Whistleblowers Are Public Servants. We Must Protect Them.
President Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine spoke on the phone. The president insists the call was “.” Others are that, during the call, the president intimated he would withhold financial aid appropriated to Ukraine unless the Ukrainian president agreed to investigate former-Vice President Joe Biden, a political rival of the president.
How do we even know about any of this? A who knew of the phone call became concerned about the possibility that the president was improperly using his office for his own political gain, and blew the whistle. The public learned the of the whistleblower’s allegations because another government employee leaked the story to the press. Once again, the American public benefited from the bravery of its public servants, risking their livelihoods, careers, and families to expose government waste, fraud, and abuse.
President Trump’s reaction has been both predictable and terrifying. Using his preferred method of official communication — Twitter — the president called the a spy and suggested they should be treated as they would have been “,” presumably referring to execution. He for the whistleblower’s to be revealed, a well-worn tactic designed to intimidate the whistleblower and any other official that could provide support to their account. And Trump isn’t alone. also called upon the media to reveal the whistleblower’s identity.
It’s worth wondering why these kinds of tactics are still permissible.
Sen. Paul has pointed out that from revealing the whistleblower’s identity. He’s right, and that’s a huge problem. It’s one of many big problems facing any public servant, but especially a national security and intelligence community member, who wants to report the waste, fraud, or abuse they witness in our government. Intelligence community whistleblowers currently have no access to independent and meaningful due process, while other federal employees do. There is no law protecting their identities from disclosure and they have no protections from retaliatory investigations.
Congress must fix these problems. That’s why the Project on Government Oversight, the ACLU and 15 other organizations, including the Government Accountability Project, and Whistleblowers of America, to Congress this week calling for them to seize this moment to change the law for the better and to do everything in their power to protect the whistleblower’s identity.
And that’s just a start.
Increasing protections for whistleblowers that disclose through the available government processes is helpful, but it ignores whistleblowers that bring what they know directly to the public. , who disclosed the Pentagon Papers, and Edward Snowden, also risked their lives and careers to inform the public of massive abuses of government power. They deserve protection too.
They were both charged with violating the , which criminalizes unauthorized disclosures of classified information. That law makes no distinction between public servants that bring evidence of crimes occurring at the highest levels of government to journalists, and officials that steal government secrets and sell them to foreign spies. That makes no sense.
Luckily, the fix is simple. Congress should allow those accused of violating the Espionage Act to raise the defense that their disclosure served the public interest. That small change would mean a far more accountable government, because government employees that witness misdeeds would be empowered to say what they saw without fear of retaliation.
Americans need and deserve information about what their government is doing, now more than ever. Congress must act to protect those within the government who blow the whistle.
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Press ReleaseDec 2024
Free Speech
National Security
ACLU and Partners Urge Supreme Court to Block TikTok BanACLU and Partners Urge Supreme Court to Block TikTok Ban
WASHINGTON — Today, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to block the enforcement of a law that would effectively ban people in America from using TikTok as soon as January 19, 2025. Earlier this month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected TikTok’s challenge to the law. TikTok has asked the Supreme Court for a temporary injunction to prevent the app from being banned while the court considers whether to take the case, saying that unless the justices intervene, the law will “shutter one of America’s most popular speech platforms the day before a presidential inauguration.” “The Constitution imposes an extraordinarily high bar on this kind of mass censorship,”said Patrick Toomey, deputy director of ACLU’s National Security Project. “The Supreme Court should take up this important case and protect the rights of millions of Americans to freely express themselves and engage with others around the world.” The brief argues that the D.C. Circuit failed to fully address the law’s profound implications for the First Amendment rights of the 170 million Americans who use TikTok. While the lower court’s decision correctly recognized that the statute triggers First Amendment scrutiny, it barely addressed users’ First Amendment interests in speaking, sharing, and receiving information on the platform. The court also perplexingly attempted to cast the government’s ban on TikTok as a vindication of users’ First Amendment rights, which it is not. The rights groups also explain that the law was intended to suppress certain content and viewpoints that many legislators believe could be amplified on TikTok, including the risk of foreign “propaganda.” But under the First Amendment, the government must meet a very high bar to restrict speech based on concerns about its “motivating ideology” or “perspective,” and the government has not come close to meeting that bar here. “The government should not be able to restrict speech, especially to the extent here, based on guessing about the mere possibility of uncertain future harm,” said David Greene, civil liberties director at EFF. “The Supreme Court should put the TikTok ban on hold while it considers the DC Circuit’s erroneous ruling.” Finally, the brief underscores that the government can’t impose this type of sweeping ban unless it’s necessary to prevent extremely serious and imminent harm to national security. But the government has not provided evidence of impending harm, or evidence that banning TikTok is the only available way to address its concerns. As the brief explains, the D.C. Circuit improperly treated the government’s invocation of “national security” as a trump card and failed to hold the government to its burden. “Restricting citizens’ access to foreign media is a practice that has long been associated with repressive regimes, and we should be very wary of letting the practice take root here,” said Jameel Jaffer, executive director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. “It would do lasting damage to the First Amendment and our democracy if the Supreme Court let this ban go into effect even temporarily.” You can find the brief online here: https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/24/24A587/335380/20241217144322392_24A587%20TikTok%20v%20Garland%20Amicus%20Brief%20pdfa.pdf -
MississippiJul 2024
Free Speech
Privacy & Technology
NetChoice v. FitchNetChoice v. Fitch
Whether a law that mandates age verification for all users of social media services violates the First Amendment. -
News & CommentaryDec 2024
Free Speech
Can you define pornography? Neither can the government.Can you define pornography? Neither can the government.
We break down the absurd-but-true history of trying to censor sexual speech under the guise of "keeping kids safe." -
Minnesota Supreme CourtNov 2024
Free Speech
Energy Transfer LP v. Greenpeace International, Unicorn RiotEnergy Transfer LP v. Greenpeace International, Unicorn Riot
This case in the Minnesota Supreme Court asks whether the MFFIA's protections apply to newsgatherers even if they are alleged to have engaged in trespassing while newsgathering. The ACLU’s State Supreme Court Initiative, alongside the ACLU of Minnesota and law firm Biersdorf & Associations, filed a brief representing Unicorn Riot, a media organization that covered protests of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The brief argues that MFFIA and constitutional reporter’s privileges, under both the U.S. and Minnesota constitutions, protect Unicorn Riot from having to comply with Energy Transfer’s subpoenas.