By COREY ARDWOOD

The American Whistle Blower Tour stops at Auburn on Thursday and brings with it two speakers that exemplify cases of first amendment victories.

The tour will bring to campus speakers Frank Casey and Dr. Jon H. Oberg, and will be moderated by Dana Gold.

The tour was brought to Auburn by Dr. Sarah Stanwick, associate professor in the Business College’s School of Accountancy.

“It’s a great opportunity for our students to hear from individuals who have done the right thing. And when I say doing the right thing, I mean speaking up against fraud in an organization when no one else would,” Stanwick said.

Casey was a key component in exposing the Ponzi scheme of Bernie Madoff, which lost investors upwards of $50 billion and secured Madoff 150 years in prison; the maximum sentence for his crime.

It might also be of interest to note that Madoff, a money manager, attended the University of Alabama during his freshman year.

Oberg, a researcher for the Department of Education, discovered that certain student loan lenders were defrauding the government, or taxpayers, by overpricing the government for its subsidies on the loans.

After some time of resistance from his superiors Oberg successfully had the case brought to trial, and won. The victory resulted in saving the Federal Government tremendous sums of money where the over price on the subsidies had been paid.

“What we’re trying to do is really be sensitive to the personal challenges associated with whistleblowing, and we do that by representing folks legally,” Dana Gold, a GAP Senior Fellow and tour director, said.

“We do litigation to protect them through counseling, but also we do legislative reform; we do a lot of media outreach. We take the information; it’s not just about the whistleblower. It’s about their information, and trying to effect change around it,” said Gold.

The Government Accountability Project, formed in 1977, was created partly as a response to Daniel Ellsberg’s dogged attempts, and eventual success, in releasing information that outlined deceptive motives behind entering the Vietnam War, among a slew of other information.

That information is now famously known as the Pentagon Papers, and is thought by some to be a critical factor that helped to end the war in Vietnam.

It was formed in 1977 and continues to herald the cause of whistle blowers everywhere.

GAP, which once focused primarily on protecting government employee whistleblowers through legal measures, now spans the broad spectrum of private and public sector whistleblowers, such as Casey and Oberg.

The services GAP provides span the broad spectrum of private and public sector whistleblowers. One of its most recent clients is former CIA official and case worker, John Kiriakou.

On Friday, Jan. 25, after accepting a plea bargain, Kiriakou was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison because of his communication in 2007 with a journalist over inquiries regarding CIA interrogation methods.

The agency called the methods “enhanced interrogation techniques.” Kiriakou said that they equated to torture.

The aggressive prosecution of federal employee whistleblowers in recent years under the Espionage Act has been unprecedented, with at least six known cases.

This is more than all of the previous administrations combined.

With so much focus being given to the second amendment control with fears of infringements on second amendment rights, little attention has been given to an issue that has potentially far greater repercussions on civil liberties.

On Wed. Jan. 23, two days before Kiriakou’s hearing, the Government Accountability Project cosponsored an event honoring Kiriakou, in which his portrait from the series “Americans Who Tell the Truth,” by Robert Shetterly was presented.

Throughout its running history this will be the American Whistleblower Tour’s second stop at Auburn.

Stanwick said that she would want all of her students to maintain their integrity in the professional business world, and if the case were to arise she would hope that they would report instances of fraud.

“Oh yes. I am firm believer in standing up for what is right and doing what is ethical. And to me standing up against fraud is the most ethical thing that you can do. The reason is that fraud can hurt so many people,” said Stanwick.