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

Truthout reporter Jason Leopold is reporting today that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released five pages of a PowerPoint presentation that describe a previously unknown program of "blackballing" records that would not be disclosed in response to requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Labor historian Trevor Griffey obtained the document while following up on Manning Marable's research on Malcolm X.  Dr. Marable was a Columbia University professor who founded the Institute for Research in African-American Studies.  He died last year, and Griffey made a FOIA request to the FBI to ask for its documentation about Dr. Marable's requests about Malcolm X. An FBI analyst eventually disclosed that a search on Marable turned up a single file that was "blackballed" per the "standard operating procedure." Griffey made another request for documents about the blackballing procedure. This request produced the five pages from a PowerPoint presentation.  It says that the FBI would blackball a record if it

Would disclose techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions or would disclose guidelines for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions if such disclosure could reasonably be expected to risk circumvention of the law

This text is from FOIA Exemption (b)(7)(E) [5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7)(E)]. What is disturbing is that instead of producing a copy of the document with the classified information blacked out, the FBI was denying the existence of documents that actually do exist. The whole point of FOIA is that we can build trust and confidence in government operations through a process by which government offices share their information, with certain limited exceptions. While the government retains the right to classify certain information, or even to respond that the existence of non-existence of a document is itself classified (the so-called "Glomar response"), it undermines public confidence when it makes a false statement that no document exists. The PowerPoint pages themselves had certain portions redacted so that we in the public cannot even know all the categories of documents that are "blackballed."  Hopefully, wiser heads will soon prevail and the FBI will reform its FOIA procedures so that the public will have accurate information about when and why information is withheld.

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Today, FBI whistleblower Jane Turner issued a statement on the Penn State child sex abuse scandal. Jane Turner, a 25-year veteran Agent, blew the whistle on the FBI’s failure to provide protection for child sex crime victims on the North Dakota Indian Reservations. Ms. Turner reported the allegations to the highest level of the FBI, including Director Mueller. Her allegations included the FBI’s: failure to act on leads concerning a international long haul truck driver pedophile, cover-up of a rape of a 2-year old child by declaring her injuries to be a result of a car accident, and failure to follow-up on the direct evidence that a television personality was sexually molesting children on the Indian Reservation.

In retaliation for exposing FBI failures within its child crime program, Ms. Turner was removed from her position. She was forced to wage a 10-year legal battle to establish her right to blow the whistle. Ms. Turner eventually won her case in front of a federal jury in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Jane Turner issued the following statement:

Unfortunately, I witnessed first-hand the institutional inaction that often happens when someone reports child abuse. It takes enormous strength to put one’s moral integrity over your personal inclination to protect fellow colleagues who have committed malfeasance, or criminal activity. The FBI, like Penn State and the Catholic Church, are entities that allows their personnel to report allegations up a chain of command but those in positions of power or change, fail to take immediate or strong actions. It simply boils down to the fact that those in power have a stronger desire to preserve the reputation of their institution, then taking the road of truth or justice. Entities like Penn State, the Catholic Church and the FBI all share something in common; they operate in an insular world where rules or laws that apply to everyone else, do not apply to them.

To read the rest of today's press release please click here.

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By Guest Blogger: Jane Turner
Member of NWC's Board of Directors and Director of NWC's FBI Oversight Program

Recently, an article appeared in Wired magazine reporting that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was teaching that being a devout Muslim is in itself a sign of terrorist activity. The article exposed teaching techniques used at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia. Teaching materials for FBI counterterrorism agents were replete with portrayals of American Muslims in a negative light. The article noted “...FBI whistleblowers provided Danger Room with these materials.”

My immediate attention went to the FBI employees who are still brave enough to put their careers on the line to speak the truth. The Director of the FBI, Robert S. Mueller III, has positioned himself in public and private as a leader who will not retaliate against FBI whistleblowers.

The reality, however, has been that Director Mueller and his senior managers have done their best to discredit, retaliate, humiliate, threaten, and launch reprisals against FBI personnel who try to bring misconduct or criminal behavior to light. Previously, two of Mueller’s closest senior management team, Assistant Director Robert Jordan and Executive Assistant Director W. Wilson Lowry took retaliatory action against Unit Chief John Roberts. They advised Roberts that they considered his whistle blowing activities a personal insult. They invoked the well worn screed about the “FBI family” which is code for keeping everything in house, and noted Director Mueller agreed with their assessment. This is the modern version of the “code of silence” that has long kept the public in the dark about police misconduct.

