High Court Trims WhistleBlowers Rights

[Samildanach]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...&type=politics

The Supreme Court scaled back protections for government workers who blow the whistle on official misconduct Tuesday, a 5-4 decision in which new Justice Samuel Alito cast the deciding vote. In a victory for the Bush administration, justices said the 20 million public employees do not have free-speech protections for what they say as part of their jobs. Critics predicted the impact would be sweeping, from silencing police officers who fear retribution for reporting department corruption, to subduing federal employees who want to reveal problems with government hurricane preparedness or terrorist-related security. Supporters said that it will protect governments from lawsuits filed by disgruntled workers pretending to be legitimate whistleblowers. The ruling was perhaps the clearest sign yet of the Supreme Court's shift with the departure of moderate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and the arrival of Alito.

[Milton Bradley]

Quote by: Samildanach The Supreme Court scaled back protections for government workers who blow the whistle on official misconduct Tuesday, a 5-4 decision in which new Justice Samuel Alito cast the deciding vote.

Well, you can't have a totally oppressive dictatorship with people demanding accountability, or transparency from their government, now can you?

[Short Round]

We get what we deserve. GO USA USA USA

[Samildanach]

I don't know what you guys are doing but your country is starting to go tohell in a handbasket, and no one is DOING anything. Whats going on?

[Short Round]

Quote by: Samildanach I don't know what you guys are doing but your country is starting to go tohell in a handbasket, and no one is DOING anything. Whats going on?

We don't care. We're too busy trying to rape our children (i'm serious).

/moral cesspool for the lose.

[bishop]

Quote by: Samildanach I don't know what you guys are doing but your country is starting to go tohell in a handbasket, and no one is DOING anything. Whats going on?

there's the great combination of helplessness and apathy. and whenever people do take it upon themselves to protest, most people just sit on the sidelines and observe. (i also think that our country's massive size could have something to do with it.) i'm definitely guilty of being helpless and/or apathetic, but i have no intention on voting for either major party for the foreseeable future (save a few people that i view favorably).

[tivodan1116]

This is bad as a matter of policy, but good as a matter of the written law (originalism). What the decision says is that employers may use employment remedies against employees who take adverse actions as part of their job. If this guy had made his "whistleblowing" statements outside of the job, in a letter to the editor of a newspaper for example, it would have been protected.
I'm not sure about the implications to public employers, but private employers should be able to hire, fire, and promote for whatever reason they wish.

[brien]

Quote by: Samildanach I don't know what you guys are doing but your country is starting to go tohell in a handbasket, and no one is DOING anything. Whats going on?

The sheeple don't pay attention to government and accountability to the constitutional requirements of those who we TRUST to run the behemoth. They are too busy paying mortgages, utility bills, and worrying about their next credit card bill, not to mention the job they have to hold since they are one paycheck away from bankruptcy. They are too busy voting for the next "American Idol." instead of the best available candidate for government. God only knows what would happen if they paid as much attention to their politicians as they do their silly american idols. They're doped with religion on the weekends or they get Saturday and Sunday to use their minds to think about anything but another worry.

There is one, and only one thing, that would wake the sheeple out of their complacent sleep; economic collapse. Americans would hold their politicians firmly accountable when they lost their homes, their cars, and their lifestyles of barbecues and backyard pools. Even another terrorist attack wouldn't force the sheeple to hold their representatives accountable. They would blame the terrorists instead of the politicians for not being ready to repel an attack against this nation. Hell, the sheeple won't even hold their representatives responsible for the invasion under way right now from the southern border. Watch and see how many incumbents get re-elected.

The American electorate doesn't get it. They continually bad mouth the opposite party's elected officials for what is wrong in the system today. Hey, this is the easy way out. It is much easier to blame a Democratic congressman and praise a Republican Senator, than peel away the curtain that proves they are both the same when it comes down to the nitty gritty. What is the difference between Jefferson taking a $100K bribe and Tom Delay's corruption? We no longer demand truth in government but we as consumers demand truth in lending, truth on labels, and truth in advertising. American don't visulaize themselves as consumers when it comes to government.

The sooner Americans understand that they are very much a consumer when it comes to government as they are out in the economic system, perhaps the sooner we will see real change in government through the election of honest government officials. Elected representatives that will place the people of this nation first and their own selfish agenas in the toilet. And then flush twice, since it is a long way to Washington DC.

[italiangm]

Quote by: tivodan1116 What the decision says is that employers may use employment remedies against employees who take adverse actions as part of their job. If this guy had made his "whistleblowing" statements outside of the job, in a letter to the editor of a newspaper for example, it would have been protected.

If true, then this ruling encourages public employees to air official wrongdoing in the public eye instead of attempting to resolve problems internally first.

