Letter to the Editor

The Enron case and many of your examples of corporate abuse in the Ten Worst Corporations of the Year make clear the vital importance of whistleblowers in calling attention to corporate wrongdoing.

Yet, 12 years after the U.S. Congress passed the Whistleblower Protection Act (WPA) in order to defend citizens who report wrongdoing in government from on-the-job retaliation, there is disturbing evidence to show that the new law has failed to accomplish its purpose. At the same time, the increasing tendency for federal agencies to “kill the messenger” who goes public with reports of public corruption has made it extremely dangerous for concerned citizens to report mismanagement or outright theft anywhere in the federal bureaucracy.

As the president of Integrity International — the non-profit and non-partisan organization I founded 20 years ago to provide psychological counseling and other services for whistleblowers — I’m alarmed about the way in which the U.S. court system is now stacked against those who seek to defend themselves by invoking the WPA. Our country needs these courageous individuals to continue blowing the whistle on fiscal and management abuses that cost the taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars each year.

But who can blame whistleblowers for feeling betrayed and punished as a result of their good deeds, in a court system that remains completely unwilling to enforce the WPA? A compelling example of this judicial failure can be found at the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington — where all 70 whistleblowers who appealed lower court decisions denying them relief for alleged whistleblower-linked reprisals by government agencies between 1994 and 2001 were denied their claims.

As unlikely as it might sound, the judicial scorecard for whistleblower cases at the appeals court now reads: U.S. Government 70, Whistleblowers 0.

Today the federal establishment’s continuing hostility toward whistleblowers can be seen everywhere. Recently the government announced that under its new federal airport security program, all “federalized” airport security workers will be “specifically excluded” from the protections of the WPA. What does that decision say about this nation’s commitment to whistleblowers?

Make no mistake: If we lose our ability as a nation to speak out against wrongdoing in government, we will pay a very high price.

- Don Soeken,
Laurel, Maryland

Donald R. Soeken, Ph.D., was a Public Health Service officer for more than 25 years, until his retirement in 1996. He is the founder of Integrity International, a non-profit organization that assists whistleblowers.