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By Guest Blogger: Jane Turner
Member of NWC's Board of Directors and Director of NWC's FBI Oversight Program

I am a FBI whistleblower. In my childhood, I did not dream of growing up to be a whistleblower, I dreamt of growing up to be an FBI Agent. I not only accomplished my dream, but I was a true believer. A true believer of the FBI family, a true believer of having Fidelity, Bravery and Integrity. I worked hard, and broke many barriers, being the first woman on the Seattle Division SWAT team; being the first woman Senior Resident Agent, and first woman working full time in Indian Country. I was given high rating scores and was one of the first woman Field Profilers. I worked on several high profile FBI cases and also taught on a national level on interviewing and interrogating sexual offenders and their victims. I never lost a case in federal court, and I loved my job.

After twenty-one years in the FBI, I notified my immediate superiors that there was misconduct and malfeasance by FBI agents. I did this because I thought it would make the FBI a better agency, and because I believed in Fidelity, Integrity and Bravery. One incident was the brutal rape of a 5-year old Indian child that a FBI agent had covered up as a car accident. Another incident involved FBI agents who were recording individuals as informants without their knowledge. A third incident concerned FBI personnel taking property from Ground Zero after 9/11. All of these incidents occurred in the Minneapolis Division, where I was stationed. I dutifully notified my supervisors, who responded by downgrading my ratings. I took the complaints, backed by evidence, through official channels inside the FBI all the way to FBI Headquarters. Thus began a thirteen-year legal battle as senior management in the FBI decided that protecting the FBI’s image was more important than the FBI’s integrity. As this whistleblowing battle intensified, senior management pulled Minneapolis agents away from other duties in the terrorism and criminal realms to flood the area where I was stationed and ask questions regarding my sexual, mental and work habits. The investigation revealed nothing of a negative nature. People said that I was the "quintessential FBI agent." In February of 2007, I won a jury trial against the FBI. Even witnesses from the United States Attorney's Office undercut the claims of high-ranking FBI officials that performance issues were the basis for their desire to terminate my employment as an FBI Agent.

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I find it amazing when I look over these past seventeen years of having been involved with the National  Whistleblowers Center and the law firm of Kohn, Kohn and Colapinto that we have not moved so much further ahead in this nation with protections for whistleblowers.  In 1992 when I first approached the law firm of Kohn, Kohn, and Colapinto to represent me in my attempts to address the problems at the FBI crime lab, we were a nation in denial.  Whistleblowers had a history of being dealt with brutally.  And today the same brutality is evident in every whistleblower case the law firm and the NWC handles.  Today I look at the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico as countless lives and resources are destroyed and know that somewhere in that group of people who brought this disaster on our nation, there were potential whistleblowers who said to themselves that the risks of blowing the whistle on BP malpractices were just not worth the dangers to themselves and their families.  After all, this nation cares little for the rights and protections of individuals who would proactively stop such disasters.  This lack of concern is reflected in the actions of our Congressmen and Senators, some of whom have labored hard and diligently to establish whistleblower protections while most ignore obvious safeguards for our nation, our citizens and our natural resources.  If we do not wake up in the face of this, the worst environmental disaster in history created by lax standards by the British Petroleum Corporation, then we deserve what we get. 
 
In our recent attempts to strengthen whistleblower protections we have even faced almost insurmountable barriers to whistleblower protections from President Obama's staff, in fact efforts to thoroughly gut whistleblower protections by that very staff.  Present Barack Obama cannot be so blind as to believe that gutting whistleblower protections will do anything but lead to repeats in other forms of the BP environmental disaster we see going on now.  And yet, as a nation, we maintain a society where individuals who would expose serious dangers to this nation are treated as criminals. 
 
These many years later, I remain confused and saddened by this state of affairs, by the mistreatment of whistleblowers and the lack of protections for those individuals who would put the safety of this nation above the safety of themselves and their own families. In days gone by, these patriots would have been treated as heroes. Today, they are simply martyrs to lost causes. This is a shame on our nation, on our President and on our Congress.
 
Fred Whitehurst

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By: Jane Turner

I find that the most amazing part of being an FBI whistleblower is watching while FBI managers who are directly involved in misconduct, malfeasance, obstruction, or criminal activity--which whistleblowers bring to light--are rewarded, promoted, and/or given bonuses. The Director of the FBI did not even have the common courtesy to exile the guilty parties to Butte, Montana or Minot, North Dakota. He allows them to continue to be elevated into the highest ranks of the FBI, receiving all the benefits that those lofty positions bring.


For instance, the Zacarias Moussoui debacle, where managers in the FBI would not allow FBI agents to get a search warrant for Moussoui's personal possessions, even though evidence presented was compelling. It is a long and tortured story, one that might have ended in FBI agents possibly stopping the attacks of 9/11 if managers at FBI Headquarters had not been guilty of "obstructionism, criminal negligence and careerism" (SA Harry Samit, FBI, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division 3/9/2006).


