Q: What prompted your longstanding advocacy of whistleblowers?
A: Whistleblowers are unsung heroes who often risk losing their livelihoods, friends and career to expose wrongdoing. It takes courage and integrity to go against the grain, especially in tightly controlled organizations like the Pentagon and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In both the public and private sectors, an underlying rule of thumb within the workplace is to go along to get along. Taxpayers and the general public owe a debt of gratitude to those who fight an often lonely crusade to blow the whistle from within their ranks. My legislative advocacy for whistleblowers began almost 20 years ago in the mid-1980s. An employee started raising questions about the astronomical prices being paid for toilet seats, hammers and coffee pots at the Pentagon. With these revelations, I started a defense reform campaign that exposed cozy contracts and a flagrant absence of financial accountability at the Defense Department. Not surprisingly, the whistleblower was less popular at work than a skunk at a Sunday afternoon picnic. But his courage to come forward saved the taxpayers big time. In 1986, I co-authored an update of Abe Lincoln’s False Claims Act to include "qui tam"provisions. This legal tool empowers ordinary citizens to bring a lawsuit alleging fraud on behalf of the U.S. government. In the last 16 years, this law has recovered more than $5.2 billion tax dollars. I also co-wrote the 1989 Whistleblower Protection Act. Over the last two decades, I have worked to protect numerous whistleblowers from reprisal by various federal government agencies and government contractors.
Q: Do whistleblowers still need protection?
A: Most definitely. Right now I have a handful of irons in the fire. Whether it’s protecting the rights of whistleblowers at the newly formed Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, or publicly trade companies on Wall Street, it’s obvious I must stand watch to prevent whistleblower protections from getting watered down or worse. By the end of the year, the president will sign into law creation of the Department of Homeland Security. I worked hard to extend whistleblower protections, including adequate procedural remedies, to the 170,000 federal workers whose agencies will come under one umbrella organization dedicated to protecting our borders, transportation infrastructure, food supply, energy systems and other services from terrorism. Whether raising the red flag on food safety, government waste, health care fraud, airport security, corporate corruption or national security, whistleblowers put a lot on the line to protect the public and taxpayers. They deserve strong protections under the law from intimidation, harassment, demotion or even dismissal for doing the right thing. In my book, whistleblowers are modern day patriots.