It is well known that blowing the whistle on fraud, waste, or corruption is risky. However, the good that can come from the actions taken by employees who are brave enough to step forward and bring their employers’ misdeeds into the light is tremendous. Some laws protect whistleblowers, and if you are considering blowing the whistle on your employer, it is wise to educate yourself about whistleblower protection ahead of time.

For example, you must understand the concept of “protected activity” before you make any report. To be eligible for compensation for any retaliation that you might experience after you make a report, you must make your report correctly. The reporting or other activities that you did to expose or respond to your employer’s conduct must fall within the definition of a “protected activity” that is contained in one or more whistleblower protection laws. Reporting is one activity that is protected, provided that you have a reasonable belief that the conduct you are reporting violates the law. It is critical that you know that protection often extends to internal reports and complaints to management or supervisors as well as reports to external agencies. Refusing to violate the law and refusing to work in an unsafe environment are other examples of protected activities.

Blowing the whistle is not a matter to be undertaken spontaneously. Careful preparation before you make a report is critical. To make your report as credible as possible, gather evidence that will support the allegations you plan to make. Documents and photos may be accessible to you, and these can help support your claims. However, do not copy any documents or pictures unless you are sure that doing so does not violate your employer’s code of conduct. Personal notes, meeting minutes, and journals can also support your claim. Use caution when gathering evidence of conversations, as recording conversations is not always legal. If you find that you can legally record conversations that you are involved in, know that audio evidence discussing plans to violate the law has proven valuable in many whistleblower cases.

If you’re thinking about blowing the whistle, plan your steps carefully before you take action. You might be able to make an anonymous report under one or more whistleblower programs, such as the whistleblower program that is operated by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). If anonymous reporting is available to you, you might want to take that avenue to decrease the possibility that you will experience retaliation. Unfortunately, not all conduct that needs to be reported can be reported anonymously. If anonymous reporting is not available in your particular situation, you may have to boldly move forward and take your concern through whatever process is available to you, even if that means disclosing your identity while doing so.

Careful preparation is key to a successful whistleblower claim. Study the applicable laws and gather the information that will help you as you move forward with making your report. If you have questions, a whistleblower protection attorney is a valuable resource who may be able to help you find the answers. To learn more about whistleblower protection, call the Mississippi Whistleblower Attorneys of Barrett Law PLLC today at 1 (800) 707-9577 for an initial consultation.

An employee of the United States Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has filed a complaint against the agency, alleging that the Bureau is allowing illegal activities to occur on federal public lands in Nevada. Dan Patterson, a BLM employee, was suspended after making the complaint, which describes what he believes to be multiple violations of the law.

Patterson says that he spent two years trying to voice his concerns to his supervisors at the BLM. He filed his complaint when it became clear to him that his supervisors were not listening to what he had been trying to tell them. Dan Patterson provides valuable insight into the hearts and minds of whistleblowers. He explains that public employees are not likely to make a whistleblower complaint until they have put significant effort into pursuing their concerns with those who are in a position to address them and have come up empty-handed.

Some of the activities described by Patterson in his complaint are being carried out by mining and resource extraction companies. For example, a mining company was allowed to deviate from the operating procedures that are prescribed by law. The mining company applied for and received a permit to make a toxic pit lake. The standard procedure would have required the company to use a less hazardous method to perform the same function, albeit at a higher cost.

Other instances of misuse of public lands that Patterson alleges in his complaint apply to individuals or groups of people. For example, five prominent individuals who refer to themselves as “the five jokers” hold a mining claim on public lands. There are no mining or exploration activities taking place on the property, but there are vacation homes. Patterson says that the law limits what a person may do on land held as a mining claim and that developing the area as a vacation property does not fit within the activities that are allowed.

Dan Patterson is aware of other instances of misuse taking place on public lands. He is unable to access the emails, documents, and other information that he would have to provide to support those additional allegations. Patterson says that his inability to obtain those materials is part of a larger scheme that is at work within the BLM, where the agency encourages its employees to engage in telephone conversations instead of email conversations to prevent employees from keeping records of their discussions.