Looking forward to the deluge of dirty laundry. Should be quite interesting.

[nm420]

Quote by: Samildanach I don't know what you guys are doing but your country is starting to go tohell in a handbasket, and no one is DOING anything. Whats going on?

Hmm, not to say that the US isn't on its way to a repressive police state, but don't you think the UK is in about the same position, if not worse? What's going on is that a small group of people are looking to control the world, and they're not going to take "no" for an answer.

[twoanickel]

Quote by: Samildanach http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...&type=politics

I believe that at this point we can say with confidence that federalism has been tried and it failed misrably. Run the politicians out of the beltway and abandon federal buildings to tehe bats and screech owls. Federal properties should in the future belong to the states where those properties are. All such property, if marketable, should be auctioned offf and the millions of acres which the feds have confiscated cortrary to their constituional
authority should be put up for sale or auctioned off. If it weren't for the federal govt, there would not have been a civil war, WWI, WWII, the Korean or the vietnam war. OR the Iraqi fiasco.

Return all troops to their states and break the armed forces into 50 seperate arms which could operate jointly if ever necessary for national defense. All state funds would remain in the states which produced the wealth and without the federal beast to feed, the economies of the states would flourish, and the states would do a better job of caring for those truly in need at a much more reasonalble cost.

[5010]

Sounds like "throw away the baby with the bath water". The fed powers just need a major cleansing. I don't think they are all bad. We can't be a superpower without unity, and I'd hate to think where we'd be now if we weren't a superpower when USSR was.

[twoanickel]

Quote by: 5010 Sounds like "throw away the baby with the bath water". The fed powers just need a major cleansing. I don't think they are all bad. We can't be a superpower without unity, and I'd hate to think where we'd be now if we weren't a superpower when USSR was.

Big money people in the USA built the soviet empire. If they had not had the grasp on power that the federal government provided them, there would have not been any objective in establishing communism. Power divided between fifty states rather than concentrated in the fiederal government would have left them without a motive. Thius won't make sense to you unless you factor in the one world aspiriations of the ultra-rich megalomaniacs in this country. They have been working for a one world government since before the days of Woodrow Wilson. The federal government gave them a base upon which to build the even larger "New World Order." If those megalomaniacs had tor access to the unified power of the entire USA, they could not have fabricated such a wild-eyed idea. If you think the central government is a "baby" in the bathwater, rethink. Imagine something like a beast.

[tipper 11]

Either the Supreme Court doesn't want to work, because part of deciding cases is investigating the possibility of disgruntled employee allegations...or its covering its own ass.

[tipper 11]

Quote by: Samildanach I don't know what you guys are doing but your country is starting to go tohell in a handbasket, and no one is DOING anything. Whats going on?

We're so accustomed to being protected by a piece of paper that we don't know what to do without the rights it gave us. Any suggestions from abroad? Petitioning the government seems to do absolutely nothing. Voting is a joke. What would they do where you're from?

[Samildanach]

I say take a lesson from the french and start some riots. They don't take any shit from anyone. Hmmm, your system is different to ours though. A large percentage of your population doesn't seem to be very smart or is just plain not interested in politics until they get told which way to vote at election time.... then they seem to act like they are voting for a football team rather then the person and party that is going to make decisions like taking the country to war.
Your piece of paper doesn't seem to be doing shit where protection is concerned either......one of the advantages of not being protected by a piece of paper is you have to look after your own protection because you know if you don't look out for your own freedom, no one else will, the british public is exceedingly politically aware compared to the US.
I think the constitution may be one of the biggest cons in US history. Its supposed to guarantee you protection, but because you are brought up to believe it does, people then don't give a crap when those freedoms start to get trampled because they are under the belief that those freedoms are 'guaranteed'. They are indoctrinated with those ideas in school right from day one. I say throw out that worthless piece of paper and start looking out for yourselves....to be honest though anything short of a revolution isn't going to cut it. Its really too late in a lot of ways, most of your population has already voluntarily surrendered their freedom without realising it.

[puellamore]

It's not the fault of the Constitution, but it is the fault of our American culture The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, but that is not the priority of most Americans. It's all about greed and selfishness and "me me me me". The need to drive the biggest, baddest vehicle; the need to have the biggest McMansion; the need to feel superior to everybody else. (That's one of the reasons for the tremendous growth of intolerant christianity - the need to have plenty of inferior scapegoats.)

[Osborn F Enready]

I can only quote the most apropos words I can muster.....

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”
-John F. Kennedy, 1962

“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”
-Thomas Jefferson

“Reason obeys itself; and ignorance does whatever is dictated to it.”
-Thomas Paine, Rights of Man ("Conclusion")


My best advice....

Don't be ignorant, or worse, complacent.