Legal Week 1

Week 1

Assignment 1:

The 1st Amendment is your right to free speech, religion, and press. It also gives rights to the assembly. In this amendment, the government is saying that they can pass no law taking away the rights of anyone to voice or practice their religion, or silencing a person to voice their option. This amendment does give every person the right to assembly peacefully and, if need be, petition the government for grievances when necessary.

With the 1st Amendment, the first thing that everyone thinks of is “free speech”, but this Amendment also ties into the Whistleblowing Act. This act was made popular during the Enronn scandal years ago. The Whistleblowing Act enforces a whistleblower to report when a company is wrong doing. There are statues that protect the whistleblower, when it is a “safety issue, airlines, commercial motor carrier, consumer product, environmental, financial reform, food safety, health care reform, motor vehicle safety, nuclear, pipeline, public transportation agency, railroad, maritime, and securities laws” ("The whistleblowing protection," ).

The 1st Amendment and Whistleblowing Act are two policies that affect a business both negatively and positively. The negative affect is that employees, whether knowingly or unknowingly, who participated in the wrong doing may be criminally prosecuted or their careers may be ruined. It is sometimes hard to prove whether an employee knowingly or unknowingly knew that they were participating in wrong doing for a company. There is a gray area that may find hard to define. The positive affect is that a business has been exposed for wrong doing. Many people, if they knowingly contributed to wrong doing, seem to live the ravish lifestyle with little to no regards to their subordinates or clients they represent. Many steal from their clients without the slightest regard for their client’s hard earned money that they have contributed.

In situations like this, the...