Supreme Court Limits Whistleblowers' "Rights"

In Garcetti v. Ceballos, the Supreme Court decided a case which, if decided before Alito joined the bench, probably would have gone the other way. As Scotus blog explains,

Today, the Court took that very signifiant step, holding 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." This apparently means that employees may be disciplined for their official capacity speech, without any First Amendment scrutiny, and without regard to whether it touches on matters of "public concern" -- a very significant doctrinal development.

What this means is that many government leaks cannot simply hide behind the First Amendment if part of their job is to notify their supervisors of wrongdoing. Another way to look at the case is to review which justices agreed with the majority opinion, written by Kennedy: Scalia, Roberts, Alito, Thomas. You know it was a good decision when the four liberals on the Court (Souter, Breyer, Stevens, Ginsberg) dissented. And it is likely that O'Connor would have joined them were she still voting.