tippin for the court appointed amec this congress and acted section twenty three zero to be aides to protect any disclosure of any violation of any law this case really comes down to whether any really means any or whether instead there's an exception in the statute for disclosures that happen to be contained in a filing protected independently by section twenty three or to be nine a who we think is the statute means what it said and even the government congress and said to congress has known about the board's rule in this in the federal circuits agreement with it and sent to opportunities to change it hasn't done so our position is that congress enacted it enacted a definition of the word disclosure which now it sits at twenty three zero two eight two d and that defines the word disclosure to include a formal or informal communication and also contains an exemption for community in order to qualify for protection other times that the disclosures have to be made to an official at a particular bureau or or have to be disclosure of the violations of laws that are administered by for example the consumer financial protection bureau in order to gain the protection of the whistleblower provisions and frankly the the aviation investment form act has a whistleblower provision that the pretext of lawyers only of violations of federal whistleblower protection except subject to the limitations that are in the statute that the disclosing employee have a reasonable leave that the disclosure evidence is a violation of law of any law and also that the disclosure fit the definition  in in twenty three zero two eight two d the board says in its brief on an appellate jurisdiction that the statute could be read literally to bar the court's review of a case involving the board disposition of alleged whistleblower claims that can also be characterized as other types of prohibited personnel action such as you know it tout retaliation the statute read literally could bar review of this case  i know both sides agree on appellate jurisdiction but it does seem that read literally correct credit literally i'm not sure we have appellate jurisdiction so i would respectfully disagree about the literal we have a different position about a board disposition other than a challenge to a disposition of whistleblower related allegations in this case coming up on the boards twelve twenty one jurisdiction we know exactly what kinds of dispositions the board made below because  twelve twenty one that the statute and their regs that well the nine seek to restrict their their jurisdiction to whistleblower claims only the only kinds of dispositions being made were whistleblower that you have jurisdiction over it yes one way to think about it is of the subject matter of whistleblower claims and this might be a different case in a direct adverse action appeal where the petitioner could have been bringing any number of claims before the board but in this case i think everybody does agree that the only claims that the board had power to dispose of were whistleblower claims i should highlight one other thing that the word jurisdiction as it applies to what the board is up to below can be a little bit misleading especially when they also use the word describe one of their standards but the standard that the board is using below is most closely analogous to the twelve the six merit standard the standard for example what constitutes a frivolous or none for of a non frivolous allegation is if true with the allegation established the matter at issue that's twelve the six and so that that's so that is to distinguish this question of course but it still is the board says something is not within one of these categories that we're judgment the kind that would be made be made of twelve b six in the district court that's exactly the kind of question that you were given jurisdiction to answer whether particular allegation states a claim for relief under the whistleblower provisions more under other says it's a little more climb the board so there's now for whatever reason we have jurisdiction that will not or not the board has to say no for a particular reason the board could say no you know suppose somebody brings a patent claim to the m s b be in that case the board might look at the facts and say you failed to establish non frivolous factual allegations then we have you know whistleblower jurisdiction in that case they might say because your allegations conclusion i mean that you might describe as including a patent is also a conclusion a whistleblower law because it delineates the boundary between what is and what isn't within b a i think i'm actually hypothetical i would agree that the board is correct that's outside of allegation of retaliation was based on pure unsupported speculation that was frivolous and i didn't you didn't challenge that but i would say sam because you are challenging that complaint is going to be alleging some kind of violation of law rule regulation for abuse of authority it's conceivable as we say virtually because there could be cases where they were so confused that they were  any but in general that's the rule and with respect to the any means any this was something to focus on over the years disagreements with congress with the board and the course a determination of what a protected disclosure was in terms of its content who it was made to and so forth and that was largely dealt with in the  report on the provision which limited only to whistleblowing referred to this and was obviously a response to it but they deliberately chose to limit the scope of it to twenty thr jurisdiction but other kinds of claims complaints are not on the issue of the the judges and whether or not they can take personnel action we would suggest that it's fairly clear that the digital case is not personal management the judges don't have a personal actions recommend them or prove that they review them in determine whether or relationship between the judge in the living and the management and the employees in the agency are obviously not comparable the judges would have to be refusing themselves that they have the same kinds of pretext disclosures any disclosure regardless of the subject matter benign protects the right to file any sort of appeal grievance or complaint regardless of its content that's really the fundamental distinction which is another reason why you can imagine and i fact that in some cases where they could if the employee could prove to be a violation the employee for whatever reason can't so can only rely on the benign by lation i showed him these these provisions also seven are part of a remedial structure that distinguishes between two classes of employees which we've referred to at footnote twelve of our opening brief only getting narrower class of employees has the ability to bring a benign a to claim as a as a challenge in a direct action a direct appeal of an adverse action every employee that meets the general definition of employee and section twenty one zero five of title five can bring to be a claims through the o s c an ira process here and the  distinction that congress and acted in two thousand and twelve that's not really relevant to this case it covers second order retaliation in other words retaliation for seeking relief for whistleblower retaliation which is again part of congress's effort to channel all whistleblower law into the all circuit review provision and expand it beyond the jurisdiction of the exclusive director's station of the federal circuit which has had these precedents in place for decades now as for the federal circuit expansively it'll it'll render be ninety two superfluous what we would have then been the ninety two superfluous that's wrong for the reasons that i just explained the second reason is that the way we should tell whether something is in fact covered by b eight is by asking ourselves whether the disclosure relates to the kind of waste fraud government mismanagement that was once the purpose of the whistleblower protections in the whistleblower format but hasn't been since one thousand nine hundred ninety that one was wrong when it was decided in surround the federal circuit went even farther they said that not only are the allegations of discrimination contained in any oh complaint not protected disclosures any other disclosure of any other violation of law isn't protected by b