Whistleblower Protection Blog : Whistleblower Lawyer & Attorney : National Whistleblower Legal Defense and Education Fund : Whistleblower Protection, Fraud Claims : Washington DC

Yesterday, U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan ordered that the Army Corps of Engineers must answer for its decision to withhold top-secret security clearance from whistleblower Bunnatine (Bunny) H. Greenhouse.

Bunny Greenhouse was the Corps’ top procurement officer when she objected to the Bush administration’s no-bid contracts for Halliburton subsidiary KBR. When Ms. Greenhouse was scheduled to testify before a Congressional Committee during the Bush Administration, the Army Corps’ then acting General Counsel personally advised Greenhouse it would not be in her bests interests to do so. She was swiftly removed as the Army Corps’ Procurement Executive when she ignored that warning.   The Corps also refused to renew her top-secret security clearance (TSSC) on grounds that her new job did not require any clearance.

Ms. Greenhouse filed a lawsuit to get her old job back.  In a ruling yesterday, Judge Sullivan overruled the government’s motion to dismiss Ms. Greenhouse’s claim for her TSSC.

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Robert MacLean is a former federal air marshal. During the Summer of 2003, he exposed a plan by the Transportation Security Administriation (TSA) to stop all overnight travel by the air marshals to save money on the budget.  This shutdown of air marshal travel came at the same time that the Department of Homeland Security was reporting an active al-Qaeda suicide hijack plan.  MacLean's courageous disclosure prompted Congressional and public outrage.  In response, TSA reversed its decision, continued air marshal travel, and fired MacLean for making the disclosure.  MacLean also raised concerns about how TSA's dress code for air marshals made them easy for terrorists to identify.

 

Yesterday, a House committee heard testimony from the Director of the Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS), Robert Bray.  Bray told Congressman Bill Pascrell (New Jersey) that it was a problem that his predecessors ignored whistleblower complaints of safety and security problems.  The old management forced the whistleblowers to go to the media. Rep. Pascrell insisted that the TSA should give MacLean and others their jobs back: "pure and simple."

Joe Davidson reports in today's Washington Post that Pascrell showed concern about MacLean's case. MacLean is "still twisting in the wind," Pascrell told Davidson. "I think it's very unfair."

MacLean has posted seven (7) minutes of excerpts of the hearing on YouTube.

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Nerve gas monitors were inoperative from 2003 to 2005 at the U.S. Army's Blue Grass Army Depot, near Richmond, Kentucky. This week, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) released a 2006 Army Inspector General's report that made this finding.  The failure of the monitors might never have come to light if it wasn't for Donald Van Winkle, a chemical weapons monitoring operator at Blue Grass.  After he tried and failed to get management to correct the problem, he was forced to file a complaint with the Inspector General.

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New York City is inserting notices into 240,000 paychecks this week to encourage employees to report frauds against the City.  The notices inform City employees about the False Claims Act (FCA) which provides whistleblowers with a percentage of the government's recovery against fraudulent claimants. New York City, Chicago and Washington (DC) are the only cities with "Little FCAs" that take advantage of a federal amendment that gives state and local governments a share of federal fraud recoveries in their jurisdictions.  By enacting comparable local legislation, the local government can share in the millions of dollars recovered every year by the federal government. The National Whistleblower Center has an interactive map showing that 26 states have Little FCAs and 24 do not.

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The Maine Supreme Court has issued a memorandum opinion holding the Saddleback Ski Resort liable for its role in the discharge of an electrician who blew the whistle. Electrician Robert Duggan, Jr., blew the whistle on Saddleback's use of its maintenance crew to install a high-voltage electric line. Duggan reported that Saddleback was using unlicensed electricians for the work, and that they made the installation unsafe by failing to make proper connections and grounds.

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 The Idaho Supreme Court gave an aviation safety whistleblower good news on July 7. In Van v. Portneuf Medical Center, the Court remanded Mark Van’s case back to an Idaho trial court to consider his claim of wrongful termination. The Idaho Supreme Court held that the district court judge erred in granting summary judgment to a hospital on the whistleblower part of the lawsuit.

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The Long Island Business News published an article yesterday about the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act of 2009 which improved the whistleblower protections of the False Claims Act (FCA).  Called, "Government Whistle Blowing Pays Off," the article invites those who want to make millions to, "buy a whistle."

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The Washington Post reports today that Service Corporation International (SCI), operator of the National Funeral Home, fired whistleblower Robert Ranghelli last week.  After an April 5 Washington Post story detailed improper storage of corpses destined for Arlington National Cemetery, Ranghelli came forward to corroborate what he felt were disgraceful conditions at the home.

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