In a case reargued after Justice O’Connor’s departure, the Supreme Court ruled today government whistleblowers aren’t protected by the First Amendment, and can’t necessarily file lawsuits when their superiors retaliate against them.

In the case before the court, a prosecutor in Los Angeles was denied a promotion after circulating a memo inquiring whether or not a sheriff’s deputy had lied to obtain a search warrant.

Looks like it just got a little more difficult to expose government malfeasance, incompetence and corruption.

Justice Alito cast the deciding vote.

Once again, a big thumbs-up to all those conservatives who cited “judicial appointments” as their chief reason for continuing to support President Bush, despite his flaws. Hope they’ll keep this case in mind when the Rodham-Clinton administration takes over.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 30th, 2006 at 10:58 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.