Reporting UFO sightings has been hard?
Since when?
The internet is full of stories of people who “have seen UFO’s”.
The protection is for government employees who face retaliation when they report UFOs.
I had a buddy in the Air Force who had an encounter that damaged his aircraft. There were three witnesses to the incident. They all shared the same story. The investigators refused to accept the account. The pilot was blamed and got an official reprimand that effectively ended his career.
If you are a military pilot and report a UFO, you get moved to a desk job.
If you are part of a group that has a sighting, you are forced to sign an NDA and told to shut up.
Yes but do they work for DoD? It seems that if you do, your superiors may think you’re crazy.
A law protecting them can go only so far - the commanding officer/supervisor may still think the soldier/employee is crazy but go on to claim that any negative personnel action is unrelated to the report.