Does this story from Sunday’s Dallas Morning News sound familiar:

“Bill Hollis was a caseworker at a state juvenile prison in West Texas, and he had suspicions. He believed the prison’s No. 2 official spent far too much time behind closed doors, late at night, with young male inmates.

“It just didn’t feel right,” he said.

So Mr. Hollis wrote a letter of complaint to the executive director of the Texas Youth Commission in Austin, the state agency that runs the West Texas State School. The reaction from agency management was quick and tough against Mr. Hollis.”

Time and time again, the story repeats itself. A government employee uses his (or her) position of public trust for personal gain or for their own personal gratification. When another employee tries to put an end to it, the whistle-blower is made to be the villain.

Our current Whistleblower statutes (State and Federal) are not sufficient and fail to provide enough of a deterrent to those who would use government for their own personal gain or to satisfy their own personal desires.

The Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2007 and the Federal Employee Protection of Disclosures Act are steps in the right direction. However, they don’t do enough. Only when we, the taxpayers, are finally fed up with our government being the playground for the vices and whims of individual managers and supervisors will things really start to change. Contact your U.S. Representative and your Senator to ask for real Whistleblower Protection today.

The Attig Law Firm represents Federal and State Whistleblowers. If you are a government employee who blew the whistle on government waste, fraud and abuse, and subsequently suffer reprisal for doing what is in the public’s best interest, contact the Attig Law Firm today.