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High Court Trims Whistleblower Rights
iminplaya writes "In yet another blow against free speech rights, the Supreme Court decided that government employees who report wrongdoing do not enjoy 1st Amendment rights while on the job. From the article 'The Supreme Court scaled back protections for government workers who blow the whistle on official misconduct Tuesday, a 5-4 decision in which new Justice Samuel Alito cast the deciding vote [...] The ruling was perhaps the clearest sign yet of the Supreme Court's shift with the departure of moderate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and the arrival of Alito. [...] Stephen Kohn, chairman of the National Whistleblower Center, said: "The ruling is a victory for every crooked politician in the United States."'"
Are China and the US becoming more and more like eachother nowadays? It's like this country is moving to a pseudo-communist form of government :(
If TJ was brought to the future, he'd hate the government as it stands in this point in time, but then again, he'd hate alot of other things with the government now too, like how damned big it is.
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Bit by bit, it seems, that America is changing into something quite different than I was taught in school. Like the supreme court ruling that allows local governments to sieze your land for a better purpose as just one of many examples.
Was it just that I was young and naive and believed in a good country that stuck to its principles? That principles meant something to this country?
The real shame of the Bush regime isn't all the crap he's pulled during his presidency. The real shame, as demonstrated by this latest attack on our "inalienable rights, " is that it's going to take us at least 20 years to undo the damage. I still can't believe we had the opportunity to say goodbye after the first four years but brought him back for four more.
You would think it was the end of the world by the headline. From what I understood of the article government employees should behave like private sector employees. That is, if I shoot my mouth off at work I might get fired. This seems like a no brainer. The speech seems to directly relate to what is said at work, not what is said in public about work. Big difference.
The thing about free speech is this. Your words have consequences, which might include you losing your job. There is no first amendment guarantee to others not taking action against you because of your words.
You can say whatever you like, unless the government really, really doesn't want you to say it.
From the article, stripping away the spin and leaving in what Kennedy actually said:
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"We reject, however, the notion that the First Amendment shields from discipline the expressions employees make pursuant to their professional duties," Kennedy said.
Kennedy said if the superiors thought the memo was inflammatory, they had the authority to punish him.
"Official communications have official consequences, creating a need for substantive consistency and clarity. Supervisors must ensure that their employees' official communications are accurate, demonstrate sound judgment, and promote the employer's mission," Kennedy wrote.
Kennedy said that government workers "retain the prospect of constitutional protection for their contributions to the civic discourse." They do not, Kennedy said, have "a right to perform their jobs however they see fit."
Should government workers really be able to pass around accusatory memos with no ability to be fired? I thought it was already enough of a joke that if you worked for the government you were in for life. Do we not want government employees to be accountable for what they say if it is false?
Speech will still be protected if it is truly whistleblowing, and not just bitching.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The 1st amendment is a restriction preventing laws from being enacted which prevent freedom of speech. It does not, however, grant anybody a right to keep their jobs. It just means you won't be arrested after you're shown the door. The court ruling seems like common sense to me. It doesn't stop anybody from whistleblowing - but don't count on keeping your job if you do.
Can someone clarify this for me?
The Supreme Court scaled back protections for government workers who blow the whistle on official misconduct Tuesday, a 5-4 decision in which new Justice Samuel Alito cast the deciding vote...
So did the other eight vote, and then hold off for Alito, or what? How can you definitively say that Alito cast the deciding vote?
This seems like anti-Alito flamebait to me.
I got my Linux laptop at System76.
Thing is, and I'm no expert on this, but there is a *process* defined by law for whistleblowing. It's not going to your local neighborhood journalist to get your 15 minutes of fame for blowing the whistle to the press. Why? Because in blowing the whistle on illegal activity, you might also compromise perfectly *legitimate* state secrets. There is a chain of command, and if you feel you need to go outside the chain of command, there's other legitimate authorities to blow the whistle to (I suspect if you don't think you can blow the whistle to anyone in the executive branch, then you could go to a senator/congressperson from the minority party, and blow the whistle to them - I think congresspersons have a pretty bulletproof shield for then turning around and bringing it to the public's attention if necessary, or at least to the appropriate congressional committees for investigation; honestly, I don't know what is and isn't allowed, but there *are* whistleblower protection laws, for people who go about it properly).
If you really think the whole system top-to-bottom is so corrupt that *none* of the proper channels for internal government revue can be trusted, well, then I guess you have a choice to make. Practice civil disobedience (by going to the press) and (possibly) go to jail like a man, or not. See, people want to be all "I'm practicing civil disobedience" without *actually* breaking laws.
