In "Charging WikiLeaks," Washington Post misses a better alternative
In yesterday's Washington Post, an editorial called "Charging WikiLeaks" urges the Obama administration to refrain from pressing criminal charges against WikiLeaks leaders for releasing classified State Department cables. "Media outlets do not have a legal duty to abide by the government's secrecy demands," the editorial declares. What should the government do? At the end of the editorial, the Post editors suggest, "[s]horing up the independence and tools of the inspectors general . . . might persuade the next would-be whistleblower to tern to a responsive . . . government entity . . ..." Does the Post really think that would-be whistleblowers don't have the address of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees? My experience is that inspectors generals are good at taking action against corruption that the leadership does not want. If it is the leadership that is corrupt, then the inspector general they pick is unlikely to take action against them. My hunch is that most would-be whistleblowers would figure that out. How about meaningful legal protections against retaliation? The current version of the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act (WPEA) in the Senate (S. 372) would leave national security whistleblowers stuck with the decisions of the leaders of the intelligence agencies. That is likely to be worse that the Merit System Protection Board (MSPB) which rules against whistleblowers over 98% of the time. The House version (HR 1507) would allow all federal employees to have access to jury trials. Even the employees of national security agencies have access to jury trials for Title VII claims of discrimination. The legal system has figured out how to permit these claims to be tried without damaging national security. It is time we use this process to enhance national security by making sure that whistleblowers have the gold standard of justice when they pursue the lawful means of raising concerns about abuses.
The main point of the story is how MMS was infused with a "culture of corruption," and its slipshod inspections missed opportunities to prevent the Deepwater Horizon explosion. The story also mentions that Maxwell is in the fifth year of a whistleblower lawsuit against Kerr-McGee. In that case, Maxwell won a $7.5 million dollar verdict against Kerr-McGee. After a judge threw out the verdict, he appealed. In 2008, the 
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. 
spoke today with 
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. 
Stephen M. Kohn, Executive Director of the 
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 