Featured Articles

Birkenfeld tells WSJ about high level cover-up

January 13, 2010 19:33

UBS whistleblower Bradley Birkenfeld told a Wall Street Journal reporter that the government's decision to send him to jail arises from “a cover-up at the highest levels.” Brikenfeld noted how the UBS clients who actually cheated on their taxes got either house arrest or probation, but...

Qui Tam whistleblower gets $51.5M from Pfizer

Richard Renner
September 14, 2009 21:36

In 2003, John Kopchinski was earning $125,000 a year selling the drug Bextra for Pfizer.  He had a baby son, and his wife was pregnant with twins.  The Gulf War veteran says that, "In the Army, I was expected to protect people at all costs."  At Pfizer, though, he was...

Whistleblower lawsuit questions attorney-client privilege

Richard Renner
August 06, 2009 17:04

Richard Convertino's Privacy Act lawsuit against the U.S. government is now addressing a question of whether a U.S. attorney can conceal his emails to his attorney sent over the government's computers. Convertino was one of America’s top federal prosecutors. The government selected...

NSA Whistleblower Thomas Tamm

Sam Dratch
December 16, 2008 14:57

  This week’s cover story in Newsweek focuses on Thomas M. Tamm, a former Justice Department lawyer in its Office of Intelligence Policy and Review.  Tamm blew the whistle on the National Security Agency's illegal wiretapping on U.S. citizens.  As his reward for...

Transparency International issues 2009 Global Corruption Report

Richard Renner
September 23, 2009 17:22

Transparency International (TI) today released its 2009 Global Corruption Report: Corruption and the Private Sector (GCR). TI finds that one out of five business executives report that they received a solicitation for a bribe.  An equal number report that they lost business due to a...

Recent Articles

OSHA issues new manual for whistleblower investigations

Richard Renner
March 19, 2012 16:45

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued a new Whistleblower Investigations Manual last year.  The new manual includes some improvements for whistleblowers, such as accepting oral complaints (which is particularly helpful in meeting the short 30-day time limits for...

Occupy EPA protest planned for March 30

Richard Renner
March 15, 2012 20:27

Occupy EPA is marching again. On Friday, March 30, 2012, at 12 noon, they will march from Franklin Square Park (13th & I Sts NW in Washington, DC) to the headquarters of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (12th & Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Federal Triangle, Washington DC). There, at 1:00...

Washington Post's Joe Davidson asks federal managers to respect whistleblowers

Richard Renner
March 14, 2012 15:22

The commissioned corps of the Public Health Service (PHS) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) work on the cutting edge of federal research and policy on diseases, medical devices, public health, global warming and our environment. Yet, they fall into an exclusion from the...

DC Circuit Judges understand Convertino's appeal

Richard Renner
March 12, 2012 19:19

Attorney Stephen Kohn today presented oral argument on behalf of former federal prosecutor and whistleblower Richard Convertino (pictured).  Convertino is seeking reversal of an order issued last year by Chief U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth in Washington, DC.  That order dismissed...

IRS resists using whistleblowers

Richard Renner
March 08, 2012 20:07

Whistleblower disclosures have helped the federal government make some of its biggest recoveries from fraudsters. In the Obama administration alone, the government recovered over $21 billion thanks to whistleblowers using the “qui tam” procedure under the False Claims Act (FCA). The...