News

When Dr. Frederic Whitehurst initially blew the whistle on the systemic forensic fraud in the FBI crime lab, he could never have known it was the start of a lifelong fight for government accountability. In 1994, he reported his concerns...

At a meeting last week, the Chemical Safety Board (CSB) announced that it would reverse its recommendation to institute whistleblower protections to workers on offshore oil rigs. This unfortunate turn will be bad for workers, destructive to the environment, and quite...

SEC anticipates paying an additional $221 million to whistleblowers in FY2018. Washington, DC, November 16, 2017.  The Securities and Exchange Commission’s Office of the Whistleblower issued its annual report today. The Commission confirmed that “whistleblowers have provided tremendous value to its enforcement...

Washington, D.C. November 15, 2017. Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) has put forth two amendments to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Bill that are important to whistleblowers. The major amendment addresses an issue that has been the subject of previous posts,...

To this day, Congress has not passed a comprehensive whistleblower protection law. Unlike other areas of employment law, such as federal laws prohibiting race, sex, or age discrimination, there is no uniform national law to provide understandable rules and procedures...

Dissenting judges decry “denial of due process” for FBI whistleblowers. October 26, 2017. Washington, D.C.  The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, sitting en banc, ruled against veterans who are employed at the Federal Bureau of Investigation and...

On Tuesday, October 17, 2017, Senator Charles Grassley and the Securities and Exchange Commission joined the National Whistleblower Center in supporting the whistleblower in Digital Realty Trust v. Somers (No. 16-1276) by filing amicus briefs with the U.S. Supreme Court. In Somers, the fates of corporate...

The fate of corporate whistleblowers and compliance programs is on the line as the U.S. Supreme Court reviews the case of Digital Realty Trust V. Somers. At issue in this case is whether whistleblowers who report potential violations within their organizations, as opposed to...

This term the U.S. Supreme Court will decide Digital Realty Trust v. Somers (Digital), one of the most important whistleblower cases to come before the Court in 20-years.   The Chamber of Commerce and its Wall Street allies want to strip...

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has appointed Julian Schmoke, to head the agency’s Student Aid Enforcement Unit, the unit tasked with investigating fraud at for-profit colleges. Mr. Schmoke previously served as a dean at DeVry University, a for-profit school that...