Twin Cities / Former FBI agent's attorneys to get $1M
U.S. to pay fees after losing sex bias case
BY TAD VEZNER
Pioneer Press
Article Last Updated: 01/04/2008 11:13:20 PM CST

The U.S. government was ordered to pay more than $1 million in court fees to the legal team supporting an FBI agent who sued the bureau for retaliating against her after she filed a sexual discrimination claim.

Jane Turner, 56, of St. Paul, who is now retired, was awarded $360,000 by a Minneapolis jury in February for actions taken against her by a supervisor while she was an agent in North Dakota in the late 1990s. The FBI appealed the case, which began in 2000, then dropped its appeal in August.

This week, Chief U.S. District Judge James Rosenbaum in Minneapolis concurred with the written recommendation of U.S. Magistrate Judge Arthur Boylan to award $1,016,000 to Turner's legal team. The sum includes $705,000 to Washington-based Kohn Kohn & Colapinto LLP; $108,000 to Minneapolis-based Hill & Associates; $123,000 to Klimaski & Associates, Turner's original Washington legal team; and $17,000 to Metcalf Kaspari Howard Engdahl & Lazarus P.A., Klimaski's local counsel.

Rosenbaum also awarded Turner an additional $62,852 in out-of-pocket expenses used to support her case.
Turner's attorneys originally requested about $1.46 million in fees. The government argued the fees were excessive in terms of the number of hours billed and the hourly rate - in Kohn's case, $500 an hour.
While Boylan cut some of the billed hours, he noted the rate was appropriate.

"On a national level, there is likely a dearth of attorneys and law firms willing to tackle a case such as this one," Boylan wrote. "It could well be anticipated that Ms. Turner's case would not be just another employment action, and indeed, such an anticipation was borne out as this matter unfolded."
Turner worked for more than a decade as a senior resident agent in Minot, N.D., focusing on crimes against children. After filing a sexual discrimination claim in 1998 against her immediate supervisor, Turner received an "unacceptable" review. Before the filing, she had received "superior" and "exceptional" reviews. She was transferred to Minneapolis in 2000 and left the bureau in 2003.
In 2002, Turner accused a fellow Minneapolis agent of taking a Tiffany crystal globe from the wreckage of the World Trade Center after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. In a 2003 report, the Department of Justice's inspector general found misconduct on the FBI's part.
In a second case, Turner has alleged retaliation for her whistle-blowing in relation to the Tiffany globe; that case is being reviewed by the Department of Justice.
Tad Vezner can be reached at tvezner@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5461.

Topic: National Security
White House Video Leak Is Tip Of Insecurity Iceberg

The announcement by Rita Katz of the SITE Institute that the White House had leaked advance knowledge of the Osama bin Laden video is more than just an embarrassment to the Bush administration. It's one more indicator that the administration's policies are working contrary to the best interests of the American people.

