Temat: WHISTLEBLOWER NEWS 2013 – 7. GAP's mission is to promote...

WHISTLEBLOWER NEWS 2013 – 7. GAP's mission is to promote corporate and government accountability by protecting whistleblowers, advancing occupational free speech, and empowering citizen activists.

The National Law Journal: An Important Win for Whistleblowers
Summary: The broadly construed whistleblower protections in the Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002, which was enacted after the major accounting scandals at Enron, WorldCom and Tyco International, were recently upheld by the Third Circuit court in a whistleblower case against Tyco. The decision will preserve key protection rights against employee retaliation for future corporate whistleblowers.

Acclaimed Documentary Puts Whistleblowers in the Spotlight
Summary: Robert Greenwald’s new documentary, War on Whistleblowers, tells the story of four national security whistleblowers (two of them GAP clients) and the threats to civil liberties that their stories serve to illuminate. The film has been achieving critical success, currently playing in New York and Los Angeles, with more cities to come. This blog post highlights some of the film's reviews.

Secretary General Announces Review of Whistleblower Protections at the United Nations
Summary: In the wake of a press conference earlier this month, which featured GAP International Officer Shelley Walden speaking along with UN whistleblower James Wasserstrom, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has announced that the multilateral organization will review its policy on whistleblower protection. Walden explains the implications of the statement and encourages additional steps toward implementation in this blog post. 


Village Voice: War on Whistleblowers Enunciates the Nation’s Servility to Corporate Fat Cats
Summary: This recent review of War on Whistleblowers, the new documentary that tells the stories of four national security whistleblowers (including two GAP clients), focuses on the film's unsettling ability to reveal the US government’s submission to large corporate interests. Businessman and politicians are seen as of the same ‘ruthless and callous breed’ when it comes to being exposed for wrongdoing.

Radio Free Europe: Whistleblower’s Case Revives Concerns of Punitive Psychiatry in Russia
Summary: A Russian labor union chairwoman, who blew the whistle when she found out one of her organization’s accountants had been bribed with an apartment from the Kremlin administration, has been sent by authorities to a psychiatric hospital as punishment. Russian prosecutors allegedly have no trouble ordering mental evaluations and, according to the article, the tactic is returning in Russia as an effective silencer for whistleblowers and dissenters. The psychiatric institution has confirmed her mental health is stable, though the government is also accusing her of embezzlement.

Rolling Stone: Whistleblowers’ Film Highlights Dangers of Crackdown
Summary: Robert Greenwald’s new film War on Whistleblowers, focusing on the stories of four national security whistleblowers (including GAP clients Tom Drake and Franz Gayl) illustrates the growing threat that government secrets pose to the foundations of American democracy. This dangerous path is laid out by a combination of the Obama administration’s contention that greater secrecy allows for greater security and the lucrative financial incentives centered around creating that secrecy – which the whistleblowers in the film attempted to expose.
This article focuses on one of the film’s subjects, NSA whistleblower Tom Drake, who exposed gross waste and fraud involving an illegal program that spied on American citizens. Drake has since become an outspoken critic of the Obama administration’s rampant use of the Espionage Act to equate exposing the truth with spying.

Source: http://whistleblower.org