deep Throat), until very recently, a secret informant who in 1972 leaked information about United States President Richard Nixon's involvement in Watergate. The scandal would eventually lead to the resignation of the president, and prison terms for White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman and presidential adviser John Ehrlichman.
• A. Earnest Fitzgerald, a U.S. Department of Defense auditor who was fired in 1973 by President Richard M. Nixon for exposing to Congress the tidal wave of cost overruns associated with Lockheed's C-5A cargo plane. After protracted litigation he was reinstated to the civil service and continued to report cost overruns and military contractor fraud, including discovery in the 1980s that the Air Force was being charged $400 for hammers and $600 for toilet seats. Mr. Fitzgerald retired from the Defense Department in 2006. [7]
• David Franklin, a former Parke-Davis employee (a division of Pfizer) who exposed illegal marketing of Neurontin (gabapentin), an epilepsy drug, for relieving pain, headaches, bipolar disorder and other psychiatric illnesses. The case revealed that the company marketed the drug for these illnesses while withholding evidence that the drug was not effective for these illnesses. After initially denying wrongdoing, Pfizer plead guilty to criminal violation of the Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act and paid criminal and civil fines of $430 million dollars. This case has opened a unique window into pharmaceutical industry practices through the achieving [8] and study [9] of documents by UCSF obtained by Franklin’s attorney Thomas Greene. The Franklin v. Pfizer case was unique in a number of ways: it was the largest settlement obtained for U.S. taxpayers in a case not joined by the Department of Justice, it established a new standard of accountability for pharmaceutical industry marketing practices, it broadened the use of the False Claims Act to include fraudulent marketing claims (not just financial fraud) as criminal violations of federal and state law, it revealed the involvement, complicity and active participation in fraud by many renowned physicians, and it demonstrated that the medical literature which is the foundation for medical practice and particularly off-label prescribing by physicians has been deeply adulterated by the pharmaceutical industry and its paid clinical consultants. Franklin v. Pfizer showed that pharmaceutical control of the healthcare system, including doctors and pharmacists resulted in a large number of patients (not just Medicare/Medicaid) paying a great deal of money (Neurontin sales were $2.2 billion in 2004) for a drug that did nothing to help their illness.
• Bunnatine "Bunny" H. Greenhouse, a former chief civilian contracting officer for the United States Army Corps of Engineers who exposed illegality in the no-bid contracts for reconstruction in Iraq by a Halliburton subsidiary.[10][11]
• Katharine Gun, a former employee of Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), a British intelligence agency who in 2003 leaked top-secret information to the press concerning alleged illegal activities by the United States and the United Kingdom in their push for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
• Cathy Harris, a former United States Customs Service employee who exposed rampant racial profiling against Black travellers while working at Hartsfield International Airport in Atlanta, Georgia. According to Harris's book, Flying While Black: A Whistleblower's Story, she personally observed numerous incidents of Black travellers being stopped, frisked, body-cavity-searched, detained for hours at local hospitals, forced to take laxatives, bowel-monitored and subjected to public and private racist/colorist humiliation. The book also details her allegations of mismanagement, abuses of authority, prohibited personnel practices, waste, fraud, violation of laws, rules and regulations, corruption, nepotism, cronyism, favoritism, workplace violence, racial and sexual harassment, sexism, intimidation, on and off the job stalking, etc., and other illegal acts that occurs daily to federal employees especially female federal employees at U.S. Customs and other federal agencies.
• Marc Hodler, International Olympic Committee, a IOC member who, in December 1998, blew the whistle on the Winter Olympic bid scandal for the 2002 Salt Lake City games.
• Douglas Keeth who, in 1989, filed a Qui Tam lawsuit against United Technologies Corporation where he held the title vice president, finance. Mr. Keeth and others had investigated billing practices at a corporate division named Sikorsky Aircraft. The group uncovered inflated progress billings, going back at least as far as 1982. The corporation offered Mr. Keeth a $1 million severance if he would keep quiet. Mr. Keeth did not accept that offer. In 1994, United Technologies paid $150 million to the government. Mr. Keeth was awarded a bounty of $22.5 million.
• Karen Kwiatkowski, a retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force who worked as a desk officer in The Pentagon and in a number of roles in the National Security Agency. She has written a number of essays on corrupting political influences of military intelligence leading up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and has said that she was the anonymous source for Seymour Hersh and Warren Strobel on their exposés of pre-war intelligence.
• S. Manjunath, a formerly manager at Indian Oil Corporation Ltd (IOCL), and crusader against adulteration of petrol. He was shot dead on November 19, 2005, allegedly by a petrol pump owner from Uttar Pradesh.
• Hans-Peter Martin, who accused European Parliament members of invalid expense claims in 2004.
• Christoph Meili, a night guard at a Swiss bank. He discovered that his employer was destroying records of savings by Holocaust victims, which the bank was required to return to heirs of the victims. After the Swiss authorities sought to arrest Meili, he was given political asylum in the United States.
• Clive Ponting, a senior civil servant in the Ministry of Defence who leaked classified documents to Labour MP, Tam Dalyel confirming that the General Belgrano was sunk by United Kingdom forces during the Falklands War while outside the total exclusion zone contradicting statements by the UK Government.
• Samuel Provance, a system administrator for Military Intelligence at the Abu Ghraib prison who publicly revealed the role of interrogators in the abuses, as well the general effort to cover-up the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse itself.
• Peter Rost (doctor). Peter Rost was a former vice president at the pharmaceutical company Pfizer that reported about accounting irregularities and other irregularities to the US authorities. In response to his whistleblowing he was exiled internally by Pfizer and removed from all responsibilities and decision making. In 2004, he testified in Congress as a private individual in favour of drug reimportation, a position strongly at odds with the official policy of the pharmaceutical industry. In December 2005, Rost was fired from Pfizer. In September 2006 he published his experiences in the book “The Whistleblower: Confessions of a Healthcare Hitman”
• William Sanjour, a whistleblower at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for over 20 years who also wrote on whistleblower protection issues.[12] He won a landmark law suit against the federal government which established the First Amendment rights of federal employees to "blow the whistle" on their employer. [Sanjour v. EPA,56 F.3d 85 (D.C. Cir. 1995)(en banc)]
• Frank Serpico, a former New York City police officer who reported several of his fellow officers for bribery and related charges. He is the first officer to testify against police corruption.
• Karen Silkwood, a labor union activist and chemical technician at the Kerr-McGee nuclear plant near Crescent, Oklahoma. The 1983 film Silkwood is an account of this story.
• Russ Tice, a former intelligence analyst for the National Security Agency (NSA), the U.S. Air Force, Office of Naval Intelligence, and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). Most recently he is one of the sources used by the New York Times in reporting on the NSA wiretapping controversy. He had earlier been known for reporting suspicions that a DIA colleague of his might be a Chinese spy.
• Linda Tripp, a former White House staff member who disclosed to the Office of Independent Counsel that Monica Lewinsky committed perjury and attempted to suborn perjury, and President William J. Clinton committed misconduct, by denying the Clinton-Lewinsky relationship in the Paula Jones federal civil rights suit. A victim of retaliation by the Clinton Administration, Tripp won her lawsuit against the federal government for violating the Privacy Act of 1974 whenit leaked personal information about her to the press.
• Paul van Buitenen, who accused European Commission members of corruption. (See Resignation of the Santer Commission).

