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Ry Cooder writes song for Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo

Posted on September 13, 2012 by Richard Renner

Ry CooderSinger-Songwriter Ry Cooder has written and recorded a song honoring environmental whistleblower Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo.  Called "Kool-Aid," the song is featured in Cooder's new album, "Election Special."

Cooder (pictured in this photo by Dani Canto) felt inspired to write this song after hearing Dr. Coleman-Adebayo's interview on the Smiley & West show.

Dr. Coleman-Adebayo sacrificed her career at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to speak out against vanadium poisoning in South Africa. Her book is called, NO FEAR: A Whistleblower's Triumph Over Corruption and Retaliation at EPA. NO FEAR tells the story of vanadium miners in South Africa, Dr. Coleman-Adebayo's efforts to protect them, the retaliation she suffered, her historic jury verdict against EPA, and the campaign that led to the NO-FEAR Act.

Her story well fits the tradition of a folk song hero, and Ry Coder has done her story justice.  Thank you. Dr. Coleman-Adebayo is a board member of the National Whistleblowers Center.

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Occupy EPA protest planned for March 30

Posted on March 15, 2012 by Richard Renner

Stop killing the planet

Occupy EPA is marching again. On Friday, March 30, 2012, at 12 noon, they will march from Franklin Square Park (13th & I Sts NW in Washington, DC) to the headquarters of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (12th & Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Federal Triangle, Washington DC). There, at 1:00 pm, they will lead a rally with EPA whistleblowers, Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, Dr. Margaret Flowers and Susan Morris.  Dr. Helen Caldicott will also address the rally. Protecting environmental whistleblowers has been a constant theme of Occupy EPA protests, and the speakers are sure to call on the EPA to stop retaliating and start protecting its employee whistleblowers. Follow this link for a flyer for this event.  Perhaps this can be a spark for the American Spring.

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David Colapinto, Daniel Ellsberg and Marsha Coleman-Adebayo on radio panel

Posted on February 22, 2010 by Richard Renner

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.

Mr. Ellsberg hopes that the film will expose parallels between the political anti whistleblower environment of the Vietnam era and today. He explained that whistleblowers have had historically little media attention but are gradually receiving more as their endeavors have furthered the public interest. Mr. Colapinto explained the difficulty whistleblowers have in exposing fraud, and recalled the story of an FBI employee, Sibel Edmonds, who received a gag order preventing her from suing the FBI for retaliation. This makes it nearly impossible for federal whistleblowers to expose fraud. Ms. Coleman-Adebayo explained the level of hostility she encountered after exposing contamination by U.S. companies in South Africa. She explained that she continually received death and rape threats as her court date approached. The whistleblower protection laws are insufficient and do nothing to protect whistleblowers from this type of abuse. Mr. Colapinto explained that government employees who blow the whistle have a 2% success rate and National Security employees have a zero percent chance. The national security apparatus that exists prevents employees from speaking out. This practice has prevented federal employees from speaking out when they could raise issues to make the public safer. Mr. Colapinto said that much better protections exist in the private sector for whistleblowers than in the public sector. Congress has had bi-partisan support for the bill H.R. 1507 which would give effective protection to federal employee whistleblowers. However, the bill has died in the Senate. Supporters of stronger laws to protect whistleblowers can call their Senators and ask them to support HR 1507 to ensure the protection of the public interest. Thanks to Mr. Colapinto and the panel for their informative discussion, alerting the public to the lack of protection that exists for whistleblowers defending the public interest. To listen to the interview in its entirety and learn more please click here. TAKE ACTION by calling on your Senators to stop a whistleblower bill containing poison pills, and adopt HR 1507 instead.

Intern Quinn McCall contributed to this blog entry.

 
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Burrowing and Purging at Sunset

Posted on November 20, 2008 by Richard Renner

David Swanson reports in AfterDowningStreet.org that the Bush administration has accelerated efforts to purge federal departments of whistleblowers before the inauguration of President-Elect Obama.  The story follows on the heels of a Washington Post report about the "borrowing" of political appointees into civil service positions to protect their jobs after the change of administrations.

His article is available at: http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/stopthepurge

Swanson spoke with Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo who called what's happening a "silent coup d'etat." The Bush administration, she said, is "embedding their foot soldiers inside the government in order to sabotage any Obama initiatives while at the same time terminating federal employees who they assume would be supportive of the new administration." Dr. Coleman-Adebayo won a jury verdict against the Environmental Protection Agency for discrimination, and inspired the No-FEAR Act. Now the EPA has proposed to remove her from federal employment. More about her story is available at:  http://johnsonmustgo.org/marsha

Other purges are in the Departments of Commerce, Labor and Transportation, according to Swanson.  Hopefully, Obama's transition team will review these purges with an eye toward fulfilling candidate Obama's pledge to protect federal whistleblowers. Click here to see Obama's survey responses to the National Whistleblower Center.

 

Click here to see why Obama's hardest promise will be protecting whistleblowers.

 

 

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