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Whistleblower Scores Victory Over Justice Department Privacy Violations

Posted on January 23, 2013 by Mary Jane Wilmoth

On January 15, 2013 U.S. District Court Judge Robert H. Cleland issued a key ruling in support of Justice Department whistleblower Richard G. Convertino in his longstanding Privacy Act lawsuit against the DOJ. The Court ordered the Detroit Free Press to produce all documents related to how the Justice Department smeared its former star prosecutor, Richard Convertino, after Convertino exposed serous flaws in the government’s “war on terror.”   

Convertino, one of the Justice Department’s most successful prosecutors, obtained the first guilty verdicts in a post-9/11 terrorism prosecution. However, instead of lauding the Justice Department’s counterterrorism program, Convertino testified that it was fundamentally flawed and administered by incompetent and politically motivated officials. The Justice Department, led by officials appointed by former Attorney General John Ashcroft, struck back and leaked false and highly derogatory information about Convertino to the Detroit Free Press. The leak was designed to discredit Convertino before his peers and force his resignation from the Department. 

In response, Mr. Convertino filed a Privacy Act lawsuit. Although a subsequent investigation confirmed that the leak came from DOJ officials, the Justice Department has stonewalled efforts to learn who was behind the smear. 

In a key ruling, Judge Cleland has ordered the Detroit Free Press to produce all of its documents related to the “leak” and to produce a witness to testify as to the DFP’s knowledge of the DOJ source.   This order follows on the heals of a major victory for Convertino at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. On June 22, 2012, that Court ruled that Mr. Convertino was entitled to discovery in order to learn what DOJ officials illegally leaked information in retaliation for Convertino’s whistleblowing.

Mr. Convertino’s attorney, Stephen M. Kohn, issued the following statement: “The public has a right to know what official within the Justice Department willfully violated the law and illegally smeared a distinguished and highly respected prosecutor. DOJ officials are not above the law. It is the completely hypocritical that the Justice Department actively prosecutes whistleblowers whom they accuse of leaking information, but when the shoe is on the other foot, the DOJ actively cover’s up for the leakers who serve their interests.”

To learn more about Mr. Convertino listen to the show on This American Life.

District Court Decision linked here.

Appeals Court Decision linked here.
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Congress Slams National Security Whistleblowers Again!

Posted on December 19, 2012 by Mary Jane Wilmoth

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As part of a House/Senate Conference approved Tuesday, Congress passed an “Enhancement Act” for Department of Defense contractors.  These contractors already had a right to go to federal court and obtain a jury trial. 

However, this new “Enhancement Act” creates a “National Security Exception” that does not exist in the current law.  The new amendment states that whistleblower protections “shall not apply to any disclosure made by an employee of a contractor, sub-contractor, or grantee of an element of the intelligence community.” See section 827(e).

The Committee members also approved an amendment to expand protection previously only available to employees of DOD contractors to cover employees of all federal contractors. Although this is a significant step forward, this amendment also exempted the intelligence committee and has a four-year sunset provision. In other words, if Congress does not reenact it in four years it terminates.

“Exempting National security whistleblowers from all legal protections is a recipe for disaster,” stated Stephen Kohn, Executive Director of the Washington, DC based National Whistleblowers Center.

The legislation passed by a conference committee of lawmakers from both chambers is expected to go to the full Senate and House of Representatives for a final vote this week before being sent to President Barack Obama for his signature.

We need you to take swift action and urge Congress to protect National Security Whistleblowers. Please click the link above and take action. Also, pass this along to friends and whistleblower advocates. Congress must be told in strong terms that they can’t undermine whistleblower protections.

 Click here to read the provisions. 

 

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This Week on Honesty Without Fear

Posted on October 22, 2012 by Lindsey Williams

Tune in today at 5:00pm EDT to Honesty Without Fear on Progressive Radio Network.

In the first half, David Colapinto interviews William "Bill" Binney, a former employee of the National Security Agency (NSA), who blew the whistle on the secret surveillance of everyday communications by American citizens. Mr. Binney will explain the extent of NSA's illegal data-gathering since 9/11, and describe the government's attempts to silence and intimidate him from speaking out about the evisceration of Americans' privacy.

In the second half, Lindsey Williams will interview David Colapinto about how the new Presidential Policy Directive will actually affect national security whistleblowers, like Mr. Binney.