by Walt Thiessen
(Libertarian)
Independent reports by the AP and the Washington Post say that SITE Institute director Rita Katz has accused the Bush Administration of leaking advance information regarding the recently released video by Osama bin Laden. Such actions undermine the efforts of intelligence institutes like hers which perform valuable services to our country in the struggle to detect and apprehend Al Qaedda's leadership. But it isn't just an isolated blunder. It is the tip of a huge insecurity iceberg that not only plagues the Bush administration but also threatens the liberties and best interests of the American people. Reuters reported that the White House denied the allegations.
The report came just one day after the AP also reported that the U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear the appeal of Khaled el-Masri, the German citizen who says the CIA kidnapped and tortured him for three weeks before they finally decided they had the wrong man. The Court ruled based on the so-called "state secrets privilege" that the Supreme Court has used since 1953 to deny the hearing of cases where the government claims that state secrets will be revealed if a case is permitted to proceed.
Open The Government, a coalition of journalists, consumer and good government groups, environmentalists, library groups, labor and others, recently released a report which identifies just some of the Bush administration's excesses and possible cover-ups of serious mistakes made where security is concerned. Their report suggests in part that most of what gets listed as "classified" these days has no business being labeled as such.
"It is estimated that between 10 percent and 90 percent of all documents are over-classified. Lee Hamilton, the Vice-Chair of the 9/11 Commission said that 70 percent of the classified information that he saw during the Inquiry was 'needlessly classified'....
"Carol Haave, the Deputy Under-Secretary of Defense, testified in a Congressional hearing in 2004 that she believed that 50 percent of information was over-classified. At the same hearing, William Leonard, Director of the Information Security Oversight Office thought it was even higher. He noted that over-classification was 'disturbingly increasing, where information is being classified that is clear, blatant violation of the order.' Former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director (now Secretary of Defense) Robert Gates testified to the 9/11 Commission 'We overclassify very badly'....
"The rules for classification of information for national security reasons are set by the U.S. Executive Order 12958 on Classified National Security Information originally issued by President Clinton in 1995 and amended by President Bush in 2003.
"The E.O. prohibits the classification of information to 'conceal violations of law, inefficiency, or administrative error, prevent embarrassment to a person, organization or agency, retain competition, or prevent or delay the release of information that does not require protection in the interest of national security information.' It also prohibits the classification of basic scientific information not clearly related to national security. In practice, however, these prohibitions have often been unsuccessful, with information such as the report on the abuses from the Abu Ghraib prison being classified to prevent its release."
Meanwhile, their Secrecy Report Card 2007 provides focus on the impact of invocations of the state secrets privilege by the Bush Administration:
"Between 1953 and 1976, the federal government invoked the 'state secrets' privilege only six (6) times. Between 1977 and 2000, administrations invoked the privilege 59 reported times (a rate of 2.46 times per year). Since 2001, the state secrets privilege has been invoked at least 38 times, or a rate of 5.85 times each year."
In other words, the Bush administration has more than doubled the rate of invoking "state secrets" as a way to stop court cases against the government from proceeding. Some of these cases involve victims of 9/11 and their families.
Tom Schoop of GovExec.com reported last April that Freedom of Information Act requests are being approved at a much lower rate than under previous administrations.
"At the FBI, 74 percent of requests for information last year were denied on the grounds that no records could be found. Six years ago, the figure was 56 percent.
"The story was the same at other agencies: The State Department provided full or partial disclosure of information in response to requests 54 percent of the time in 2000. But by 2006, the figure had dropped to 35 percent. At Commerce, the decline was from 67 percent to 52 percent. And the response rate at the Securities and Exchange Commission dropped from 46 percent to 35 percent.
"Also...agencies are redacting more of the information they eventually let out. In 2000, the FBI provided 1,284 unaltered documents in response to FOIA requests. In 2006, only 56 such documents were released. The CIA issued 1,084 uncensored documents six years ago, and only 334 last year."
This article is the first part of a multi-part series that explores the various ways that the Bush administration, even more than prior administrations, puts our country's security at increased risk while using the "state secrets privilege" and other, similar executive powers to cover up its messes. It is a story that has repercussions which extend not only into our past but also into our present, our immediate future, and our distant future.
On Friday, I will continue this series by taking a closer look at the origins of the state secrets privilege in a 1953 landmark Supreme Court ruling. I'll show how the ruling helped to cover up government wrongdoing and incompetence in that case and laid the groundwork for future administrations to cover up their wrongdoing and incompetence.
Then on Monday, I will focus specifically on how the Bush administration has used the privilege on a case-by-case basis. This is where we'll get a clearer picture of how our government is deliberately hiding the truth to us about so many aspects of the struggle against terrorism, including the events of 9/11.
After these initial articles are completed, I will follow up with more articles touching upon other Bush administration activities with similarly negative repercussions. Taken individually and separately, none of the points I have and will discussed may seem terribly threatening to Americans by themselves, but when the whole picture is view with a high level of detail, readers will have a much clearer perspective of the threat that Bush's approach to terrorism has on American liberty, security, and the best interests of its people.

Original blog and site: http://www.nolanchart.com/article228.html

Government on the Hook for
One MIllion Dollars in Legal Fees
From the StarTribune.com, Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Minnesota

A former FBI agent and her lawyers were awarded
for thousands of hours of billable time in her retaliation suit.

By DAN BROWNING, Star Tribune

Last update: January 4, 2008 - 2:33 PM

A former FBI agent and the lawyers who helped her successfully sue the government in a whistleblower retaliation lawsuit got a prosperous New Year's greeting Thursday from Chief U.S. District Judge James Rosenbaum in Minneapolis.

Over the government's objections, Rosenbaum ordered the payment of $1,016,325.69 in legal fees and expenses to Jane Turner of St. Paul and several lawyers who helped her to win damages totaling $360,000 after a jury found in February that the agency had retaliated against her for filing a 1998 sex-discrimination complaint.

Turner's court battle had dragged on for more than five years and included a detour to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Turner and her lawyers originally requested about $1.46 million in fees and expenses. Such requests are often reduced by the courts, and U.S. Magistrate Judge Arthur Boylan recommended shaving about $444,000 in a 21-page report issued Nov. 20. But Boylan rejected the government's arguments for more substantial cuts.

