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FTA - "We are troubled, however, that the investigators appear to have reached this conclusion without interviewing the US Marshals who supervised the Siegelman jury and who are described in the email as having been the conduit for jury messages to the prosecution. Nor do the investigators appear to have interviewed any member of the jury."

Now, there were many quotable statements within this article, but I picked this one to make a point. Whistle-blowers are NOT protected! Yes, the No Fear Act of 2002 is in place, but is so broad as to give no real protection to whistle-blowers whom are retaliated against.

I have studied whistle-blower cases for years, having been one myself, and have seen a pattern of firings that seldom is thwarted by the No Fear Act.

Why doesn't this Act work? Because in each case the whistle-blower was fired for reasons unrelated to the allegations brought forth by said whistle-blower.

In most cases the whistle-blower becomes an "unsatisfactory" or problem employee soon after it is discovered they acted as a whistle-blower. False charges are brought against whistle-blowers that are dealt with "internally" (usually after a documented investigation) and are not made public, evaluations suddenly paint a picture of an employee who is incompetent, insubordinate, and/or breaking policies, or coworkers are intimidated (usually with loss of job) to testify against the whistle-blower.

Every company using these practice will deny any claim that they are doing anything wrong or illegal and claim that they are only following policies and laws governing such matters. And, in most cases it can't be proven otherwise.

The treatment of whistle-blowers is truly disgusting and it should be very obvious that employees who are honest and have a spotless record until the time of the act of whistle-blowing don't suddenly become "bad" employees after the fact.

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