Submit Your Question to be asked on air during the show or call in to 1-888-874-4888.

 

Missed last week's episode?? You can listen to the podcast.

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Presidential Policy Directive on Whistleblowers Draws Criticism

Posted on October 16, 2012 by Owen Dunn

A recent White House directive on national security whistleblowers has sparked a major dialog in the whistleblower community. You can read the National Whistleblowers Center's press release on the directive here.

Below is a full-text analysis from the Whistleblower Support Fund's Linda Lewis (originally published here). 

On Wednesday, President Obama signed a new Presidential Policy Directive (PPD-19) entitled, “Protecting Whistleblowers with Access to Classified Information.”

The presidential policy directive aims to ensure intelligence and national security employees are able to legally report agency wrongdoing and be protected from retaliation for doing so. (Federal News Radio).

When I first heard about the directive, I was hopeful that whistleblowers with security clearances might finally get needed protections. But, as I pored over the directive’s details, I became disappointed. I am not a lawyer, so perhaps I missed something of potential benefit. I am quite familiar, though, with the federal bureaucracy’s past responses to whistleblowers with security clearances.

The new directive tasks “various components of the intelligence community” with creating internal procedures for reviewing adverse personnel actions taken against employees who report wrongdoing within their organization, and gives them until July 2013 to do that. The “protections” laid out in the direction will not apply to personnel actions taken before that time.

The President directs intelligence agencies to provide their employees with a review process for adverse actions taken against them. That, alone, is inadequate to really protect employees from retaliation. When agencies write the rules, the rules benefit the agencies. A good example of this is the Department of Agriculture’s procedure for appealing security clearance revocations. It severely limits the evidence an employee can present in defense and bars the employee from even appearing before the agency panel that renders a decision. Worse still, an agency may fail to provide even the thin protections that exist on paper.

The new directive does give employees alleging retaliation the right to request an external review by a panel of inspectors general. This offers some benefit, although inspectors general are sometimes as reluctant to protect whistleblowers as the agencies they oversee. But, once this panel has completed its review, their findings go to the agency head for a final decision as to providing relief to the whistleblower. This undermines the benefit, if any, provided by the inspectors general review. A typical agency reprisal consists of revoking a whistleblower’s security clearance and, by law, the authority to revoke a clearance lies with the head of the agency. The President’s directive thus tasks the same official responsible for revoking a whistleblower’s clearance with deciding that the revocation was improper. That’s not very likely, although miracles do happen.

What the new directive does is give intelligence community whistleblowers lots of process without substantially changing the result. Most likely, the “reviews” will materialize as retaliatory investigations of the employee (now given the cover of a presidential directive) giving agencies an opportunity to supplement their smear files while ignoring evidence and witnesses favorable to the employee. Potentially, the whistleblower would emerge from the process worse off than when it began.

The directive provides no right to external review, i.e., for appeal to a federal court, and denies its “protections” to disclosures an employee makes outside the organization. That would include Congress, although employees supposedly have an existing right to take disclosures to Congress (with restrictions for classified disclosures).

If there is any potential benefit for whistleblowers in the new directive, the lack of retroactivity in the directive will give agencies an incentive to step up adverse personnel actions against whistleblowers prior to July 2013. And, if Mitt Romney wins in November, all bets are off.

I found no language in the directive that clearly applies it to security clearance holders who are not employed in the “Intelligence Community.” The President’s memo does not mention agencies like the Food Safety and Inspection Service where virtually all senior managers are required to hold security clearances. Those employees, it seems, exist in a black hole where the light of justice does not reach. On the other hand, the stated “protections” in the new directive are largely illusory.
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This Week on Honesty Without Fear

Posted on October 15, 2012 by Lindsey Williams

Tune in today at 5:00pm EDT to Honesty Without Fear on Progressive Radio Network.

In the first half, Steve Kohn talks with Jamison Firestone, the law partner and friend of Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian whistleblower who was arrested, tortured, and eventually killed for uncovering a $230 million tax fraud scheme involving the collaboration of Russian government officials and convicted criminals. Tune in to hear about the devastating response of the Russian government from a lawyer who fled Russia out of fear for his own safety.

Submit Your Question to be asked on air during the show or call in to 1-888-874-4888.

