Bushies go to SCOTUS to stop whistleblowers

If you take a look at this LA Times article, you'll see that John Roberts is getting his first chance to prove whether or not he's a stand up guy for the Bush administration. This case is Garcetti vs. Ceballos, and the Supremes are going to have to decide if government employees are protected by the first amendment when they speak out, either publicly or officially as part of their job duties, against official wrongdoing, and if they can sue when the government takes retaliatory action against them for their whistleblowing activities.

In the past, the high court has said that teachers and other public employees had a right as citizens to speak in public on a "matter of public concern." Under this ruling, the employees cannot be fired or punished by employers who are unhappy with what they said.

However, the justices have also said that government workers who voiced internal workplace disputes were not protected by the 1st Amendment.

The case of Garcetti vs. Ceballos falls somewhere in between.

Ceballos was a D.A. who claimed that a sheriff's deputy had falsified some information in order to obtain a search warrant in a drug bust. He wrote memos to that effect and apparently angered a lot of people in law enforcement. When he was later passed over for promotion and transferred to a less desirable position, he sued.

This case is a tough one for me to call. The specifics of this case really make it look as if Ceballos might have been in the wrong, since the warrant was later upheld in court and a conviction delivered. But what is at issue here is much larger than just one man wanting his old job back. A ruling in favor of the county (which the Bush administration has spoken up in favor of in this case) would provide precedent to limit any government employee's right to seek redress if they are punished for exposing government malfeasance. Clearly this sort of protection would work in favor of the current administration but could have a disastrous effect on both free speech and our options to limit government secrecy.

"In an era of increased government secrecy, it is critical that we protect the 1st Amendment right of government employees to expose government wrong-doing, both to their supervisors and to the public at large," said Steven Shapiro, the ACLU's legal director.

I don't think "personal gripes", as one justice phrased it, should be protected in the workplace in this fashion, but the right to expose government misdeeds is too important of a protection to allow it to be eroded.