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

Jane Turner had worked as a Special Agent for the FBI for twenty years.  She led efforts to force the FBI to provide protection for child sex crime victims on the North Dakota Indian Reservations. She also reported theft of evidence from the scene of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.  In retaliation for exposing FBI failures within its child crime program, Turner was removed from her position. She prevailed in a jury trial that redressed her bad performance reviews. Her whistleblower case is still pending with the U.S. Department of Justice. 

Today Jane Turner spoke with James Corbett of CorbettReport.com.Turner  spoke about the problems with the current Senate version of the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act (WPEA), S. 372. CorbettReport.com provides Open Source Intelligence News. Turner explains how Title VII of the Civil Rights Act allowed her to have a jury trial to challenge her retaliatory performance review. However, a special law for FBI employees provides for a special proceeding at the U.S. Department of Justice for her whistleblower claims. Turner explains how S. 372 would take away the right of FBI agents to make whistleblower complaints like hers. Turner calls on everyone to TAKE ACTION on S. 372 to counter the power of the FBI to block whistleblower rights. The 25-minute interview is available from CorbettReport.com in MP3 format.

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The Australian Law Reform Commission recommended that national security whistleblowers should face criminal sanctions only when their disclosures, "damage national security, interfere with an investigation and endanger someone's life or safety." The Commission also recommended that a new law create an offense of unauthorized disclosure only in these circumstances.

Today Australia's Attorney-General, Robert McClelland, tabled the recommendation in Parliament so that the government could review it.  The recommendation follows a 2005 disclosure by retired customs officer Allan Kessing about security breaches at Sydney Airport. Kessing was charged with disclosing information without due authorization. He made his disclosure to an opposition member of Parliament and it was published in a periodical two years later. The Herald Sun reports on the action in today's edition.

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What does Louis Brandeis' famous quote, "sunlight is the best of disinfectants," have to do with efforts to reform federal employee whistleblower protections? Well, if you have been following the legislative progress of S. 372, the so-called Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act, through the Senate you would understand how perceptive Brandeis was about the positive effect of publicity.

In the back rooms of Senate offices, senate staffers have been working in secret to load up the Senate's whistleblower bill with numerous poison pills that do more to protect federal agencies and managers than to enhance federal employee whistleblower rights.

Press coverage yesterday by Politico and today by In These Times and last summer by the Washington Times sheds some light on the inner workings of the Senate and the influence of federal agencies, the FBI and the intelligence community to water down important whistleblower reforms.

The back room influence of federal managers and agencies has produced a Senate bill that is much weaker than the stronger House bill (H.R. 1507), co-sponsored by Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and Rep. Todd Platts (R-PA), that has strong bi-partisan support in the House and which was endorsed by President Obama during the campaign.

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FBI whistleblower Fred Whitehurst and an attorney for federal managers, Bill Bransford, spoke with Federal News Radio yesterday. They presented different sides of the argument about the Senate version of the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act (WPEA), S. 372. Whitehurst decried the bill saying it, "returns control of the process back to the very organization that is being exposed, and that's bizarre." Bransford supported the bill saying, "It was a very difficult problem that really was not capable of being fixed legislatively, but we tried. So you had this imperfect law, and, the result of it is, you get some really bad cases that come up before the federal circuit court of appeals . . .." Bransford said that he and the management-side Senior Executive Association (SEA) support S. 372.  I find this curious since Bransford testified last summer to a Senate Committee saying that he opposed letting federal employee whistleblowers bring cases to a jury.  Now he supports S. 372.  I conclude that S. 372 does not provide any meaningful hope that whistleblowers could actually get to a jury.  That is why the managers like it and the National Whistleblowers Center (NWC) does not. Federal News Radio is providing MP3 files of its interviews. The NWC is providing an Action Alert page for those who want to express a call for effective protection, not S. 372.

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FBI whistleblower Dr. Frederic Whitehurst issued a letter today strongly opposing the repeal of FBI whistleblower rights contained in the current Senate version of the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act (S. 372). This bill is currently being “hotlined” in the Senate, a process by which legislation can be passed by unanimous consent, without any formal debate or vote.