Among other things, the government argued that Turner's lead attorney in the trial, Stephen Kohn, should be paid $350 an hour instead of the $500 hourly rate he requested. But Boylan rejected that.

He wrote, in part, that "the court is not convinced that $500 per hour would not be a reasonable rate that would be charged by an experienced and capable employment law attorney."

Boylan did recommend cutting the hourly rate paid to two paralegals in the case but otherwise approved the requested rates of Turner's attorneys and consultants since she first submitted a complaint to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Boylan also largely rejected arguments that some of the bills represented unnecessary legal work. He recommended cutting just 14 of the 381 hours submitted by Minneapolis attorney Robert Hill, and he approved of the balance of 4,864 hours of bills for lawyers, paralegals and consultants. And Boylan ordered the government to pay additional expenses of $127,905.34, including $62,852.41 that Turner paid out of her own pocket.

Rosenbaum issued a two-page order adopting Boylan's recommendations.

Turner's lawyers asked Rosenbaum to ignore the government's objections, arguing that they were filed a day after the deadline set by Boylan. The government argued that they had met the deadline. Rosenbaum made no mention of the deadline dispute.

The quiet actions undertaken by the Bush Administration to ease restrictions on how technology and defense materials are handled in order to better allow contractors, such as The Boeing Company, to more easily sell products including our newest technology to foreign countries such as China should be of grave concern to government oversight authorities and citizens of the United States. For example, Department of Commerce, an agency which has had numerous problems the past several years, not the least of which is adequately protecting classified and sensitive materials and technologies, has really dropped the ball in protecting classified and sensitive information and technology, and also has suffered the ill effects of this administrations politically motivated appointees and a systematic disabling of those employees charged with oversight of government contracts and the sharing of U.S. technologies. In some cases, decisions and permission for certain program actions to go forth are being made at high agency levels, leaving many government oversight professionals in the field, totally unaware that these decisions have been made behind their backs and out of their possible field of view, and that the materials and technologies are being compromised in the shadows created by our current administration (Bush and Associates). The problems continue to be widespread also within DOD programs and in the public sector.

With all of the information being posted by mainstream news reporters and bloggers which shows runaway contractors, fraud and corruption in contracts and in contract oversight and management, particularly in the area of defense contracts one would think that oversight government agencies and employees would be redoubling their efforts to do their jobs with efficacy. It is interesting to note that currently, the oversight of such contracts is under the purvey of The Defense Security Service (formerly Defense Investigative Service) who's employees have the charge of fulfilling their agencies assigned mission to "protect classified information and technology in the hands of industry." It would appear that DSS has been broken for some time, and that this critical mission is no longer being accomplished. I checked with someone who had access to the laws and policies and found out the following:

The National Industrial Security Program (NISP)
"DoD 5220.22-M, Chapter 1, Para. 1-101- Authority
The NISP was established by Executive Order 12829. The Secretary of Defense (SecDef) has been designated Executive Agent for the NISP by the President.
While the SecDef serves as the Executive Agent for inspecting and monitoring contractors, practical day-to-day administration of the program has been, and continues to be, the purvey of the Defense Security Service (DSS). One of the responsibilities of the DSS is the administration of the Facility Clearance (FCL) program of defense contractors. DoD 5220.22-M, Chapter 2, Para. 2-102- Eligibility Requirements, Sub Para. c. stipulates "The company must have a reputation for integrity and lawful conduct in its business dealings."

So why isn't the Secretary of Defense and the Defense Security Service enforcing this requirement? They have the authority to revoke a defense contractor's facility clearance and participation in the NISP until that contractor comes into compliance. It appears to be used very selectively on small defense contractors, but never as a compliance tool in large defense contractor transgressions."

So, current law does provide legal means to enforce expectations, policies, and laws regarding the actions of defense contractors, but the expectations, policies, and laws are not being enforced. In fact, over less than a decade, it has become decidedly out of control. It appears that Congress is going to have to stand up and take this to the mat, or it will never be wrestled back into control. It would appear the following must be done:

1. Corruption within and connected to the Executive, Judicial, and Legislative Branches must be confronted and routed.

2. Government Agencies must also be audited, removing first appointed managers who are either not doing the job required, or who are actively thwarting the employee's efforts to do the oversight work ethically. This will include on an agency-by-agency basis, determining which employees are a part of the problem and those who may be paralyzed victims of the corruption and the corrupted managers and/or coworkers.

3. Congressional intervention into defense contractor influence pedaling and lobbying wrongdoing must be accomplished and violations of current laws stopped.

