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Boiling Frogs: Top Whistleblower Attorney Steve Kohn

Latest installment in the Boiling Frogs interview series, co-hosted with Sibel Edmonds.  Our guest is Stephen M. Cohn of the National Whistleblower Center and author of the new book, The Whistleblower’s Handbook.Kohn has been representing whisteblowers of all kinds for more than 25 years, and represented Sibel Edmonds in her case against the Justice Department.  Kohn joins us to discuss his book The Whistleblower’s Handbook: A Step-by-Step Guide to Doing what’s Right and Protecting Yourself. He explains whistleblowing as a civil liberties and a First Amendment issue, the role of whistleblowers as enablers of congressional oversight, and discusses the legal and political implications involved in whistleblowing.  Kohn presents us with astounding statistics and reports illustrating how whistleblowing is far more effective than regulatory authorities, and how contributions by corporate whistleblowers uncover far more fraud and corruption within their companies than all the government police and regulatory authorities combined. Stephen Kohn talks about the differences and the existing double standards between corporate and government whistleblowers, the escalation of retaliation against national security whistleblowers under the Obama administration, the travesty of justice and constitutional violations in the Bradley Manning Case, upcoming legislation in Congress to further penalize whistleblowers, and more!

stevekohnStephen M. Kohn is the Executive Director of National Whistleblowers Center, one of the nation’s foremost experts in whistleblower protection law, and the author of The Whistleblower’s Handbook: A Step-by-Step Guide to Doing What’s Right and Protecting Yourself, and the first legal treatise on whistleblowing, Protecting Environmental and Nuclear Whistleblowers: A Litigation Manual. Since 1984, Mr. Kohn has successfully represented whistleblowers in numerous cases (both at trial and on appeal), has testified in Congress on behalf of whistleblower reforms, and has worked directly with the staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee on drafting the Sarbanes-Oxley corporate whistleblower law. Mr. Kohn has a J.D. from Northeastern University School of Law; an M.A. in Political Science from Brown University; and a B.S. in Social Education from Boston University. In addition to his books on whistleblower law, Mr. Kohn is the author of Jailed for Peace and American Political Prisoners.