CFC # 10222

FAIR USE NOTICE

Stephen M. Kohn, Chairman of the Center’s Board of Directors, has written four books on whistleblowing, including the first legal treatise ever written on whistleblower law.

The National Whistleblower Center (Center) is a nonprofit, tax exempt, educational and advocacy organization dedicated to helping whistleblowers. Since 1988, the Center has used whistleblowers’ disclosures to improve environmental protection, nuclear safety, and government and corporate accountability.

FBI whistleblowers Jane Turner, a 24-year veteran special agent who exposed possible theft by FBI agents at the World Trade Center’s “Ground Zero.”

The primary goal of the Center is to ensure that disclosures about government or industry actions that violate the law or harm the environment are fully heard, and that the whistleblowers who risk their careers to expose wrongdoing are defended. The Center’s mission is to strengthen the rights of whistleblowers and to help make their underlying claims known to the public in order to safeguard the welfare of the American people. To accomplish these goals, the Center supports whistleblowers who raise significant and credible allegations of wrongdoing, advocates responsible corrective action on behalf of the whistleblowers, educates Congress on the need to protect whistleblowers, and insists officials be held fully accountable for their conduct.

David K. Colapinto, an attorney for numerous FBI and nuclear power whistleblowers, was one of the founders of the Center.

The Center sponsors a number of programs in support of whistleblowers, including a national referral service, an informative web site, sponsorship of test-case litigation, public education programs, advocacy in Congress, and “friend of the court” briefs filed in major Supreme Court cases.

The Center's success is unparalleled, with its groundbreaking work in the areas of environmental protection and nuclear power, forensic sciences, FBI oversight, and more recently, Defense Department financial mismanagement.

Dr. Frederic Whitehurst became the first major whistleblower from the FBI. Represented by attorneys for the Center, Dr. Whitehurst's public exposure of fraud and abuse in the FBI crime lab led to numerous reforms, including the outside accreditation of the crime lab.

Since 1993, the Center has championed whistleblowers employed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The Center works with FBI Special Agents, managers, and support employees in exposing breakdowns in numerous programs which directly impact national security and civil liberties. These include breakdowns in the post-9/11 counterintelligence programs, exposure of due process violations harming U.S. Citizens, and major abuses within the FBI’s own internal affairs office. In 1997, the Center was responsible for a historic presidential directive ordering the U.S. Attorney General to implement regulations protecting FBI whistleblowers. The Center's support of Dr. Frederic Whitehurst, the FBI scientist who "blew the whistle" on misconduct within the FBI crime lab, resulted in extensive laboratory reforms. Dr. Whitehurst now heads the Center's Forensic Justice Project.

The Center’s General Counsel, Michael D. Kohn, has represented environmental whistleblowers at corporations around the U.S. including, Southern Nuclear, Ashland Chemical Corporation and Comanche Peak Nuclear Power Plant.

The Center won a landmark ruling that enabled environmental whistleblowers to engage in "core protected" speech and granted them strong protections under the First Amendment. The Center’s work has also expanded the scope of protected activity for whistleblowers, and obtained precedents prohibiting "hostile work environments" for whistleblowers who remain employed. The Center's staff has worked with whistleblowers at chemical plants who exposed illegally- stored chemical waste and leaks into the environment, established protection for EPA employees under the whistleblower provisions of the environmental laws, and gained the rights of community groups to hear dissenting opinions from EPA scientists who criticize the agency's relationship with certain polluters. In addition, the Center has set precedent before U.S. courts, administrative agencies, and the NRC prohibiting "hush money settlements" (the payment to witnesses for withholding information and/or testimony).

The NWC represented EPA employee William Sanjour in a landmark First Amendment case establishing the right of government employees to publicly blow the whistle on their management’s misconduct.

The Center is nonpartisan and does not endorse candidates for public office; however, the Center works closely with members of Congress in ensuring that whistleblowers obtain adequate protection. In 1986, the Center’s Executive Director was a major leader in the effort to amend the False Claims Act, and was successful advocating for whistleblower protection and qui tam provisions to be incorporated into that law. More recently, the Center’s staff proposed whistleblower protections in the 2002 Corporate Reform Act (Sarbanes-Oxley). Again, the Center’s efforts were fully successful and the Wall Street reform law incorporated one of the most important whistleblower provisions ever enacted by Congress.

Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Center has been assisting numerous whistleblowers in sensitive security areas, including the nuclear power industry and the FBI, who have exposed breakdowns and weaknesses in our nation’s Post 9/11 counter terrorism program.

The Center has also been involved in establishing some of the most important precedents in the area of government accountability. Its attorneys and staff have participated in major Congressional oversight activities including investigations into the Department of Energy, FBI, DOD, NRC and EPA, corporate abuse and misuse of federal ethics rules.

In order to ensure its independence, the Center accepts no government grants or corporate sponsorship. The Center is supported by tax deductible contributions from the public, members’ dues for the Fairness For Whistleblowers Network, from private foundations, and concerned private citizens. 

The National Whistleblower Center works with the National Whistleblower Legal Defense and Education Fund (NWLDEF), a separate and independent organization, to operate a number of programs beneficial to whistleblowers. The attorney referral service (ARS) has attorney members in 40 states and the District of Columbia. The ARS is operated solely by the NWLDEF.

Since 1988 attorneys affiliated with the Center have represented leading nuclear safety whistleblowers. In 2002, they achieved victory in the thirteen-year long case of Marvin Hobby, a high level corporate whistleblower.

Since its inception, the Center has participated in several public education and continuing legal education programs, including those Sponsored by ABA, ATLA, NLG, Department of Labor, NRC, and the Office of Inspectors General.

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