 

Missed last week's episode?? You can listen to the podcast.

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This Week on Honesty Without Fear

Posted on August 21, 2012 by Lindsey Williams

Tune in today at 1:00pm EDT to Honesty Without Fear on Progressive Radio Network.

In the first half, Richard Renner interviews author Kathleen Sharp about Mary Scott, a hospital finance administrator who blew the whistle on Metropolitan Health Corp bilking the federal government through billing fraud and kickbacks. After the federal government reached a $6.25 million settlement agreement with Metro Health based on her whistleblowing, the company fought back hard. They convinced a judge, without a hearing, to levy a $1.6 million sanction against Ms. Scott for her lawyers' misconduct. Metro Health is now frustrating Ms. Scott's attempts to pick up the pieces by opposing her bankruptcy case. Kathleen Sharp will explain this harrowing tale of how hard fraudsters can fight back against whistleblowers.

In the second half hour, Guest Host Rosemary Dew, a 13-year veteran FBI agent, interviews fellow FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley. They discuss the Obama Administration's use of the Espionage Act to prosecute national security whistleblowers, such as NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake.

Submit Your Question to be asked on air during the show or call in to 1-888-874-4888.

 

Missed last week's episode?? You can listen to the podcast.

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NYC Premiere of Whistleblower Documentary "Top Priority" Tomorrow

Posted on June 28, 2012 by Lindsey Williams

The whistleblower documentary Top Priority: The Terror Within makes it east coast premiere at the IFC Film Center in New York City tomorrow, June 29th. It will be playing in NYC through July 5th and then will be showing at Laemmle NoHo Theatre in North Hollywood, California from July 13th through July 19th.
 


Top Priority: The Terror Within documents the true-life story of national security whistleblower and anti-terrorism/immigration expert, Julia Davis. Julia Davis served as a former Customs and Border Protection Officer at the San Ysidro Port of Entry - the largest and busiest land border crossing in the U.S. and in the world. While working at the border, she exposed glaring shortcomings in the processing of applicants for admission into U.S. from terrorist countries. In response, she filed a report with the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task force detailing the Department of Homeland Security’s failure to properly protect the U.S. from potential threats to national security. Instead of conducting an investigation and praising Ms. Davis for her hard work and diligence, the DHS labeled her as a “Domestic Terrorist”. In return for standing up for the security and safety of the American people, Ms Davis was thrust into a never-ending nightmare filled with unprecedented levels of retaliation against her, her family and witnesses.

Fifty-four investigations were carried out, in an attempt to discredit and silence Julia. Investigations included warrantless aerial surveillance, OnStar tracking, internet monitoring, and warrantless searches and seizures. Much like a scene from an action movie, the DHS even staged a raid on the Davis’ home with a Blackhawk helicopter and a Special Response Team. For a first hand account of Ms Davis’ experience, listen to her May 22nd interview on the NWC radio show Honesty Without Fear.

Top Priority: The Terror Within exposes the details of Julia Davis’ heart wrenching journey to prevail against the DHS. It shed lights on her outstanding act of patriotism, her whirlwind experience with corruption, retaliation, imprisonment, loss and finally redemption.

Moviehole critic Phoebe Gallagher stated, "A remarkable film that will make you question your leaders." You can share your thoughts about the film in the comments below.


*Abisola Objikutu (a NWC intern) drafted this posting
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The Growing Power of the NSA

Posted on April 26, 2012 by Owen Dunn

We may be much closer to living in an Orwellian state than many think, suggests William Binney, a National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower. Binney served as an NSA employee for almost 40 years, including time as technical director of the NSA’s World Geopolitical and Military Analysis Reporting Group, before leaving his post in October of 2001. In his first interview since he quit his job because of the domestic surveillance program, he sat down with Democracy Now! to discuss the NSA’s colossal power to spy on Americans.

Binney interviewed with two other individuals who have been frequent targets of government surveillance: Laura Poitras, an Oscar nominated documentary filmmaker, and producer and Jacob Appelbaum, a computer security researcher and Wikileaks volunteer. Both have been interrogated and regularly detained upon entrance into the United States. Their computers, cameras, and cell phones have been seized and presumably copied.

