Government

On Tuesday, a District Court judge in Washington criticized the federal government for invoking the state secrets privilege in a case in which a DEA agent claimed to have been illegally wiretapped by the CIA. The "state secrets" defense restricts...

I previously wrote here about the extraordinary findings of U.S. District Court Chief Judge Royce Lamberth in Horn v. Huddle.  Judge Lamberth found that officials of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), including Director George Tenet and an agency attorney, made...

Last week, Stephen M. Kohn was invited by Sibel Edmonds' Boiling Frogs Post to debate Norman L. Eisen, Special Counsel to the President for Ethics and Government Reform on the controversial "Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act" (S. 372). In Mr. Eisen's...

Fred Whitehurst is the whistleblower who revealed that the crime lab at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) failed to live up to its reputation for scientific integrity, and sometimes even resorted to falsifying results. Today Jeff Stein of the...

The administration of Australia's Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, announced plans this week for a new whistleblower law to protect Commonwealth employees. In 2008, the Rudd administration asked Australia's House of Representatives Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs (the Committee)...

The Washington Post and Associated Press are reporting that the Department of Justice failed to properly review more than 100 criminal cases that were prosecuted in the District of Columbia and which were suspected of being tainted by false forensic...

The independent journalism website, truthout.org, is reporting that the Senate is set to "hotline" the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act (WPEA), S. 372.  Hotlining is a procedure in which the Senate leaders agree that a bill is uncontroversial and they put...

Today's Washington Post (Metro page B-1) reports on "a blunt assessment" of Washington DC's Metro transit administration.  Retired Metro manager David L. Gunn wrote the report.  Among other problems, it finds a "shoot the messenger" phenomenon "that discourages employees from...

The Village of North Syracuse, New York, has agreed to pay former police officer Michael Stassi $260,000 to settle his whistleblower retaliation lawsuit.  Stassi had to blow the whistle in 2005 on time card cheating by his superiors. Syracuse.com reports...

Jane Turner had worked as a Special Agent for the FBI for twenty years.  She led efforts to force the FBI to provide protection for child sex crime victims on the North Dakota Indian Reservations. She also reported theft of...