Honesty Without Fear

In the first half hour, Jane Turner interviews whistleblower Justin Hopson about his recently released book Breaking the Blue Wall: One Man’s War Against Police Corruption. During his first days as a New Jersey State Trooper, Mr. Hopson witnessed an unlawful arrest and false report made by his training officer. When he refused to testify in support the illegal arrest, he suffered severe harassment from a secret society within the State Police know as the “Lords of Discipline.” For decades, The Lords’ mission was to keep troopers in line. Mr. Hopson stood up to decades of silencing and sparked the largest internal investigation in State Police history. Listen to Jane and Mr. Hopson discuss his journey as a whistleblower.

In the second half hour, Richard Renner discusses a sweeping new pro-whistleblower decision by the Department of Labor with attorney Daniel Corey of the Sensible Law Institute. Attorney Corey represents Thomas Spinner who was fired for blowing the whistle on internal control problems at New York City’s largest owner of office buildings, SL Green. The question in Mr. Spinner’s case was whether the Sarbanes-Oxely Act would protect him because he was fired by one of SL Green’s contractors – not by SL Green. On May 31, 2012, the Department of Labor’s Administrative Review Board (ARB) explicitly rejected the holding of the First Circuit in Lawson v. FMR, LLC and held that SOX does in fact protect the employees of contractors. Tune in to hear how this will affect workers in the future.

You can take action to improve protections for whistleblowers by signing the petition at www.whistleblowersradio.org.