Watch out, Whistleblowers: Congress and Courts Move to Curtail Leaks (xpost)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1091595

Watch out, Whistleblowers: Congress and Courts Move to Curtail Leaks

House Republicans introduced legislation yesterday targeting the already-delayed whistleblower rule in the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. The proposed change would require corporate whistleblowers to report problems internally before going to financial regulators. The move, is backed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, is just the latest in a series of setbacks for those who favor strengthening whistleblowers rules to encourage reporting of wrongdoing within government and businesses.

Whistleblowers were dealt another blow last week when a federal court of appeals ruled that corporate whistleblower protections don’t cover leaks to the media. According to the Los Angeles Times, the panel of judges ruled that individuals blowing the whistle on publicly traded companies are only protected from retaliation when they report the wrongdoing to financial regulators—which could discourage future leaks to the media.

Whistleblower groups are also protesting a provision in the Intelligence Authorization Bill that would allow intelligence officials to penalize employees and former employees for disclosure of classified information without needing a conviction to do so. The Government Accountability Project has said that under the proposed law, intelligence officials need only reach a "determination" that a knowing violation occurred.

The Obama administration has also been cracking down on major breaches of classified government information and is working to build a case against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. NPR reports that the effort is part of a broader campaign by the Obama administration to curtail leaks:

http://www.propublica.org/blog/item/watch-out-whistleblowers-congress-and-courts-move-to-curtail-leaks