The nature of the structure and staffing of many agencies like the BLM adds to the difficulty agency employees often encounter when trying to approach agency management with their concerns. The BLM does not have a permanent director. Many positions within the BLM and other agencies within the Department of the Interior are filled with political appointees. The BLM has been around for a long time, but it is currently experiencing more political pressure than it has at any other time in the past.

Dan Patterson was suspended after he tried to speak with management about his concerns and eventually made a whistleblower complaint against his employer. If you have attempted to bring concerns to the attention of management and you have experienced retaliation after reporting a concern, we may be able to help you. To learn more, call the Mississippi Whistleblower Attorney at Barrett Law PLLC today at 1 (800) 707-9577 to set up an initial consultation.

The climate of planet earth is in grave danger. Despite the voices of those who choose to ignore the mounting evidence of this crisis, more people are aware of it now than ever before. Along with this increased awareness has come expanded agreement that action is needed now to address what is now a climate emergency. This past November, eleven thousand scientists from around the globe united in warning all of us that immediate and immense effort is required if we are to have any hope of preventing the widespread suffering that will occur if we fail to act.

In many ways, it appears as though we are well on our way to addressing the problem of global climate change. After all, we have made impressive gains in developing renewable energy, and we continue to pursue energy efficiency in leaps and bounds. Despite all the movement in the right direction, fossil fuel emissions around the world continued to increase for the third consecutive year. While we must continue to develop wind, solar, and other proven renewable energy resources, we must also be vigilant in stopping activities that lead to increased carbon emissions. Some of the activities that must be addressed are, in fact, illegal, and corruption and crime have been exposed within the timber industry as well as the petroleum production industry.

Whistleblowers and would-be whistleblowers who work in the timber, oil, gas, and other energy industries are in a position to expose crime and corruption from within their industries. When crime and corruption are exposed, they can be stopped. For example, fossil fuel companies have long known the climate-change risks associated with their products. Recent testimony given before Congress revealed a campaign by the petroleum industry to create confusion and disseminate disinformation about the climate change risks associated with their products. The campaign is eerily similar to the tactics used by the tobacco industry to confuse and misinform the public about the health risks associated with their products.

There is also the possibility of pursuing claims of actionable fraud against petroleum companies. There are at least a few companies who claim they are moving forward in a way that will comply with the Paris Agreement while at the same time funding infrastructure projects that will not help them accomplish that. As petroleum companies are slow to work toward the change they claim they are making, the climate is also being assaulted by carbon emissions from illegal logging operations in countries where corrupt governments and weak environmental laws are failing to stop them. Actionable fraud and other types of whistleblower cases that could be brought against petroleum and timber companies could be effective in preventing activities that contribute to climate change if they result in meaningful sanctions against the responsible parties.

Whistleblower protection attorneys are potent allies in the face of painful retaliation. If you have experienced retaliation as the result of reporting safety, health, financial, or other concerns, call the Mississippi Whistleblower Attorney of Barrett Law PLLC today at 1 (800) 707-9577 for an initial consultation.

Whistleblowers are motivated by a desire to do the right thing. Unfortunately, as often happens in many situations where people take care to do the right thing, whistleblowers do not always receive the proper treatment in return. Would-be whistleblowers must be aware that blowing the whistle is a good course of action that may carry harsh consequences, and that protection under whistleblower protection laws is not guaranteed.

There are a variety of whistleblower protection laws that cover diverse populations of employees at a variety of types of organizations. Unfortunately, there are some employees in some organizations whose whistleblowing in specific circumstances or in a particular way is not covered by a whistleblower protection law. Because of this, the collective effect of whistleblower protection laws and policies is like an umbrella with a few holes in it.