William Binney began the conversation discussing the role of the NSA and how its operation drastically changed post 9/11. After the 2001 attacks, the NSA began collecting roughly 320 million records of US –to- US citizen communication from commercial companies, largely AT&T. After this occurred, Binney “knew [he] could not stay there” and “had to leave.” Not only did this collection infringe upon constitutional rights, it also violated the Pen Registry Act, the Stored Communications Act, the Electronic Privacy Act, and the Intelligence Acts of 1947 and 1978.

With knowledge of the illegal data collection that was occurring, Binney and a few colleagues filed a DOD-IG report to the Pentagon and Inspector General reporting on the corruption, waste, fraud, and abuse that was occurring at the NSA. Because his signature was on this document, his home was raided on July 26, 2007, with his family present. Roughly a dozen FBI Agents entered his residence with guns drawn. He was separated from his family and interrogated.

Binney believes that the US government has copies of many or almost all e-mails sent in the United States. He also mentioned that surveillance has increased under the Obama administration. In his own assessment, Binney estimates that 20 trillion transactions between US citizens have been accumulated. This only accounted for phone calls and emails, no credit card transactions, online searches, etc.

The NSA is quietly building the largest spy center in the country in Bluffdale, Utah. This facility will become a bottomless database of information stored by the agency, including private emails, cell phone calls, google searches, and other personal data. Binney was a key source of James Bamford’s recent exposé in Wired Magazine’s article surrounding the Bluffdale center.

Laura Poitras reports in her interview that she has been detained a staggering 40 times at the U.S. border. This detention began in 2006 when she started working on a series of films reflecting upon the U.S. post 9/11. Similarly, Jacob Appelbaum has been searched and detained at the border since 2010. He tells Democracy Now! that he has been interrogated about a dozen times. On one occasion, Appelbaum had his laptop and cell phone confiscated. When asked to further explain the situation and enlighten the audience as to why these items were seized, Appelbaum stated that he could not talk about that situation because “we don’t live in a free country.”

National security whistleblowers have a rocky road ahead of them after they blow the whistle. They have very few, if any rights. National security whistleblowers risk losing their security clearance and under the current administration, they risk criminal prosecution under the Espionage Act (see our blog posting on Thomas Drake to find out more on this issue).

If Americans want to know what abuses are occurring within the intelligence community, we must pass strong, sustainable whistleblower protection rights for national security employees.  Those uncovering the waste and fraud must have a secure avenue to report violations that harm the public and waste taxpayer money.

*Intern Kara Gleason contributed this article
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RTTV Covers FBI Censorship of Sibel Edmonds

Posted on April 11, 2012 by Owen Dunn

NWC Executive Director Stephen Kohn appeared live on RTTV last night to discuss the treatment of national security whistleblowers under the Obama administration. Specifically, RTTV asked him about the FBI's attempts to censor Sibel Edmonds as she attempts to publish a book about her experience blowing the whistle at the Washington Field Office.

How does Obama's record on whistleblowers compare to that of the founding fathers? The answer might not be what you think. Here's the full interview:

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NWC Condemns CIA Whistleblower Indictment

Posted on April 6, 2012 by Owen Dunn

The Department of Justice’s policy of distorting privacy laws to pursue and discredit whistleblowers continues. The Associated Press reported yesterday that a former CIA officer, John Kiriakou, is being charged with leaking classified information after publicly expressing concerns over the use of torture during interrogations.

The National Whistleblowers Center obtained a copy of the indictment, available here.

In the indictment, the DOJ argues that because the interrogation “operation fell within the scope of a CIA counterterrorism program,” all details are therefore critical “national defense information.” Using this type of circular logic and vague, umbrella terminology is now standard practice for the Department of Justice as it works to hide serious legal and ethical allegations, including those made by Mr. Kiriakou in this case.

Stephen M. Kohn, Executive Director of the National Whistleblowers Center, stated:

We condemn Mr. Kiriakou’s indictment. The First Amendment means what it says; freedom of speech exists in the United States regardless of the wishes of extremists at the DOJ and CIA who are using outrageous charges to attack whistleblowers. These charges should be dropped immediately, and an investigation should instead be made into those responsible for them.

You can read more about the government's treatment of national security whistleblowers in the recent Whistleblowers Protection Blog article, "Washington Times Covers the Department of no-Justice."

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