The National Whistleblower Center (NWC) is the leading nonprofit in the U.S. dedicated to protecting and rewarding whistleblowers. We provide legal assistance to whistleblowers, advocate for stronger whistleblower protection laws, and educate the public about whistleblowers’ critical role in protecting democracy and the rule of law. Our mission is to support whistleblowers in their efforts to expose and help prosecute corruption and other wrongdoing.

 

NWC was founded in 1988 by three experienced whistleblower-rights attorneys, Stephen M. Kohn, Michael D. Kohn and David K. Colapinto to obtain public support for whistleblowers at the Comanche Peak nuclear power plant. NWC’s first case challenged an industry-wide practice of coercing employees to sign non-disclosure agreements prohibiting them from raising safety concerns to federal regulators. The NWC overcame well-financed opposition in the nuclear industry, and one of its prime construction contractors (KBR/Brown & Root, Inc.) in Congress, the U.S. Court of Appeals, the Department of Labor and before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The precedents set were groundbreaking. All the “hush money” agreements, industry-wide, were voided. Years later, these precedents were relied on by attorneys with NWC to obtain a historic ruling by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) banning restrictive non-disclosure agreements in corporate America.

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Since then, with the help of our hundreds of thousands of grassroots supporters, NWC has succeeded in establishing National Whistleblower Day and adding key whistleblower protections into the Dodd-Frank qui tam law, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act and numerous other federal laws. NWC has also set major legal precedents not only in banning restrictive non-disclosure agreements in all publicly traded companies, but also in establishing First Amendment rights for federal workers, expanding the scope of protected activities, and protecting qui tam laws.

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Through NWC’s Legal Assistance Program, the organization continues its efforts to defend whistleblowers by educating whistleblowers about their rights under law, assisting in finding them premiere legal assistance and providing support during high-impact whistleblower litigation. In order to further provide services and legal assistance to whistleblowers around the world, NWC has partnered with the National Whistleblower Legal Defense and Education Fund (NWLDEF), a public interest law firm.

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NWC is a tax-exempt, non-partisan organization, dependent on public support for its advocacy work. To learn more about our work, please visit our main site at www.whistleblowers.org and consider joining our Action Alert Network here.