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 Since its formation 1988, the National Whistleblower Center has provided protection and assistance to thousands of whistleblowers across the United States. The Center has focused on exposing government and corporate misconduct and promoting the highest standards of ethics. In its short history, the Center has revolutionized protections for employee whistleblowers. In addition to protecting the jobs and careers of numerous whistleblowers, the Center’s victories include the following:
- Winning reinstatement for the highest ranking nuclear whistleblower;
- Collecting millions of dollars in damages on behalf of whistleblowers;
- Using the Freedom of Information Act to force government agencies to release hundreds of thousands of pages of information documenting government misconduct;
- Exposing misconduct at the World Trade Center and the 9/11 crime scenes, including theft by FBI agents and the mishandling of evidence;
- Documenting deficiencies in the FBI’s counterterrorism program;
- Requiring the FBI to create whistleblower protection for FBI agents for the first time in U.S. history;
- Forcing the FBI to accredit its crime lab;
- Forcing the Attorney General to withdraw gag orders on government employees who desired to expose ethical violations to Members of Congress;
- Successfully working with Congress to ensure passage of critical whistleblower protection laws, such as the No-Fear Act, the Sarbanes-Oxley Corporate Whistleblower Protection Act, and the Civil Rights Tax Relief Act;
- Forcing President Bush to withdraw his nomination for head of enforcement at the Environmental Protection Agency due to former retaliation against whistleblowers;
- Preventing federal agencies from gagging employee speech critical of agency policies;
- Banning “hush money” payments for all environmental and nuclear federal safety cases;
- Exposing the vulnerabilities of U.S. nuclear power plants to airborne terrorist attacks and forcing reforms in the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission;
- Ensuring that military whistleblowers are informed of their rights by the Department of Defense;
- Establishing numerous legal precedents strengthening whistleblower protections for public and private sector employees, including expanding the scope of protected whistleblower speech, enjoining government regulations which restricted whistleblowing, and expanding the use of the Privacy Act to prevent the government from smearing its critics.
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