Congress Encourages President To Enact An Executive Proposal To Resurrect The Careers of Past Whistl
A group of whistleblowers sent a proposal to President Barack Obama requesting that he enact an order that would give immediate relief and redress to past federal law enforcement and national security whistleblowers. On April 30, 2009, a bipartisan group of congressmen sent a letter to President Obama urging him to enact MacLean's proposal:
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In addition to these forward-looking reforms, we encourage you to take action to restore the careers of employees who were wrongly terminated or marginalized by previous administrations after blowing the whistle. Specifically, we recommend the issuance of an Executive Order establishing a program to review individual cases, and where significant injustice has occurred, to make the employee whole by restoring them to government service. The country can undoubtedly benefit from the professionalism and expertise of many of the employees who were wrongly removed from federal service. |
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Even if enhanced whistleblower protection legislation is enacted, it will not be retroactive. Employees who blew the whistle in the past will still be in dead-end positions or unemployed. Many whistleblower protection acts have been passed since the Lloyd-La Follette Act of 1912, but to this day, there is very little faith in the system - to would-be whistleblowers, any new law is just another piece of paper without teeth. Employees do not research law or consult with an attorney prior to exposing violations that may end their careers; they only read the news about legitimate whistleblowers still unemployed while they spend their life savings trying to win their jobs back in overburdened venues such as the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB). MacLean told congress on ABC News that no one will risk their career to expose wrongdoing if past whistleblowers are still twisting in the wind.
Read more about this topic: Robert Mac Lean
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