WHISTLEBLOWER CONFERENCE SEEKS END OF DARK AGES

[L. Coyote]

WHISTLEBLOWER CONFERENCE SEEKS END OF DARK AGES
by Shanna Devine and Tom Devine
http://www.opednews.com/articles/WHISTLEBLOWER-CONFERENCE-S-by-Shanna-Devine-and-090321-735.html


Few attract more admiration, gratitude, fear and loathing for the same behavior than whistleblowers – employees who exercise freedom of speech to challenge abuses of power that betray the public trust. Their rights are at a crossroads, illustrated by the stimulus law. Funding recipients have the strongest whistleblower rights in history. But federal workers responsible to keep spending honest got nothing, and will proceed at their own risk if they challenge waste, fraud or abuse in $787 billion new spending.

It should be no surprise that they are not passive either about their rights, or associated consequences for taxpayers. For four days earlier this month over 100 members of the whistleblower community – whistleblowers, employee rights advocates and congressional allies – strategized for the final push in a ten year campaign to bridge the gap between false advertising and genuine freedom of speech. The National Whistleblower Assembly, “Ending the Dark Ages: Turning on the Lights Together,” sponsored by the Make it Safe Campaign, combined four days of inspirational speeches, networking, training, and congressional lobbying. Earl and Barbara Johannaber, a couple from Georgia, exclaimed “his is the first time we found the company and support of other ‘hidden patriots’. We had no idea that there were so many of other whistleblowers and that so much good is being done.”

The assembly kicked-off Sunday with motivational Yes We Can talks by Dr. Jeffrey Wigand, tobacco industry whistleblower ..............

[midnight]

1. No free country can operate without the freedom to talk about

the truth.