On May 30, the Supreme Court handed down a decision in Garcetti v. Ceballos that could provide a disincentive for future whistleblowers on the government's payroll. The 5-4 decision declared that public employees who report suspicions of corrupt or inept behaviors in the course of their duties are not protected under the First Amendment. Garcetti involves the actions of Richard Ceballos, a deputy district attorney from Los Angeles. In 2000, during an investigation, Ceballos determined that a sheriff's deputy had mischaracterized basic facts in order to obtain a search warrant. He brought this breach of conduct to the attention of his superiors in a memo and, subsequently, in face-to-face meetings. Later that year, Ceballos was transferred and denied a promotion. He alleged that these actions were a reprisal for exposing police misconduct and filed suit, charging that his superiors had violated his right to free speech. Justice Anthony Kennedy--joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas--ruled against Ceballos. Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion that the First Amendment does not apply to speech made during the course of one’s duty as a public official. The Court holds that "when public employees make statements pursuant to their official duties, the employees are not speaking as citizens for First Amendment purposes, and the Constitution does not insulate their communications from employer discipline." (The majority opinion argued that First Amendment rights continue to apply when employees are speaking as citizens outside the context of the workplace.) Furthermore, the majority concluded that sufficient protections for whistleblowers exist in statutory provisions on both the federal and state levels without invoking the Constitution. In their dissenting opinion, Justices David Souter, John Paul Stevens, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, saw the facts of the case in a very different light, arguing that state-level whistleblower statutes are too weak and poorly enforced to provide adequate protections. This position has long been echoed by whistleblower advocates, many of whom find even federal whistleblower protections weakened to the point of inefficacy. The justices also found that the majority's opinion makes an unjustified distinction between government employee speech made as a citizen and speech made pursuant with official duties. Often the government employee has the citizen's interests in mind when making speech that is pursuant to one's official duty, according to the opinion. "Would anyone deny that a prosecutor like Richard Ceballos may claim the interest of any citizen in speaking out against a rogue law enforcement officer, simply because his job requires him to express a judgment about the officer's performance?" writes Breyer. Moreover, he asked, why would a government employee be protected in voicing an opinion about an official matter that he is not associated with, but not be protected in speaking about a matter for which he has an official duty? Breyer and Stevens issued separate dissenting opinions. Many whistleblower protection advocates are concerned that the ruling will discourage whistleblowers from bringing misconduct to the attention of their superiors. Instead, it may force government employees intent on rooting out corruption to find ways to speak as concerned citizens to the news media and the public at large, because such actions would be protected under the First Amendment. "Public employees should be encouraged to report misconduct," stated Peter Eliasberg, Manheim Family Attorney for First Amendment Rights at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Southern California, in an release issued shortly after the ruling. "This opinion does the opposite and can only cause government employees who are weighing whether or not to expose wrongdoing to decide to remain silent for fear of losing their jobs." The case has been referred back to the California federal appeals court, as the Supreme Court decision refers solely to the First Amendment violations alleged by Ceballos in his memo and did not cover the events of the meetings or his earlier testimony.