AI Whistleblower Protection Act campaign

National Whistleblower Center's campaign to enact the first federal statutory shield for AI-sector insiders who disclose safety violations or AI security vulnerabilities. Rooted in the 2024 OpenAI exit-paperwork controversy and the June 2024 "Right to Warn" open letter signed by 13 current and former OpenAI and Google DeepMind employees, the campaign centers on the AI Whistleblower Protection Act (AIWPA, S. 1792 / H.R. 3460) — bipartisan legislation targeting the contractual deterrent stack (NDAs, non-disparagement clauses, equity-vesting retaliation) that currently makes lawful disclosure uniquely costly for AI-sector insiders.

Background and legislative gap

The immediate trigger was the May 2024 disclosure that departing OpenAI employees faced a choice: sign sweeping non-disclosure and non-disparagement clauses or forfeit vested equity worth millions of dollars. The June 2024 "Right to Warn" letter — signed by 13 insiders and endorsed by Yoshua Bengio, Geoffrey Hinton, and Stuart Russell — stated explicitly that existing US whistleblower law was insufficient because it protects against illegal activity only, while the gravest AI risks may involve lawful-but-dangerous conduct not yet regulated. NWC, whose legislative track record addresses exactly this pattern (corporate NDA regimes that deter accountability disclosure), identified the AIWPA as the targeted statutory fix.

The legislation

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) introduced S. 1792 on May 15, 2025 with bipartisan co-sponsors Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-CA), and Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA). Obernolte introduced the House companion H.R. 3460 in parallel. The bill covers disclosures of AI security vulnerabilities and violations of federal law during AI development or deployment. Its core provisions: bar any NDA or non-disparagement agreement that would prevent disclosure to a federal agency; prohibit employer retaliation; route complaints through the Department of Labor; and provide remedies including reinstatement, doubled back-pay, compensatory damages, attorney fee recovery, and jury-trial access with a three-year statute of limitations. In June 2025, Grassley and Coons introduced the AIWPA as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act — a must-pass vehicle — opening a floor-vote path.

Coalition and public pressure

On June 10, 2025, NWC coordinated a coalition letter signed by more than 20 tech safety advocacy organizations urging Congress to pass the AIWPA, including Americans for Responsible Innovation, Center for Humane Technology, Government Accountability Project, Encode Justice, and Tech Oversight Project. NWC simultaneously ran constituent action-alert campaigns directing the public to contact their congressional representatives, framing the AI regulatory gap as analogous to Congress's inaction in the early social media era.

On July 30, 2025 — National Whistleblower Appreciation Day — NWC hosted a Capitol Hill event featuring departing OpenAI researcher Daniel Kokotajlo alongside Sen. Grassley, grounding the legislative campaign in documented cases of insider suppression at frontier AI labs.

As of September 2026, S. 1792 remains in committee; no enacted outcome yet.