The Washington Post discussed the problems that whistleblowers in the national security field face – they are well-positioned to discover significant fraud, waste, or abuse but are unable to report that misconduct without fear of retaliation. The increased monitoring of government employees and contractors makes it even more difficult for them to collect information and report misconduct, even to Congress. Government employees in the national security agencies have very limited protections if they are punished for having blown the whistle, and employees of contractors have essentially no protections. Lynne Bernabei was quoted:
“Most whistleblowers want to work within the system, but by creating this paranoid super-system of monitoring, they are going to go outside the system,” said Lynne Bernabei, a partner at Bernabei & Kabat in Washington who has been representing whistleblowers for nearly 30 years. “It will only increase hostility between the government and really serious federal employees who are trying to improve the system. Turning the security apparatus against its own people is not going to work.”