A whistleblower protection attorney could be able to help you avoid some of the pitfalls that could exclude you from protection under whistleblower protection laws, but sometimes the damage has already been done before the whistleblower sets foot in the lawyer’s office. For example, a whistleblower who didn’t follow their organization’s policy for reporting misconduct might not be able to obtain protection under the laws that protect whistleblowers. Likewise, if a grievance regarding termination or retaliation is not filed with the proper party within a particular time frame, the person filing the claim may be unable to access protection as a whistleblower. Sometimes, a whistleblower may think they have a choice of several different laws under which they can report misconduct. Unfortunately, choosing to pursue a matter under one law often excludes you from being able to go about it another way. What’s more, if you decide to pursue a matter under an incorrect statute, you could end up without a valid case.

Before you blow the whistle, check yourself to be sure that your attitude and or your actions won’t get you disqualified from protection under whistleblower laws. Good faith is usually a requirement for obtaining protection. If anyone can cast doubt on whether your motivation for exposing the misconduct was anything but pure, you could be without protection. Likewise, if you did anything wrong along the way to exposing the wrongdoing, even something seemingly innocuous like copying documents, your conduct could exclude you from protection as a whistleblower under the doctrine of “unclean hands.”

Another reason that you may be unable to obtain protection under whistleblower laws is that you are unable to connect the retaliation to your whistleblowing or your employer is able to make a persuasive argument that there was some other reason for what you experienced, such a poor job performance.

Legal technicalities, loopholes, and other exclusionary principles are, unfortunately, common in whistleblower cases. A  Mississippi whistleblower protection attorney may be able to assist you in avoiding those pitfalls and prevail in your claim. To learn more about whistleblower laws and whistleblower protection claims, call the Mississippi Whistleblower Attorneys at Barrett Law PLLC today at 1 (800) 707-9577 to set up an initial consultation.

When whistleblowers file complaints like the one that was recently filed regarding President Trump, individuals and organizations are called upon to account for their actions. Accountability for one’s actions or the actions of a company, group, or agency is critical to the healthy functioning of companies, organizations, and governments. In a previous article, we investigated how the President’s interactions with foreign leaders have the potential to undermine the integrity of the United States’ Presidential election process. In this article, we’ll explore another element of the whistleblower’s complaint; the allegation that Senior White House officials misused their authority in handling records of a phone call after it happened.

The complaint recently filed by an unidentified whistleblower regarding President Trump’s July 25th, 2019 telephone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky alleges that the President exerted pressure on Zelenskyy to take actions that would help strengthen Trump’s 2020 bid for reelection. The complaint also alleges that in the days following the telephone conversation, Senior officials in the White House acted outside the scope of their authority in ordering records of the phone call to be locked down.

Select White House officials do have the authority to divert sensitive and classified information from the standard procedures for information handling that White House officials ordinarily follow while carrying out their official duties. There is a system outside of customary information handling procedures that is only to be used to handle information that is highly sensitive and classified. The whistleblower’s complaint raises the question of whether the White House officials who removed the records of the July 25th phone call from the standard information handling system and placed them into the system intended only for highly sensitive information abused their power and discretion in doing so.

According to the whistleblower’s complaint, at least one White House official stated that the telephone call did not contain any highly sensitive national security matters and thus did not require special handling apart from the customary procedures. The system is reserved for codeword-level intelligence matters, and it is directly managed by the National Security Council’s (NSC’s) Directorate for Intelligence Programs. Codeword-level intelligence matters include things like covert operations. Codeword-level intelligence can only be viewed by individuals who possess the proper level of security clearance to see them and the specific codeword associated with the information. The whistleblower’s complaint claims that other officials share the concern over this Administration using the NSC-managed information handling system for inappropriate reasons. Their concern applies to the July 25th telephone conversation, as well as other matters placed into that system, that are politically sensitive but have nothing to do with national security.

Whistleblower complaints draw criticism and even abuse from those whose alleged wrongdoing is detailed in them. No one wants their poor choices or mistakes brought to everyone’s attention, but whistleblowers must continue to do this crucial work. Accountability is critical to the proper function of corporations, organizations, and governments, and whistleblowers play a significant role in holding people and organizations accountable for their actions. To learn more about the protections available to whistleblowers, call Mississippi Whistleblower Attorney Jonathan Barrett of Barrett Law PLLC today at 1 (800) 707-9577 for an initial consultation.