From W. NYC in New York, this is On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield.

And I'm Brooke Gladstone. This hour, pretty much by accident, turns out to be about speech.

It's not comprehensive. It's more or less anecdotal. And it starts with the conclusion of our first crowdsourcing project called Blow the Whistle.

If you're a regular listener, you may have heard us talk about this before, on December 22nd,

in the face of seemingly unanimous bipartisan support in both houses, the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act was killed in the final moments of the last legislative session when a mystery senator placed what is called a secret hold on the bill.

Since January 7th, on the media and the Government Accountability Project have been asking you, our listeners, to call your senators and ask them on the record if they had placed the secret hold.

We have since received hundreds of your emails helping us narrow the field of potential senators to just three,

all of whom have repeatedly refused to comment.

We care about this for two reasons.

First, because the media's ability to

report on the government is contingent on governmental transparency and accountability,

which the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act would foster. And second, because the irony

of killing a pro-transparency bill with one of the Senate's most opaque, anti-democratic devices

was just too much for us to take. Tom Devine, legal director of the Government Accountability Project,

has been our partner since our project started and he will now help us end it. But first,

we asked him for a quick refresher. Just how does the secret hold work?

A secret hold allows a senator doesn't exist in the House of Representatives to paralyze any

legislative action without actually voting against legislation or revealing his or her identity.

It can be just because they want to do something

constructive, like find enough time to read the bill before they vote on it. But in other cases,

it's a way to sabotage legislation that's too popular to do it openly. On January 27th, the Senate voted overwhelmingly to pass her resolution

to reform the secret hold process, but the mainstream media have suggested that this means the

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