“Now that’s more like it!”
Supremes Uphold Position of the Bush Administration, Limiting Free-Speech Rights for Whistleblowers
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.
The ruling overturned an appeals court decision that said Los Angeles County prosecutor Richard Ceballos was constitutionally protected when he wrote a memo questioning whether a county sheriff’s deputy had lied in a search warrant affidavit. Ceballos had filed a lawsuit claiming he was demoted and denied a promotion for trying to expose the lie.
Stephen Kohn, chairman of the National Whistleblower Center, said: “The ruling is a victory for every crooked politician in the United States.”
Alito casts the deciding vote. Good work, free thinker!
Hmmmmmm…What does this have to do with FLAG BURNING or GAY MARRIAGE? 🙂
People either get it or they don’t. This is the worst administration this country ever had to endure and I fear we will never fully recover from it. These people are crooks and liars…….and the only god that they worship is the almighty -but slipping- dollar…..
How do we know Alito cast the deciding vote? Did it say that it was a tie and Alito came up to bat, swung, and hit the ball onto the anti-whistleblower side?
I noticed that 5 Justices voted for the goverment argument. Any of them COULD have been the 5th vote.
Good story and article to think about….but without the leading title.
As the FBI raids a congressional office in a crackdown on corruption, the court declares that it doesn’t like whistleblowers.
Translation:
If the guy on top is chasing out bad guys, that’s okay, it’s part of his job. But if the guy on top is the bad guy, well you don’t have the responsibility to do anything about it.
What the BEANs do you think would happen.
Bush, Jr-Sr, are busness owners….LIKE DUH.
they WORK in the oil business… Have connections in ALL the big busness’s…
They probably sent him BUCKS, to get the vote over..
Talk about ENROn protection, Food and Drug protection…
That 2nd blurb reminded me of Charles LaBella. He wrote a memo saying there should be an independent counsel looking into campaign financing by Bill Clinton, and he ended up losing his job as a US attorney.
I’ve got plenty to say on this matter, I’m just afraid to say it.
We need a Giant clock dedicated with these Thomas Jefferson quotes:
“Every generation needs a new revolution.”
“We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another country.”
Im sorry,
But with all the internal spying on citizans, WHY cant we spy on the corps, congree, and ALL the rest…
IF they are taking all these liberties, TAKE them all, not just Ours…
Joshua (#2)
I had exactly the same first thought. You could say any of the five justices decided the matter.
The justification is that Justice Alito is new to the court. The other eight justices voted as expected given their reputations, comments and past opinions. Justice Alito replaced Justice O’Connor.
Justice O’Connor’s reputation and record is such that she would be expected to vote the other way.
So it seems likely that if this vote had occured before Ailto’s appointment it would have gone the other way, so Alito cast the deciding vote.
Not perfect logic, but not entirely unreasonable
What is the good of freedom of speach if it has conditions? Its like saying you have the right to your privacy except from the White House.
Bryan Henry
Once again, I am amazed at the number of people that didn’t read the story.
What the Supreme Court said was that a person’s right to free speech is not absolute when that person is a government employee. This will put them more on par with privately employed people might say something about their own companies. The problem with this is that government should be open for all of us, not just most of us. Secondly, it will often be the government employees that have the expertise to understand an issue as well as much of the data. In this specific case, it was a government expert that pointed out a problem and was punished for it.
The ruling has absolutely nothing to do with flag burning or gay marriage. It will not effect at all any government employee from publicly advocating for or against flag burning unless that person is involved in flag burning itself. A better example might be that police officers may not engage in public issues. For if a police officer was publicly against abortion, he could not be expected to protect an abortion clinic from protesters.
***
Alito is presumed to have cast the deciding vote The original case was heard before Justice O’Conner but had not given a decision. That would mean the court was tied. After the case was reheard the decision was 5-4. While not proof, an extremely strong indication that it was Alito that cast the deciding vote. Still, that makes his vote just as ridiculous poorly grounded as the other four that voted against.
There is a nice article with an audio feed in NPR.org on this one. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5440220
Good point #9…brian….but we won’t know for sure.
Mr Fusion, there were several cases heard while O’Conner was waiting for her replacement, that were never voted on, this is just one of them. They often hear a case then it takes weeks or months for the clerks to bring them up to speed on all the ramifications before they vote.
O’Conner could have gone either way on this. It wasn’t one of her usual subjects that she voted against the conservative group on.
So does this mean that whene I see something wrong in happening in the VA hospital- that I just ignore it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Is this a DICTATORSHIP now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thak you for taking another right away from us PRESIDENT BUSH.
Do you really care about the people or just yourself !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Compare this to this post of yours: http://www.dvorak.org/blog/?p=4737
Basically that Bush is issuing signing statements with his bills that he will ignore the law.
Do you think Bush should be fired for exercising his rights to free speech?