Whistleblower Lawyer & Attorney : National Whistleblower Legal Defense and Education Fund : Whistleblower Protection, Fraud Claims : Washington DC

In an unprecedented show of solidarity and hunger for reform, public interest groups from across the political spectrum are urging Congress to pass whistleblower reforms this term. With the Congressional session winding down, and Congress readying a bill to provide massive corporations with hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer money, getting the whistleblower legislation passed has never been more urgent.

The following press release was issued yesterday by a coalition of good government groups including the National Whistleblowers Center and the Government Accountability Project. It includes links to three sign-on letters, representing over 200 organizations and millions of Americans, to Congressional leaders detailing the urgent need for whistleblower protections.
 

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The National Whistleblower issued this action alert yesterday demanding that Congress amend the banking "bailout" bill to include the whistleblower provisions included in H.R. 985. The alert, written by NWC advocacy director Lindsey Williams, rightly points out that in order to ensure that this taxpayer funded multi-billion dollar lifesaver isn't subjected to fraud, waste or abuse, the bill should include strong whistleblower protections.

Further, Congress has stalled long enough in passing the Whistleblower Protection Act amendments (hr.985) and this is the perfect opportunity to add them, as an amendment, to a bill that is sure to pass.

Click here to take action on this issue.

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A U.S. District Judge in Michigan has ruled that Detroit Free Press reporter David Ashenfelter must testify in a whistleblower lawsuit brought by former federal prosecutor Richard Convertino against his old boss, the DOJ. Ashenfelter has been refusing to testify in depositions regarding confidential DOJ sources who provided him with disparaging information regarding Convertino, which Ashenfelter then published in the Detroit Free Press newspaper. Convertino believes that the DOJ sources violated the Privacy Act when they released confidential information to Ashenfelter, and Convertino filed a motion to compel testimony from the journalist; that motion has been granted.

Ashenfelter claimed that his confidential sources should be protected by Michigan's journalist "shield law," but U.S. District Judge Robert Cleland did not agree. Cleland's decision strikes a delicate balance between the First Amendment rights of journalists and the need to protect whistleblowers.
 

Click here to read the full press release from the National Whistleblower Center. 

Click here to read the order handed down by U.S. District Judge Robert Cleland

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US Army Corps of Engineers whistleblower Bunny Greenhouse is featured in a chapter of the new book, Your America: Democracy's Local Heroes. The book by John Siceloff and Jason Maloney arises from episodes of the PBS series "NOW" with David Brancaccio.

The book is available online for $24.95 plus shipping and handling from Powell's Books at: http://www.powells.com/biblio/2-9780230605336-0 
 

Bunny Greenhouse blew the whistle on the Army's contracting abuses in giving no-bid contracts to Halliburton to manage Iraq's oil after the invasion. Here, Bunny presents a copy of the book to her attorney, Michael D. Kohn:
 

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