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

David Colapinto, General Counsel of the National Whistleblowers Center (NWC), spoke with ABC News correspondent Lindsey Ellerson in a story released today.  Ellerson looked at how the new movie, The Informant!, sheds light on other more notable whistleblowers.

Colapinto told Ellerson, "In terms of the Whitacre case itself, I thought that it was both entertaining and it was an interesting portrayal of that unique case -- but it should not be confused with what whistle-blowers face on a day-to-day basis." Colapinto suggested that other cases, such as Colleen Rowley's better portrayed the whistleblower experience. "What she did in terms of coming forward on the problems with the failure to report the events of 9/11 was just absolutely incredible, Our government has still not come to terms with the lessons of 9/11 which she was responsible for really shining the light on in terms of the lack of communication between agencies in the executive branch, law enforcement, intelligence, etc."

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The Informant! is a new movie that plays the price-fixing crimes of ADM, and the embezzlement of whistleblower Mark Whitacre, for airy comedy. The original music track by Marvin Hamlisch gives an upbeat 1960's feel to this 1990's corporate crime drama.

The producers of The Informant! provided a screening of their new film for whistleblower advocates in Washington, DC.  They hope to start a dialogue about what their film can contribute to the whistleblower cause.  It is a serious endeavor spawned from a film that looks for laughs. Then again, whether we can reach deeper insights, and wider audiences, while laughing is itself a serious question. The informant! is opening tonight.

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U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler has rejected employer attempts to constrict the whistleblower protections of the federal and District of Columbia False Claims Acts.  In a decision issued last week, she corrected a judgment from a jury verdict, and overruled the employer's attempts to vacate that verdict. The case is Kakeh v. United Planning Organization, Case No. 05-1271 (GK) in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Attorney Jason Zuckerman of The Employment Law Group writes today that, "Judge Kessler rejected several arguments by UPO that would undermine the statutory whistleblower protections under which Kakeh brought his claim, the D.C. Whistleblower Protection Act (“WPA”) and the retaliation provisions of the False Claims Act (“FCA”) and the D.C. False Claims Act (“DCFCA”)." These include attempts to apply the "but for" standard of causation that the U.S. Supreme Court applied to age discrimination cases in Gross v. FBL Fin. Svcs., Inc., 129 S.Ct. 2343 (2009), and the "duty speech" exclusion adopted for First Amendment claims in Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410 (2006). Judge Kessler also rejected a proposal to require "magic words" of "waste, fraud and abuse," and held that even disclosure of public information about false claims is still protected. Jason Zuckerman's post follows in the continuation of this blog entry, reposted here with his permission

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The Open Society Institute National Security Human Rights Campaign is sponsoring an event on September 15th entitled, “Whistle-blowers: A Conversation with Daniel Ellsberg and John Dean.”  The event celebrates the U.S. premiere of the feature documentary, “The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers.”

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