In the case of Bradley Manning and company, the Obama administration's actions liken the task of a well-intentioned watchdog to that of a traitor. The position stands in stark contrast to candidate Obama's praise of whistleblowers and the current rules that have been pushed through the SEC. To quote candidate Obama, "Such acts of courage and patriotism . . . should be encouraged rather than stifled." In a recent New Yorker article on the Department of Justice's treatment of Thomas Drake, Jane Mayer quotes Yale Law Professor Jack Balkin's anxiety about recent leak prosecutions. "We are witnessing the bipartisan normalization and legitimization of a national-surveillance state," Balkin said.

In stark contrast, the administration has reiterated its commitment to reward those who blow the whistle on corporate wrongdoers with the Dodd-Frank rules. This program has actually been in place for several months, but the details of how it would work have been controversial. Passed last year as a part of the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation, the new rules had been held up over details regarding whether or not whistleblowers would have to report the violations to their company first or could claim the reward by going straight to federal authorities. The SEC approved the measure yesterday by a 3-2 vote letting employees bypass internal channels and still earn the bounty. This makes sense for companies that may attempt to insulate themselves from being implicated in an investigation, and corporate America is responding predictably. According to The Wall Street Journal, "Reaction to the Securities and Exchange Commission’s approval of final rules governing its whistleblower program was split along predictable lines: activists loved it, business hated it and law firms were all over the place."

Ashby Jones, who runs The Journal's Law Blog quoted a couple of said activists and business interests alike in his reaction post about the news. While the head of the National Whistleblowers Center called the measure a "major victory," a top-ranking Chamber of Commerce called reporting violations directly to the SEC rather than to the company "the equivalent of not calling the firefighters down the street to put out a raging fire." The Washington Post's Jena McGregor worries that the temptation for false allegations may be problematic, however. "Cold hard cash, after all, has a way of compelling people to take risks they wouldn’t otherwise--thanks to the opportunity for huge bonuses, traders have taken dicey positions, managers have fudged the numbers on their quarter and leaders have ignored warnings that could hurt their record," she wrote in a column yesterday. However, she continues with her main argument, "At its heart, whistleblowing is an act of doing the right thing--and a tough thing--because someone knows wrong is being done."

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.

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