Is it Safe to Speak Up Now? Evaluating the Expansion of Whistleblower Protection Act Jurisdiction

Whistleblowers have uncovered billions of dollars of fraud and severe national security threats. Nonetheless, for many years, federal employee whistleblowers faced retaliation and termination. Congress passed the Whistleblower Protection Act (WPA) in an attempt to protect federal employee whistleblowers. But, the exclusive court for WPA appeals, the Federal Circuit, ignored Congressional intent and limited the WPA’s protections. In 2013, Congress responded by creating a five year experiment, known as “all circuit review,” to determine if WPA claims should also be appealable to the regional circuits. Over the past three years, all circuit review has led to modest changes in WPA jurisprudence. This article reviews those changes, uses them to analyze the preexisting criticisms of all circuit review, and examines whether Congress\u27s all circuit review experiment has been a success or a failure