Whistleblowers Under Attack
A "qui tam" or whistleblower action is generally a claim brought under the Federal False Claims Act (FCA) which protects those who report companies that are committing fraud on the United States Government. Abraham Lincoln championed the law during the civil war to protect the Union Army from companies selling them shoddy equipment. Today the law protects those who call out fraud, and entitle them to a portion of whatever the governement recovers in the action.
However the Bush administration seeks to weaken the FCA, and take away the protections the Act offers to whistleblowers. Consider the story of Ms. Bunnitine Greenhouse, an employee with the U.S. Army Core of Engineers. During her day to day duties, she discovered that Halliburton, Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, received billions of dollars in no-bid contracts for work in Iraq. She asked why one company received over half of the business in Iraq without competition or competitive bids.
For this, she received "poor performance" ratings and was demoted from an executive position to middle management.
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