A Russian propaganda news organization, Sputnik News, broke this story
last week. Obviously, Russia has a vested interest in exposing the weaknesses of
our political system. Then again, all Americans benefit from transparency and
this was a story that virtually no American news outlet covered properly.
The House Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on Government
Operations listened to testimony about the effectiveness of the Whistleblower
Protection Enhancement Act, which went into effect five years ago. The
committee questioned Robert Storch, the Deputy Inspector
General and Whistleblower Ombudsman of the DOJ. Also, representatives from two
non-profit whistleblower organizations, Elizabeth Hempowicz (Counsel for the
Project on Government Oversight) and Tom Devine (Director of the Government
Accountability Project) stressed the importance of providing transparency and
protection for whistleblowers.
However, Sputnik News picked up on this alarming exchange between Rep.
Rod Blum (R-IA) and Eric Bachman, the Deputy Special Counsel for Litigation and
Legal Affairs of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC). Federal whistleblowers
can send information about potential government waste, fraud, and abuse to the
OSC. The OSC also collects reports from whistleblowers who claim to have faced retaliation
for reporting such conduct.
Representative Blum asked Bachman how many whistleblowers
contacted their agency and how many allegedly faced retaliation. Bachman
replied that there were six-thousand federal whistleblowers last year and two-thousand
of them allegedly faced retaliation. Almost every one of these cases of retaliation
came from one of the whistleblower’s supervisors. Bachman estimated that of
those 2,000 cases of alleged retaliation, their agency was able to gain
favorable outcomes in 200 cases. Worst of all, both Blum and Bachman agree that
the people who commit these retaliatory acts, in most cases, are rarely held
accountable. In fact, they often receive promotions.
Bachman’s testimony revealed both good and bad news. As a
result of the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act, more government
employees are reporting acts of waste, fraud, and abuse. Due to this increased
transparency, there is more accountability. Bachman mentioned the Veterans
Health Administration (VA) had over 40 supervisors who were
disciplined for wrongdoing via whistleblower reports.
However, some agencies have been particularly vengeful. For
instance, the OSC received 243 complaints of
whistleblower retaliation from employees of the Transportation Security
Administration (TSA) since December of 2012. Far more progress needs to be made
to prevent whistleblower retaliation when 1 out of 3 allege that they’ve faced
negative repercussions for merely doing their civic duty. We need a system that
protects the public interest, not the bureaucracy. The formal process for
reporting acts of government wrongdoing has been corrupted. This a vital
service that is necessary for the future of our country. Hence, some government
employees have found that there is no other recourse other than to contact the
media.
Look at what has happened with the intelligence community. The
Obama administration prosecuted eight whistleblowers with the Espionage Act. The
most egregious of those cases of whistleblower retaliation involved a former high-level
NSA official, Thomas Drake. He, along with three other top NSA officials (Bill
Binney, Kirk Weibe, and Ed Loomis), exhausted the formal process for reporting
wrongdoing to no avail. In the end, all four had their homes raided by the FBI.
However, only Drake was charged with violating the Espionage Act because he
provided the government with copies of various documents. With that said, the
documents he provided were available in the public domain; the government
decided to mark those documents as “classified”
after raiding his home. Ultimately,
this witch-hunt fell flat and the government dropped the charges against Drake as
long he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor offense of improper use of a government
computer.
Of the eight whistleblowers charged under the Espionage Act, Edward Snowden is the only other person to
not serve time in prison and that’s because he fled the country. Most media
coverage has centered on the debate over
whether Snowden is a hero or a traitor. However, few news outlets have truly
examined the actual whistleblower process.
The former NSA Inspector General claimed that he would have
protected Edward Snowden’s rights. However, Ellard was terminated
last year due to retaliating against a different whistleblower. Hence, Thomas
Drake, and his three fellow NSA colleagues (Bill Binney, Kirk Weibe, and Ed
Loomis), told PBS Frontline that they
felt
Snowden’s actions were appropriate due to the government’s atrocious record
with protecting whistleblowers.
This process needs to be corrected immediately. After all,
transparency is clearly at the bottom of priorities for the new Trump
administration that began issuing federal gag orders
within the first week. Trump is more concerned with projecting an image of
strong national security and law & order, not constitutional governance. Consequently,
there will likely be various federal whistleblowers who choose to skip the
formal process due to fears of retribution. Therefore, we may face situations with
far worse security breaches than what happened with the Snowden leaks.
In a telling moment, Trump joked about “destroying the
career” of a Texas official who wanted to overturn civil asset forfeiture, which
allows the police to seize people’s assets without filing criminal charges. Civil
asset forfeiture is opposed
by 84% of Americans. Nonetheless, Trump was willing to offer such unflinching
support for law enforcement even though he was completely unfamiliar
with this issue and the resulting civil liberties implications. Needless to say, that was a very ominous sign of
things to come.
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