People might think this sounds crass, but what I'm saying is, in most cases, whistleblowers *can* and *should* work within the system, the legal framework, for whistleblowing without going to jail. If that is not possible, then by going to trial and going to jail, you will be shining a big old spotlight on the problem, and that too can serve the public good. But, if we said that anybody who claims to be whistleblowing can leak anything to the press, then we will be inviting an ever escalating flood of leaks.
when i read "National Whistleblower Center", i just had to google it. sounded like an SNL sketch. i know some of you will argue that noone has a right to keep their job, but this opens the door to legally squash anyone who might uncover your wrongdoing. also, it's not the same as a private company firing someone giving out trade secrets. we have a right to know what's going on in OUR govt. this point seems to be lost, the govt should be accountable to the public, not the other way around.
I understand that they brought this about to try and reduce the number of frivolous lawsuits, but this is really throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater here.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Reading the slip opinion, this case does not seem to be about retaliation for whistleblowing. A government employee was fired because his superiors believed his performance was inadequate, perhaps sparked by an argument over a possibly bad warrant.
All the Court seems to say here is that the memo that Ceballos wrote was not something he wrote as a civilian to "whistleblow," he wrote the memo as part of his job and could indeed be fired for it.
It'd be like getting fired for writing bad software...programmers can't claim their software is a communication protected by the 1st Amendment and then claim they can't be fired for it!
I suspect that one could still write "memos" and send them to journalists as a civilian and have those writings protected.
That whistleblower protection has been abused by employees. It's not uncommon for an employee catching wind of an upcoming termination to either fabricate or amplify some alledged wrongdoing then invoke whistleblower protection to save his/her ass.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
"We're legislating ourselves into becoming a third world nation."
Sadly, this applies far beyond this particular case, or even the original discussion on chemistry discussion at the other site.
The best way to predict the future is to create it. - Peter Drucker.
Wrong. Since police state is also about the measure of fascism ... which is defined by the nationalistic intermingling of corporate business and the rich elite and the gouvernment with a strong reliance on and glorification of the military. And fighting against this is pretty much the premise of communism, long before even the word fascism existed. ... if you are short of examples of fascist states in the last 100 years: Mussolini Italy, Hitler Germany, Franco Spain, Pinochet Chile, Peron Argentinia, Bush America. No shortage of that, and also no shortage of atrocities committed there.
That all so called communist states where police states too is pretty much a result of "to fight a monster, you have to become one". This is no excuse of course, but rather a sign that they were't really communist in the first place.
And oh
Just because I can imagine doing a hippopotamus, doesn't mean I'd like to do it.
America needs to have FEWER, not MORE, lawsuits.
I totally agree, which is why I asked the question in the first place. Call my a cynic, but all the politicos in office just keep writing more and more laws/bills just to justify their own existence and/or legacy.
Our government is becoming bloated with virtually an unmanageable codebase in that laws are to civilization as source code is to a program.
Life is not for the lazy.
It doesn't really prevent people from whistleblowing. It just says that a statement you make under the official capacity of your job is considered part of your job, not free speech, and is thus under the same restrictions/scrutiny of any other aspects of your work.
Does it make it a little harder to define something as legitimate "whisteblowing"? Probably. Is it the end of the world and the begining of an American police state? Probably not.
-------------------------------------------
I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells.
-- Dr. Seuss
As much as we in New Zealand make regular fun of the United States and it's people (and the monkey in charge), and as much as we feel disgust and anger over the war-mongering and bullying tactics of your corrupt government, I am beginning to feel genuinely afraid for the welfare of the American people. This is a tradgedy, to see decline of the land of the free, and the birth of this new and frightening empire.
I truly hope the economic and political abomination which is now emerging falls much faster than Rome. I have little hope that the American people will do anything, or will even try. They are too sucked in by the corporate happy-face, too poorly educated in the true nature of the world, and too overwhelmed with fear at the hand of the war-maker's spin.
There was a time when I aspired to live in the United States. A land of opportunity as they used to say. Now it's the land of the spied upon, the land of continual corporate, military and religious conquest, the land of the un-free, the land of delusions.
When I said pseudo-communism, I meant the type of fake communism employed by the now-gone USSR and the still-existent PRC. I thought it was painfully obvious from the types of references I made.
Neither country listed above employs communism in any form. Look at marxist theory and you can see that neither the USSR nor China were anywhere near a communist state (except maybe china during the days immediately after the revolution.
China ended up as more of a capitalist/faschist hybrid state posing as a communist nation. That's almost where we are headed now.
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Tell this to 40,000 iraqi civilians, and uncounted number of iraqi soldiers that were killed as a result of his actions. Tell this to 2700 american and coalition soldiers dead, to 1000 dead in New Orleans, and to the families of those who died.
