Tom Devine

Tom Devine is legal director of the Government Accountability Project, where he has worked since January 1979. GAP is a nonprofit, nonpartisan public-interest organization that champions the rights of whistleblowers, employees who exercise freedom of speech to challenge abuses of power that betray the public trust.

During his 27 years at GAP he has represented or informally helped more than 4,000 whistleblowers to make a difference, such as by stopping nuclear power plants that were accidents waiting to happen and blocking deregulation of meat inspection. He has been a leader in the campaigns to pass or defend nearly all major national or international whistleblower laws, from the breakthrough right to jury trials for corporate whistleblowers in the Sarbanes-Oxley law, to the December 2005 U.N. policy legalizing public freedom of expression for its own whistleblowers.

Devine has authored or co-authored numerous law review articles and books. The second edition of his lessons-learned manual, Courage Without Martyrdom: The Whistleblower’s Survival Guide, will be published after a hoped-for victory in the campaign to restore credible rights for federal employees under the Whistleblower Protection Act.