TIME Magazine's "Persons of the Year"

TIME Magazine's "Persons of the Year"

TIME magazine has named whistleblowers Coleen Rowley, Sherron Watkins and Cynthia Cooper as its "Persons of the Year." Sen. Chuck Grassley has a long history of protecting and encouraging whistleblowers. He was the Senate author of the 1986 amendments to the False Claims Act, strengthening the incentives for whistleblowers to expose government fraud. With Sen. Patrick Leahy, Grassley co-authored the new corporate whistleblower protection law, enacted as part of the Sarbanes-Oxley corporate accountability law. Grassley and Leahy also authored the FBI whistleblower protections in the FBI Reform Act, which the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approved last spring but which was blocked from a Senate vote by an anonymous hold. Grassley and Leahy currently are acting to protect another FBI whistleblower, John Roberts, from retaliation. Grassley made the following comment on TIME magazine's selection.

"In ?A Christmas Carol,' Ebenezer Scrooge sees his life as if he hadn't changed his awful ways. If these whistleblowers hadn't come forward, Enron and WorldCom might still be harming innocent people. The FBI headquarters might have gotten away with disregarding the knowledge of its field staff. Whistleblowers affect change, and they do so courageously. It takes a lot of bravery to speak out in a corporate or bureaucratic environment that encourages people to go along to get along. Whistleblowers are American heroes. They earned TIME magazine's honor, and as I've said before, they deserve a Rose Garden ceremony with the President."