Not every case has ended badly for the whistle-blower. Last year James Hopkins, an international aviation operations specialist with the FAA in Washington, filed for whistle-blower protection after he was fired when he alerted his supervisors to what he believed was a link between one of the hijackers involved in the 9/11 terrorist attacks and someone who had received aviation training at the FAA Academy. Hopkins wanted to take the information to FAA Security and the FBI, but his supervisors told him that "thousands of people were investigating" the attack and he needed to focus on his FAA duties. Hopkins pressed ahead and was fired by his supervisor for his failure to maintain a "calm and professional approach in the completion of duties, as well as evidence of sound judgment."

Hopkins' hunch about a 9/11 connection did not turn out to be useful, but the OSC investigated his case, found in his favor, and ordered the FAA to rehire Hopkins. The agency eventually agreed, awarding him full back pay, benefits and attorney's fees.

Fortunately for Hopkins, his case did not revolve around security clearance. "The Whistleblower Protection Act doesn't protect people who blow the whistle and then have their security clearance yanked," Kaplan explains. Without access to classified documents, a whistle-blower's career, both inside and outside the government, is effectively destroyed. Yet even if a whistle-blower's actions are vindicated by the OSC or another arbitration body, a federal employer is under no obligation to reinstate a security clearance.

"It's vicarious victimization of the whistle-blower," adds Terance Miethe, author of "Whistleblowing at Work: Tough Choices in Exposing Fraud, Waste and Abuse on the Job." "They get exonerated and yet nothing happens with security clearance."

"It's a Kafka-esque procedure," adds Doug Hartnett, a staff attorney for the Government Accountability Project. "You're asking the people who took clearance away to give it back to you. There's a visceral reaction to whistle-blowers by these agencies, so they rarely give it back."

According to Kaplan, the legislative solution is simple: Simply give the OSC, or the Merit System Protection Board (the higher body to which OSC rulings can be appealed) the power to rule on security clearances. But, Kaplan says, "there is a lot of political opposition." During the '90s there was an attempt in Congress to close the loophole, but the measure failed after the Department of Justice strenuously objected.

Richard Levernier, a DOE whistle-blower featured in Mark Hertsgaard's Vanity Fair article, is himself caught in the judicial Twilight Zone, battling to get back his security clearance. A federal employee for 33 years, Levernier spent the late '90s testing the preparedness of America's nuclear weapons facilities against terrorist attacks. He told the magazine, "Some of the facilities would fail year after year. In more than 50 percent of our tests at the Los Alamos facility, [mock terrorists] got in, captured the plutonium, got out again, and in some cases didn't fire a shot, because we didn't encounter any guards."

Levernier tried in vain to get the DOE to address the problems. When he refused to drop his crusade, his security clearance was revoked over a relatively minor infraction, effectively ending his career. Levernier filed for whistle-blower protection in September 2001, claiming the DOE retaliated against him and gagged his free speech. He took his case to the OSC, which found "a substantial likelihood" that Levernier's charges were accurate. Recently, after the Vanity Fair article was published, the DOE agreed and settled with Levernier. The details are confidential, but Hartnett at GAP, who assisted Levernier, says the whistle-blower is satisfied with the terms.

Still, Levernier remains without his security clearance. "If you lose your security clearance you're screwed," says Brian at the Project on Government Oversight. The law being proposed, known as the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act, stipulates that if the OSC finds in favor of a federal whistle-blower who had a security clearance taken away, the employer's agency must publicly explain why it's not reinstating that crucial status.

Looking back on his decision to blow the whistle, Levernier has nothing but regrets: "Given my experience, I would not do it again, even though I truly believe it was the right thing to do. DOE's inappropriate removal of my security clearance has ruined my career and life."

Unfortunately, that's often the norm for the whistle-blower. "It ruins their career, whether they're right or wrong," says Fred Alford, author of "Whistleblowers: Broken Lives and Organizational Power." "The law and the process take so long, and in the end, cases hinge on issues that have very little to do with the justice of the case, such as how your boss fired you, or who talked to who. It ends up in a strange Twilight Zone. Most whistle-blowers aren't prepared for it -- they're not cynics. Cynics don't blow the whistle; idealists do. But you need cynicism to survive it."

What often happens to whistle-blowers as their cases slowly wind their way through arbitration and the courts, is that the original charge of fraud, waste or abuse recedes into the background, and what's left is a mere personnel matter. Because personnel law is weak, the whistle-blower loses. "The original charges become irrelevant," says Donald Soeken, a psychotherapist and a frequent expert witness in whistle-blower cases.

He calls the bureaucratic remedies for whistle-blowers a "cruel hoax." Perhaps the cruelest part is that whistle-blower appeals are heard exclusively by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. According to critics, this court has eviscerated the original WPA law through judicial activism and has made a mockery out of the appeals process, ruling against whistle-blowers 83 out of 84 times.

"You can't possibly believe none of those [83] cases had merit," says Soeken. "But they didn't have a chance in hell because the judges won't apply the law fairly. Whistle-blowers spend all this time thinking there's justice down the road, but there is none."

"The law has become useless," says Brian at the Project on Government Oversight. "Nobody can meet the standard [created by the court] for federal employee whistle-blowers -- that they have to be the first person to talk about [the fraud], and find out about it not within the function of their job. It's Chinese water torture."

For instance, the court has found the WPA does not protect whistle-blowers who directly confront their supervisor about the supervisor's wrongdoing. Instead, the insiders need to notify more senior officials within the organization in order to qualify for protected status.

Alford recalls one federal whistle-blower he interviewed for his book, "She spent five years and $50,000 to get two minutes in court and be told she didn't have standing."

Perhaps most upsetting is the new "irrefragable" standard the appeals court has imposed on whistle-blowers. According to the judges, when reviewing any federal whistle-blowing case, the court must begin with the "presumption that public officers perform their duties correctly, fairly, in good faith and in accordance with the law. This presumption stands unless there is 'irrefragable' proof to the contrary."

"Irrefragable" sets an extraordinarily high threshold that means "incontestable, undeniable, incontrovertible." The pending legislation would require a whistle-blower to simply have "reasonable belief" of wrongdoing and be supported by "credible evidence."

The legislation would also break Federal Circuit court's monopoly on federal whistle-blower cases and give plaintiffs the ability to file their appeals in courts throughout the country, based on where they lived. "They'd no longer be stuck with a kangaroo court," says Brian.

The bill would also give the overworked OSC an independent litigation authority, allowing it to represent whistle-blowers in court. Currently, the OSC must first get permission from the DOJ, even though Justice Department attorneys serve as counsel for the opposing side in whistle-blowing cases.

Advocates argue that if the law is not passed soon (realistically, they're hoping for legislative action next year) whistle-blowers may vanish -- and with them, society's best chance of uncovering governmental failures. "Ultimately," says Brian, "no good investigation into government operations can exist without whistle-blowers."

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