Just a few months back we wrote about a long overdue update to the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989. Senator Chuck Grassley pushed the new legislation for more than a decade and the new rules helped implement much needed protections for federal workers who come forward with evidence of wrongdoing in the workplace.
President Obama signed the new law in November and then he signed the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act on January 2nd. The NDAA extends many of the same protections contained in the Whistleblower Protection Act to workers in the nation's defense industry who come forward to expose corruption and waste. To the surprise of many, Obama also included a signing statement with the NDAA, writing that the bill's whistleblower protections could be interpreted in a way that might interfere with the President's authority to manage executive branch officials. Given this risk, the President's signing statement made clear he would ignore the NDAA if it conflicted with his power to supervise employees' communications with Congress in cases where such communication would either be illegal or reveal privileged information.
The director of the Government Accountability Project has come out against the signing statement, saying that 12 million defense contractors will suffer because of the President's statement. The signing statement essentially says that defense employees are supposed to go to their boss before going to Congress to report problems, something that totally defeats the purpose of blowing the whistle.
The language Obama used was incredibly vague and could be interpreted by the President to include a multitude of situations where the NDAA will be ignored. The bill's sponsors were never told of the signing statement and have since come out and said that the President's remarks are "deeply disturbing" and warned it could undo all the hard work meant to protect defense contractors.
Senator Grassley warned at the time the law was signed back in November that there remained plenty of work to do. The recently revealed signing statement is further proof that Grassley was right. Beyond the unknown consequences of the signing statement, whistleblower protections have yet to be extended to a crucial piece of the government apparatus, those contractors in the intelligence community. This large group of employees remains without protection should they witness waste or corruption and feel the desire to bring such problems to light. Hopefully action will be taken in the future to strengthen, rather than weaken federal whistleblower protections.
Sources:
GAP Position on President Obama's NDAA 2013 Signing Statement published at Whistleblower.org on January 16, 2013.
Why Is Obama Bashing a Whistleblower Law He Already Signed? by Dana Liebelson, published at MotherJones.com on January 10, 2013.
Signing Statement Raises Concerns for Whistleblowers published at TheGazette.com on January 16, 2013.
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Grassley Follow-up: Letter to Treasury Secretary Geithner and IRS Commissioner Shulman
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