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(1) A sailor serving on the USS Olive Oil tells a chief in his chain of command that the Olive Oil's Captain is taking bribes to ignore a dangerous drug ring on the ship. The sailor, of course, is Popeye.
(2) Two months go by and Popeye's chief still hasn't done anything. In the meantime, at least one sailor has died while operating machinery under the influence. Frustrated, Popeye contacts the Navy IG, telling her what he knows. Popeye is a whistleblower!
(3) A senior chief involved in the drug ring, Bluto, gets wind of Popeye's disclosures and vows to make Popeye's life miserable to silence him. Bluto assigns Popeye double watch shifts and finds ways to sabotage his career advancement through bad evals and reprimands.
(4) The IG eventually exposes the drug ring and Popeye even gets to testify before Congress! Unfortunately, Popeye still has his navy record smeared and his hopes of promotion dashed. Popeye experienced illegal whistleblower retaliation. But what can he do?
(5) If Popeye were a civil service employee, he would file a retaliation complaint with @US_OSC, who could investigate and help mediate or prosecute. Better yet, if he were a federal contractor, he could get a jury trial! But because he is a service member he has weaker rights.
(6) Popeye has to go through a long IG investigation process where his retaliation claim may not be substantiated. (Only about 2% of these claims are). Worse, service members don't get an independent decision by a judge-- @DeptofDefense makes the call. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/1034
(7) Further, Popeye will have a much harder time making his case because of outdated legal standards applied to military whistleblowers. Our laws place a much tougher burden on service members than they do on their employer, backwards from other laws. https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/homeland-security/259705-protect-military-whistleblowers
(8) And even if Popeye beats the odds and succeeds in his claim, he still has to face a separate review process to have his career record restored. This process can take YEARS and means more hearings and hardship for Popeye, who was just trying to do the right thing.
(9) It is illegal to retaliate against a service member for making a protected disclosure to someone in their chain of command, to an IG, and to Congress. Yet it happens all the time with little recourse and little attention. Frankly, our laws fail service member whistleblowers.
(10) While I hope that National Guard Maj. Adam DeMarco's testimony to @NRDems and @NatResources about the violence against protesters in Lafayette Square doesn't prompt retaliation like @AVindman's testimony did, that's certainly top of mind. https://time.com/5872488/national-guard-officer-white-house-lafayette-square-protests/
(11) It is up to Congress to reform the Military Whistleblower Protection Act so that it lives up to its name. "Support our troops" means supporting them even when they expose things that may be politically inconvenient. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
(12) P.S.: If you are a service member (or other fed employee) curious about your rights, @POGOBlog, @GovAcctProj, and @PEERorg have you covered with this know-your-rights guide that I had the privilege of helping to write. 
https://www.pogo.org/analysis/2019/03/caught-between-conscience-and-career/
https://www.pogo.org/analysis/2019/03/caught-between-conscience-and-career/