• Mordechai Vanunu has been characterized by some as a whistleblower[13] [14] for revealing Israel's clandestine nuclear program to the British press in 1986.
• Frederic Whitehurst, a chemist at the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation who was the FBI Laboratory's foremost expert on explosives residue in the 1990s, and became the first modern-day FBI whistleblower. He reported a lack of scientific standards and serious flaws in the FBI Lab, including in the first World Trade Center bombing cases and the Oklahoma City bombing case. Dr. Whitehurst's whistleblower disclosures triggered an overhaul of the FBI's crime lab following a report by the U.S. Department of Justice Inspector General in 1997. Dr. Whitehust filed a federal lawsuit claiming whistleblower retaliation, and he reached a settlement with the FBI worth more than $1.16 million. [15] Whitehurst now directs the FBI Oversight Project of the National Whistleblower Center.[16]
• Jeffrey Wigand, a former executive of Brown & Williamson who exposed his company's practice of intentionally manipulating the effect of nicotine in cigarettes on the CBS news program 60 Minutes. Famously known as the man who blew the whistle on Big Tobacco and almost single-handedly revealed the health dangers of smoking to the public.
• Andrew Wilkie, an Australian intelligence officer at the Office of National Assessments who resigned in March 2003 over concerns intelligence reports were incorrectly claiming Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.
• Joseph Wilson, former U.S. ambassador, whose July 6, 2003 editorial in the New York Times, "What I Didn't Find In Africa", exposed pretexts for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.^{[opinion needs balancing]}

Whistleblower Week in Washington (WWW)

The week of May 13-19 2007, whistleblowers from all over the country gathered in Washington, D.C., to convince the United States Congress to pass stronger whistleblower protections for both government and private sector workers. Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, founder of the No FEAR Coalition and No FEAR Institute, served as Chair of the first ever Whistleblower Week in Washington. The event was coordinated around the fifth anniversary of the May 15, 2002 enactment of the "Notification and Federal Employee Antidiscrimination and Retaliation Act of 2002," which is now known as the No FEAR Act. One purpose of the Act is to "require that Federal agencies be accountable for violations of antidiscrimination and whistleblower protection laws." Public Law 107-174. The law came to fruition after Dr. Coleman-Adebayo provided congressional testimony about American companies exposing African miners and their families to vanadium, a deadly substance. During WWW dozens of nonprofit organizations, whistleblower groups and individual whistleblowers participated in a broad range of activities that included discussion panels, testimony, award ceremonies, a film night and book signing, and workshops in advocacy, stress management, whistleblower law, and mentoring. Doctors from the "Semmelweis Society International" played a leading role in organizing the event, along with the Civil rights whistleblower advocates, the No FEAR Institute. Prominent organizations included the Government Accountability Project (GAP), The National Whistleblower Center, The VA Whistleblower Coalition, The National Whistleblower Security Coalition, the ACLU, Public Citizen, the Liberty Coalition, and The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS). Betsy Combier represented the E-Accountability Foundation. Linda Lesbo, chair of Whistleblowers USA, played a special role and noted that "too many very brave whistleblowers were present to adequately honor their accomplishments and their contributions to the conference." Senator Charles Grassley saluted the group, and called on the White House to hold a rose garden ceremony to honor whistleblowers. The group plans to make this an annual event, and asks all whistleblowers from all over the country to contact WWW now at the WWW website. For a list of participating organizations in the WWW 2007 visit website at http://www.whistle-week-in-dc.org/

