Who will tip us off now?

THE PROTECTIVE blanket of the 1st Amendment just unraveled a little more when the Supreme Court ruled this week that the nation’s 21 million public employees are not fully protected by it.

The 5-4 decision essentially says that government employees can be fired or demoted if they reveal information about wrongdoing to their co-workers, to management or possibly to government investigators.

This decision sends a terrible message and could be deeply damaging to efforts to fight fraud, abuse and corruption. Almost half of all fraud detection in government agencies is estimated to come from tips, very often received through whistle-blowers. The 1994 Supreme Court decision in Waters vs. Churchill recognized this, stating that “government employees are often in the best position to know what ails the agencies for which they work.”

My office, which is charged, among other things, with rooting out fraud and waste in the Los Angeles city government, routinely receives credible whistle-blower information from city employees. In the last five years we have conducted more than 100 audits and investigations, and I can tell you that if we had not offered protection and anonymity to whistle-blowers, the results would have been less than fruitful.

It’s not yet clear exactly what the effect of the court’s decision will be on our operations, but we’re worried. I have asked the city attorney for an opinion on what the legal effect will be on existing city ordinances protecting whistle-blowers. At the very least, it will make people that much more worried about coming forward.

Let me offer a few examples of cases in which whistle-blowers have helped us crack down on wrongdoing.

In 2003, while auditing the Los Angeles Airport Department, my office received information from airport staff regarding potential wrongdoing in the awarding of millions of dollars of public contracts. In confidential interviews, these employees painted a picture of a department ripe for fraud and abuse, revealing examples of irregularities and inconsistencies that we otherwise would not have known about.

We offered them anonymity and they, in turn, provided the essential information we needed for our preliminary investigation, which I eventually turned over to the U.S. and district attorneys. A federal grand jury investigation is ongoing.

As a result of our audit, reforms were enacted to keep city commissioners from inappropriately influencing the awarding of contracts. Commissioners were also banned from raising money for candidates running for city office, eliminating the appearance of coercion or pressure on those seeking to do business with the city.

Our audit of the Port of Los Angeles also relied on whistle-blowers, some so fearful of reprisals that they would not speak to our auditors on port property. The Harbor Commission president at the time was not happy about the audit -- which uncovered leasing irregularities -- and he made a public records request for the working papers and documents we had used. He voiced loud disapproval that the names of employees who had spoken to us were redacted from the interviews. He then tried to conduct his own audit to determine which employees had said what.

Then there were the employees at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power who came forward to our office with concerns regarding a $27-million contract with the giant public relations firm Fleishman-Hillard.

With the additional help of Fleishman-Hillard employees, the U.S. attorney last month successfully prosecuted a case of fraudulent overbilling.

From every corner of our city, employees have felt increased confidence about speaking out in the face of government wrongdoing. They also have felt protected from retaliation.

Let there be no doubt. If employees are no longer protected by the 1st Amendment when they speak out, then precious sources of information will wither away.

Last year, when the City Council authorized my office to create a special unit dedicated to tracking down waste and fraud, it instructed the chief legislative analyst to work with the city attorney to draft a resolution protecting whistle-blowers from retaliation even if they use a city computer during work hours to make the report. Now more than ever, we must find ways to encourage employees to come forward. Congress is considering SB 484 by Sens. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), which would strengthen whistle-blower protections for federal employees. Though it was passed out of committee, it has been blocked by the Justice Department and is now languishing.

Let’s use this Supreme Court decision as the impetus to move this needed legislation forward.