Whistleblowers Win Support

The Center for Investigative Reporting and Salon have teamed up on a new report arguing that "federal whistleblowers almost never receive legal protection after they take action."

Among the alleged reprisals detailed:

• Joseph D. Whitson Jr. was a civilian chemist in the Air Force who spoke out about superiors falsifying drug test results. His desk was moved to a room in the basement and his job duties stripped.
• Vernie Gee Sr. was an agricultural inspector who sounded the alarm about tainted meat in the U.S. food supply and inspectors taking bribes from slaughterhouses. Gee was beaten up by a plant worker during an inspection -- and then reprimanded by superiors for fighting.
• George Randall Taylor, a chief of police at a Navy base in Bermuda, exposed coverups of rapes on the base. He was then forced into a psychiatric hospital.
• Before Teresa Chambers was fired from the Park Police, she found used condoms on her car, and someone pepper-sprayed her office door.

Of course, the report also notes that recent whistleblower cases "included one in which an employee sought protection after reporting missing candy bars at a government commissary. In another case, a worker complained about colleagues using a drinking fountain as a spittoon. One government worker was discovered by investigators to have fabricated his entire complaint. Most such cases, however, are weeded out of the system."

My favorite part, though, was the video highlighting the efforts of one of the pioneers of whistleblower protection legislation: Sen. Richard M. Nixon.