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Stephen M. Kohn, Executive Director of the National Whistleblowers Center (NWC), spoke today with James Corbett of CorbettReport.com. Kohn spoke about the problems with the current Senate version of the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act (WPEA), S. 372. CorbettReport.com provide Open Source Intelligence News.  Kohn details ways in which the Senate version of WPEA would actually make it harder for whistleblowers to win protection from and remedies for retaliation. Kohn also explains how it will only take one Senator to block S. 372 from passing with unanimous consent in its present form. The interview is available from CorbettReport.com in MP3 format.

For more information about the problems with S. 372, visit this NWC page.

TAKE ACTION now by asking your Senator to block S. 274 from passing until the poison pills are fixed.

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Hundreds of Transportation Security Officers (TSOs) and their allies rallied today in Washington for the right of these federal employees to have union recognition. Union leaders remembered that many union members gave their lives in the rescue efforts on 9/11, took down the shooter at Ft. Hood, and defend our security every day as pilots, flight attendants and law enforcement officers.  Indeed, we would be more secure if TSOs knew they had protection on the job when they raise safety concerns against management.  The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), AFL-CIO, has just filed a petition to represent 40,000 TSOs, and is rallying support for HR 1881 to assure these dedicated public servants the freedom of association, speech, and petition for redress of grievances that are guaranteed in the First Amendment to the Constitution. Pictured here is Amanda Schroeder of AFGE Local 2157 in Portland, Oregon. Some attenders even signed up for the National Whistleblowers Center's Action Alert network to call for passage of HR 1507 and assure all federal employees a right to trials by jury in their whistleblower cases.

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On February 19, 2010, David Colapinto participated in an on-air panel during the “Your Call”radio show. Mr. Colapinto is General Counsel of the National Whistleblowers Center. Other panel members included Daniel Ellsberg who released the historic Pentagon Papers which helped to shorten the Vietnam War and Marsha Coleman-Adebayo a former analyst for the EPA who was fired was while blowing the whistle on contamination in South Africa. Daniel Ellsberg is releasing a movie about his story “The Most Dangerous Man in America” which is premiering in the California area in early March.

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With sadness we report the death of Howard Zinn, historian, author, activist, and founding Board member of the National Whistleblowers Center. Other sources have already reported Zinn's remarkable biography. I recall how the time flew by thirty years ago when I read A People's History of the United States during subway rides to law school. Zinn's clear and informative writing made me wish I had taking history classes in college.

Here is a photo of Howard Zinn speaking last year at Busboys and Poets in Washington, DC:

Zinn played an important role in assisting Daniel Ellsberg in the disclosure of the Pentagon Papers.   Zinn, perhaps better than anyone, recognized the historical importance of putting the truth about the Vietnam War on the public record.

After ferrying the Pentagon Papers, Zinn continued his guiding role in the whistleblower movement. Zinn was a teacher and mentor to two partners of Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto, LLP, specifically Stephen M. Kohn and David Colapinto. Both had the privilege of studying history from Zinn at Boston University. Later, Zinn wrote a preface for Stephen Kohn's American Political Prisoners: Prosecutions Under the Espionage and Sedition Acts.

When Stephen Kohn, his brother Michael Kohn, and David Colapinto decided to form the National Whistleblowers Center, Howard Zinn joined them (as did Dennis Brutus, who death we mourned just last month). Zinn remained a Board member of NWC for the remainder of his life, just as he supported whistleblowers throughout his professional life.  His writing, speaking and activism have inspired generations to desire peace, work for justice and shine of the light of truth wherever it is needed.

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In its March issue, Harpers Magazine challenges the official and widely reported story that three prisoners being held in Guantánamo Bay committed suicide in an act of “asymmetrical warfare.”  The article, written by Scott Horton, is based largely on observations of whistleblower Joe Hickman, the highly decorated Staff Sergeant who was on duty as the guard for Camp America’s exterior security force the night the “suicides” occurred. Horton uses Hickman’s disclosures to clearly demonstrate that the official report is false.

Some major findings from the article include:
 

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