Resources

• Project On Government Oversight, Homeland and National Security Whistleblower Protections: The Unfinished Agenda, April, 2006.
• Frais,A Whistleblowing heroes - boon or burden? Bulletin of Medical Ethics, 2001Aug:(170):13-19.
• Alford, C. Fred (2001). Whistleblowers: Broken Lives and Organizational Power. Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-3841-1. 
• Garrett, Allison, "Auditor Whistle Blowing: The Financial Fraud Detection and Disclosure Act," 17 Seton Hall Legis. J. 91 (1993).

• Hunt, Geoffrey (20061). The Principle of Complementarity: Freedom of Information, Public Accountability and Whistleblowing in Chapman, R & Hunt, M (eds) Freedom of Information: Perspectives on Open Government in a Theoretical and Practical Context. Ashgate, Aldershot, UK. 

• Hunt, Geoffrey (2000). Whistleblowing, Accountability & Ethical Accounting, in. Clinical Risk 6(3): 115-16. 

• Hunt, Geoffrey (1998). 'Whistleblowing', commissioned entry for Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics, (8,000 words). Academic Press, California, USA,. 

• Hunt, Geoffrey (ed) (1998). Whistleblowing in the Social Services: Public Accountability & Professional Practice. Arnold. 

• Hunt, G (ed) (1995). Whistleblowing in the Health Service: Accountability, Law & Professional Practice. Arnold. 

• Johnson, Roberta Ann (2002). Whistleblowing: When It Works—And Why. ISBN 978-1588261144. 

• Kohn, Stephen M (2000). Concepts and Procedures in Whistleblower Law. Quorum Books. ISBN 1-56720-354-X. 

• Kohn, Stephen M; Kohn, Michael D; Colapinto, David K. (2004). Whistleblower Law A Guide to Legal Protections for Corporate Employees. Praeger Publishers. ISBN 0-275-98127-4. 

• Miethe, Terance D (1991). Whistleblowing at work : tough choices in exposing fraud, waste, and abuse on the job. Westview Press. ISBN 0-81—33-3549-3. 

• "Sarbanes-Oxley Criminal Whistleblower Provisions & the Workplace: More Than Just Securities Fraud," by Jay P. Lechner & Paul M. Sisco, 80 Florida B. J. 85 (June 2006)

External links

• Office of Special Counsel's War On Whistleblowers
• U.S. Department of Denunciation
• Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER)
• Government Accountability Project
• Worldwide Whistleblowers - International whistleblowing news and information site
• Whistleblower Protection
• Project On Government Oversight (POGO)
• The Ron Ridenhour Awards
• National Whistleblower Center
• Whistleblower Action Network The False Claims Act incentives and protections
• The Truth-Telling Project - Project formed by whistleblowers Daniel Ellsberg and Katharine Gun
• FAIR: Federal Accountability Initiative for Reform For Whistleblowers in Canada
• Public Concern at Work - the leading UK authority on Public Disclosure
• Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 from Her Majesty's Stationery Office
• Workplace Fairness FAQ for environmental whistleblowers
• Congressional Research Service (CRS) Report "National Security Whistleblowers"
• Tate & Renner article on whistleblowers under U.S. federal law
• Whistleblower Employee Protection Website
• Whistleblowers in the EU
• International Freedom of Expression Exchange
• National Security Whistleblowers Coalition Source for many and varied articles
• Freedom to Care UK's first grassroots (1991)whistleblowers support organisation.
• Whistleblower-Netzwerk Whistleblower support organisation in Germany.
• U.S. Department of Labor Whistleblower Program & information
• List and information on US Whistleblowers at SourceWatch
• Read v. Canada (Attorney General) Canadian legal framework regarding whistleblowing defence
• Whistleblower Week in Washington
• Whistleblowing Law and Practice (2007) OUP John Bowers QC, Jeremy Lewis, Martin Fodder and Jack Mitchell.
• "Office of Special Counsel's War on Whistleblowers", Mother Jones, May/June 2007.

Notes

1. ^ Winters v. Houston Chronicle Pub. Co., 795 S.W.2d 723, 727 (Tex. 1990) (Doggett, J., concurring).

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