Some of the "crap he's pulled" can not be undone, not even in 20 years. Please don't underestimate Bush's crap, even with the damage to the "inalienable rights".
I sometimes wonder "how they sleep at night". Is it easy to tell yourself that the thousands of people killed where all for the best, and it all had to be done? I guess the world has known far greater evil, and they all slept well.
By comparing the savage inequalities of power and wealth in communist nations such as Cuba and North Korea with "income inequality" non-issues of freer nations, I can only conclude that you're mentally ill.
Iraq sure doesn't look very "conquored" to me.
Where's all the oil we have supposedly "stolen"?
This only restricts the exercise of free speech *in the performance of duty*. If employers could not restrict what employees said in the performance of duties, you could have "The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion" going out as an official government memo, and there would be little that could be done about it. Employers need to be able to restrict the speech of their employees while in an official capacity.
Even apart from enshrining racist forgeries as official government memos, not being able to restrict official speech makes it virtually impossible to enforce any sort of protocol. Without established, enforced, and respected protocol the entire chain of command, unity, and general discipline will break down and the organization will founder. The ability to restrict official speech is critical to this.
This ruling strikes a good balance. Makes it clear that you can't simply say anything *in an official capacity*, where you should be representing the interests of those who hired you, while leaving your rights to speak as your own person untouched.
It sure seems like this guy was reprimanded for crossing the line between responsibility and advocacy. It is very common that a "situation" looks different at one level than another. This person was an employee of the DA's office and actively subverted that office. It's not his role or perogative to take this type of action. Had he quit his job and then pursued support of the defense, it would have been legal.
This guy's action would be very similar to tipping off drug dealers about impending raids if the guy thought hte drug in question should be legal.
There's no surprise here and the SFGate article is monstrously misleading.
There is no such thing as First Amendment protection for government employees on their job or related to knowledge they've gained on the job. There never has been. Ask anyone who has been in the military.
"Whistleblower" is a very specific case of protected speech. This guy wasn't a whistleblower. He didn't follow the proper channels and actively helped the opposition of the office where he was employeed.
As the recent events in France show, the European population still believe the state is obliged to take care of them and no European politicians have the guts to stand up and explain that this simply is not possible.
That is why I am beginning to think there should exist a cap on the number of existing laws. You want to make a new law? You need to remove one along with the new one. This is especially nice for taxes. I would also start the cap at a number well below the current number (infinity?) of laws.
:)) would be required. :)
Also, why can they not consolidate laws? For example, would people want one law against murder that listed all the punishments or would they prefer many laws with one for each type of punishment? Lawyers/politicians seem to prefer a greater number unfortunately. Of course the cap I mentioned would at least force consolidation.
To prevent them from combining non-related laws together, public stonings (non-California style
fascism - A governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism.
1. We're not a dictatorship
2. Bush certainly isn't forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism
3. We're a capitalist society. The government doesn't control industry.
4. Nationalism isn't necessarily bad, unless it goes to extremes, which we haven't
5. I haven't seen any signs of racism in the current administration
So, according to this dumbass, America and Britian, during WWII, were facist states; no different than Nazi Germany or Italy.
Points 1 - 10 are dead on for that period of time.
11 and 12 pretty much describe the 1950s in America and the West.
13...That's how the Democrats got all their money...Can we say Joe Kennedy?
14...Well, that's the specialty of the Dems also. They invented election fraud in the modern era.
Please. At least a dozen people were KILLED as a result of torture in Abu Ghraib. The pictures of our soldiers posing with the bodies were all over the internet. Do you really mean to tell me you didn't notice that?
You have got to be fucking kidding me. The Chinese crimes were committed by... wait for it... that's right, CHINA. A country we have very little ability to influence. No matter how you twist it, Clinton is not to blame for what the Chinese government did. On the other hand, the crimes in Abu Ghraib were committed by, yes, that's right, agents of the US GOVERNMENT, who were acting on legal advice provided by the Secretary of Defense.
So please spare me the argument that Clinton's trade liberalization with China is somehow morally equivalent to US Government-conducted torture of prisoners.
Sean
It ain't politics when a group takes over a government by stealing at the very least two elections, the data on the Florida election is by now self-explanatory, while half the Ohio state elections board is under indictment.
Duuuuuhhhh.....when they have rolled back workers' rights, human rights, women's rights, labor union rights, we's truly and totally screwed. They will continue to dissolve the socioeconomic middle-class until there is absolutely nothing left. This is called neofeudalism.
Either you one of them are you are hopelessly clueless.....
The United States clearly shows your signs 1, 3, and 7.
The United States less clearly shows signs 2, 6, 9, 10, 13, 14
The only signs I'd say that the United States isn't showing at all are 5, 8, and 11 - and the current president has tried really hard for 8.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.