Senator Charles Grassley (R) and others have pointed out that no one in the FBI management team has been fired or punished for 9/11, and in fact, several have been promoted. Later, I will name not only those individuals involved in 9/11 who were negligent, but also name those in my case who were involved in that obstructionism, criminal negligence and careerism, and were subsequently promoted. One of the FBI managers in my case who was involved in misconduct, was also involved in the Moussoui investigation.


It is indeed a small world when one is a FBI Whistleblower.

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By: Jane Turner

The world of federal whistleblowers is a very small one. I have met Sibel Edmonds, and others who qualified for the whistleblower title. Colleen Rowley was in two of the same FBI offices that I was assigned. Fred Whitehurst (of the FBI Laboratory fame) spent hours on the phone helping me through the emotional tornado that hits each and every whistleblower. There were whistleblowers I have met in other federal agencies. What amazes me is that there are any whistleblowers at all. Every whistleblower counsels almost anyone who reaches out to them for advice, that the road of a whistleblower is exceedingly difficult, and filled with terrible events. Intimidation, reprisal, being ostracised, loss of friends, and the destruction of a career are typical. Loved ones leave you, and friends are tired of hearing over and over again of the misjustice that was perpetrated against you. The low number of federal whistleblowers demonstrates the world in which we live. A world that is terribly hostile to those who speak truth to those in power.

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By: Jane Turner

It is interesting that people think the whistleblowing ordeal is over once a whistleblower has been exonerated. It is never over. A whistleblower’s career is shattered, and the tag of "troublemaker", "unpatriotic", "snitch" or "whistleblower" follows you forever. Why? Because the organization that you blow the whistle on (in my case, the FBI), never forgets what they see as a betrayal. It is never about what is wrong or right, justice or injustice, but simply that the whistleblower is not following the party line. The organization itself cannot feel anger and betrayal, but those leading the bureaucratic department certainly can, and they do. A whistleblower threatens the internal machinery of an organization, which many times have been set up to benefit the individuals who are running the organization. That was certainly the case at the Minneapolis FBI Office. Managers collected big bonuses and big salaries by inflating the number and quality of cases in Indian Country (The Native American tribal lands, which I worked for years). They also used false and misleading data from Indian Country so they could get bigger titles, and more money. I loved the FBI, and tried to make it better. I wish I could have said the same about the managers I blew the whistle on. More on that later.

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The Whistleblower Protection Blog is proud to present an ongoing series of blog posts by FBI whistleblower Jane Turner. Ms. Turner was a highly respected FBI Agent for 25 years. She worked the "indian country" of South Dakota and specialized in child-crimes, investigating the most heinous offenses imaginable. Despite near-impossible circumstances, Ms. Turner obtained confessions and convictions from countless criminal sociopaths. She was forced from the position she loved after reporting widespread discrimination and mismanagement in these cases. Then, she was forced from the FBI after reporting that some of her fellow agents had, during the 9/11 investigation, stolen items from Ground Zero - items belonging to the victims and their families.

After a decade of fighting, Ms. Turner was finally vindicated when a Minnesota jury returned a verdict in her favor, determining that, yes, she had been the subject of retaliation by her FBI managers after she raised concerns of discrimination and mismanagement in her office.  

These blog posts, which are accessible by clicking "Jane Turner's Blog" on the left column, will be about Ms. Turner's experiences as a whistleblower.

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Blog Post #1:

By: Jane Turner

Ever since I was a little kid growing up in Rapid City, South Dakota, I wanted to be an FBI Agent. Not once in those early days, up to and including now (as a fifty six year old), did I ever aspire to be an FBI Whistleblower. I really do not think that anyone grows up desiring to be a Whistleblower. The path is too difficult, too dangerous, and not rewarding (either financially or spiritually). People become whistleblowers because the critical truth they speak is being denied, covered up, or trivialized by those with power and/or authority. In my case, the truth I revealed, that sex abuse cases in Indian Country were being dismissed as car accidents by FBI Agents who did not want to work them, was seen by FBI managers as questioning the legitimacy of all FBI investigations. Having the FBI training that qualified me as an Advanced Police Instructor, and Psychological Profiler; and certified to teach local, state, and federal law enforcement officials nationwide about the psychology of sexual offenders; and how to work crimes against children investigations, forced me to remain in the battle and try to speak truth to those in FBI power.   

As I write this blog, I will provide information regarding my struggle, hoping to help others. I will also speak for those still on the job at the FBI, who have been muzzled, smeared, and threatened with termination if they do not stop their battle to bring injustice, or truth to light. The path of a whistleblower is a lonely one, and a journey that no one else can take for you. This blog will address my journey.

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