The Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 (CSRA or Act) was passed in response to public concern over the efficiency, integrity, and accountability of the federal workforce. The Act codified the merit system principles governing the federal workforce. One of these statutory principles states that employees should be protected from reprisal in response to whistleblowing. The CSRA provided the first substantive protections for agency whistleblowers, creating the Office of Personnel Management, the Office of Special Counsel and the Merit Systems Protection Board. A little over a decade later, the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989 (WPA) enhanced CSRA whistleblower protections. The WPA recognized that whistleblowing federal employees “serve the public interest by assisting in the elimination of f