The Dusty Dog

Court Flushes Whistleblower Rights

High court trims whistleblower rights

In a victory for the Bush administration, justices said the 20 million public employees do not have free-speech protections for what they say as part of their jobs.

Critics predicted the impact would be sweeping, from silencing police officers who fear retribution for reporting department corruption, to subduing federal employees who want to reveal problems with government hurricane preparedness or terrorist-related security.

Supporters said that it will protect governments from lawsuits filed by disgruntled workers pretending to be legitimate whistleblowers.

I'm disgusted. So totally disgusted, I cannot even tell you. Federal employees have just lost one of their rights of free speech.

Here's a hypothetical.... If a federal worker is surfing porn, and believe me, particular co-workers in the federal government do surf porn, a co-worker who becomes a whistleblower, as of today, can no longer be protected under the Whistleblower Protection Act for reporting this if a supervisor decides to protect the porn king over the whistleblower. How's that for total bullshit? But, the only thing that previously protected a whistleblower was the WPA. Till today. Now, that's gone. This is what the neocon-loving cockroaches voted for. I'm gonna be sick. Really sick. Thank Goddess that I blew the whistle before this ruling became law. I was protected from the retaliation my supervisor tried to lay on me.

This from the NYTimes.com:

"We hold that when public employees make statements pursuant to their official duties, the employees are not speaking as citizens for First Amendment purposes, and the Constitution does not insulate their communications from employer discipline," Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the court.

...skip....

In writing the decision that reversed the Ninth Circuit today, Justice Kennedy noted that the Supreme Court has made it clear in previous rulings "that public employees do not surrender all their First Amendment rights by reason of their employment." On the other hand, he wrote, "When a citizen enters government service, the citizen by necessity must accept certain limitations on his or her freedom."

What freakin' limitations? We're not stupid. We know that the only reason the neocons won this battle in the supremely neocon court is because they don't want to be outed for the repeated misdeads, cover-ups, blunders and outright lies. If you don't believe me, check out Wikipedia's listing of famous whistleblowers. They all reported misdeeds perpetrated by miscreants, and got retaliated against for doing so. This from the National Whistleblowers Center:

“Almost every major credible whistleblower exposed wrongdoing as part of their ‘professional duties,’” stated Stephen M. Kohn, Chairman of National Whistleblower Center. “That is the definition of whistleblowing. The ruling is a victory for every crooked politician in the United States,” Kohn Said. The Court struck at the heart of whistleblowing: When an employee learns of corruption as part of his or her ‘official duties,’ and exposes the wrongdoing, five Supreme Court judges have granted permission to fire the honest public employee,” Kohn added.

As a result of the five member majority decision, a person who burns the American flag is protected from retaliation, but an honest public employee who exposes waste, fraud and corruption can be fired. The decision defies common sense,” Kohn said. Justice Kennedy authored both the decision protecting flag burning, and today’s decision in Garcetti v. Ceballos.

I feel really sick.

posted by Dusty Dog at 5/30/2006