4. The Government needs to step up to its role as the governing authority. Far too often contractors, defense contractors in particular have much too much influence into decisions that should be inherently governmental decisions. This is not to say that defense contractors should not have input into the process. However the final determination of policy needs to squarely rest on the shoulders of government.

5. Government employees who have oversight responsibilities must be uncompromised and independent of pressures either directly or indirectly applied from defense contractors or corrupted employees or managers within the government who are "owned" by those contractors.

6. The defense contracting community is its own best advocate. It does not need government workers or agencies advocating on its behalf. The government should not be trying to be the "friend" of industry. In business dealings, the government and industry, must maintain appropriate separation because of the legal oversight responsibility government has. There are currently laws and policies, which have been in place a long time to assure that the lines between contractor and oversight authority are clear and clean. However, those policies have in some cases been corrupted, and in others ignored, and in all cases where problems are evident have not been enforced.

Will all of this be easy? No, although the path that must be taken is clear. The U.S. Government must rededicate itself to effectively managing oversight of contractors who win contracts for all manner of goods and services, particularly defense contractors. The current administration has made it quite clear to this observer, that there is not only zero commitment to doing this in an ethical and responsible manner, but has condoned inappropriate and corrupt behavior at the highest levels. Our Justice Department and Office of Special Counsel have also been corrupted and rendered ineffective at best, and corrupted and a part of the problem at worst due to the partisan politicization of these critically important agencies.

Therefore, the heaviest weight in responsibility at this time, due to the apparent level of corruption and dysfunction in the Executive and Judicial branches, falls squarely on the shoulders of the Legislative Branch, which is itself troubled as some of its members have been found implicated in the same disagreeable business dealings. The outcome of the upcoming elections and what occurs after the elections will be of critical importance to the safety and economic security of the United States Government and its citizens.

Protect the whistle-blowers
A Times Editorial
St. Petersburg, FL Times
Published January 3, 2008
http://www.sptimes. com/2008/ 01/03/Opinion/ Protect_the_ whistle_b. shtml

Were it not for the disclosures of Rick Piltz of the White House Climate Change Science Program, the public might never have known that Bush administration appointees, including an oil industry lobbyist, altered the conclusions of the country's top scientists in order to subvert concern over global warming.

Pilz is one of thousands of whistleblowers who help make our government more accountable. These everyday heroes are the men and women willing to put their careers on the line in order to expose fraud, corruption and abuses of power. Congress and the public owe them a lot, but the least we owe them are some sturdy protections against retaliation.

However, the law that ostensibly does that, the Whistleblower Protection Act, is no longer serving its initial purpose. Primarily due to a series of corrosive legal rulings, the protections of the WPA have been whittled away to almost nothing.

According to the Government Accountability Project, a nonpartisan organization devoted to protecting whistleblowers, in the last 13 years whistleblowers have suffered a 2-to-183 losing streak before the one federal appellate court to which they may appeal. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit exclusively considers the appeals of administrative rulings, and it has been actively hostile to whistleblowers.

In response, Congress, by large bipartisan majorities, has just passed new whistleblower protections. The House passed its bill 331 to 94 and the Senate passed a similar version by unanimous consent. Now a conference committee needs to be convened to reconcile the measures.

Among its numerous provisions, the legislation would end the monopoly of the Federal Circuit, allowing all federal circuit courts to hear whistleblower appeals. It would also clarify that a whistleblower who makes any lawful disclosure of misconduct qualifies for legal protection.

Current court precedents have punched so many loopholes into the law that whistleblowers who first alert a co-worker, rather than someone with authority to solve the problem, are deemed ineligible for protection. Also, anyone who corroborates a whistleblower' s charges is not protected from subsequent retaliation, since they are not the original whistleblower.

The loopholes are too numerous to list, but the new legislation would finally close most of them. The House version is stronger than the Senate bill, and, as much as possible, that's the version that should prevail in conference. The White House, of course, has threatened to veto the measure.

If there is a veto, Congress should override it. It takes great personal courage to potentially sacrifice one's career to expose wrongdoing. Now Congress needs to demonstrate a little political courage of its own by protecting those who are willing to come forward on the public's behalf.

Here's how Tampa Bay representatives voted on the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act:

Gus Bilirakis, R-Palm Harbor - Yes

Ginny Brown-Waite, R-Brooksville - Yes

Adam Putnam, R-Bartow - No

C.W. Bill Young, R-Indian Shores - No

Vern Buchanan, R-Sarasota - Yes

Kathy Castor, D-Tampa - Yes
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