Whistleblower News from the Inside - August 2, 2013

MLB planning to ban Alex Rodriguez for life – Sources say that Major League Baseball may be poised to issue a lifetime suspension to Yankees superstar Alex Rodriguez for his alleged use of performance enhancing drugs.  USA Today

Former Goldman trader at center or mortgage crisis found guilty of fraud – In its first significant courtroom victory arising out of the financial crisis, the SEC succeeded in convincing a jury to find former Goldman Sachs trader Fabrice Tourre guilty of six counts of securities fraud.  NYT

Snowden granted temporary asylum in Russia – After being stranded in Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport for more than a month, Russia has finally granted NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden asylum that will allow him to live, work and travel freely within Russian territory for the immediate future.  WSJ

Government compensates student accidentally locked up for 4 days in DEA holding cell – The federal government agreed to pay Daniel Chong, a San Diego college student, $4.1 million as compensation to settle a lawsuit he brought against the Drug Enforcement Agency for mistakenly detaining him for 4 days without food and water.  NYT  

Two hospital chains charged with paying kickbacks to drive undocumented women to give birth in their hospitals – Health Management Associates and Tenet Healthcare allegedly have paid two Hispanic health clinics to refer them pregnant women living in the country illegally so the hospitals could exploit a Medicaid loophole allowing payment for emergency medical services for undocumented residents.  AP

Manning convicted for espionage, but will it do more harm than good? – Aljazeera explores in this video segment whether the conviction of Bradley Manning for leaking hundreds of thousands of classified military documents will make us safer or simply restrict further our free speech.  Aljazeera