Date: January 30, 2008

To: Whom It May Concern

From: Joe Carson, PE, ,
netmultiple-time prevailing whistleblower in
Dept. of Energy ,
petitioner in multiple cases against US Office of
Special Counsel (OSC) Knoxville, TN
865-300-5831

Subject: Special Counsel Scott Bloch letter to AG
Mukasey (attached) and LA Times Story of January 29, 2008

I am a co-founder of OSC Watch
, which has 3 objectives: 1)
expose how the OSC, since 1989, has failed to
comply with its primary statutory duty - to
protect federal employees from prohibited
personal practices (PPP’s), 2) stop OSC’s
lawbreaking, and 3) obtain a measure of justice
and restoration for the 10,000 or more loyal,
patriotic, federal employees, who sought OSC’s
protection from PPP’s since 1989 and failed to
obtain the protection OSC is required to
provide. The members of the OSC Watch Steering
Committee are nearing completion of a petition to
Congress to conduct oversight of OSC focused on
OSC Watch’s concerns about systemic and persistent OSC lawbreaking.

I am also a party to a number of legal actions
against OSC, alleging a number of aspects and
instances of OSC’s failure to comply with
relevant law to protect federal employees from
PPP’s or report the results of investigations it
conducts per 1216. In those cases, it is an
assistant United States Attorney who represents
OSC against my claims of OSC’s failures to
protect federal employees, including United
States attorneys, against PPP’s. Had OSC
complied with its statutory duties to protect
federal employees from PPP since 1989, I think
that the Department of Justice, as other federal
agencies, particularly the Department of Energy,
would be much different places and I think
national tragedies, such as 9/11, failure of
levees in New Orleans, loss of space shuttle
Columbia, might have been averted and the
Department of Justice would be much more
resistant to being used as a political spoil. A
trial court decision in one of those cases,
finding significant OSC non-compliance with
aspects of it statutory duties to protect me, is attached.

My comments are Special Counsel Bloch’s letter to
AG Mukasey are focused on its first two pages
about OSC’s PPP investigations (conducted per
1214) and the Hatch Act and 1216(a)(4) investigations at DOJ.

1. Special Counsel Bloch’s legal claims about
his jurisdiction to investigate violations of law
under OSC’s jurisdiction by DOJ are correct, as
far as he goes. But he fails to state what his
fundamental statutory duty is to the DOJ
employee(s) who filed PPP complaints with OSC -
to investigate the PPP complaint, to determine
the whether “there are reasonable grounds to
believe a PPP has occurred, exists, or is to be
taken,” and appropriately report that PPP
determination. If OSC makes a positive PPP
determination, it must report it to AG Mukasey
per 1214(e), to enable AG Mukasey to comply with
his statutory obligation to “prevent PPP’s” in
DOJ, per 5 USC 2302(c). That is where OSC’s
statutory duties end, it has complete discretion
as a prosecutorial agency about formally seeking
corrective action or disciplinary action as a
result of his PPP investigations. Mr. Bloch’s
five year tenure at Special Counsel will end,
coincidentally, in January 2009, his claims about
the end of the current administration are
disingenuous, it is his statutory 5 year tenure ending that is more
relevant.

2) Special Counsel Bloch fails to mention that he
has subpoena power over DOJ to execute his legal
jurisdiction over it, as described at 5 USC
1212(b). He apparently has not subpoenaed DOJ
for information to this point. If he issues
subpoenas DOJ for documents, depositions, or
responses to interrogatories and DOJ does not
comply with OSC’s subpoena, OSC can request the
US Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) to seek
an order from Federal District Court to enforce
it. MSPB would use its attorneys, not DOJ ones, in such an action.

I suggest the following questions for OSC:

1) How many PPP complaints, alleging how many
specific PPP’s, has it received from DOJ employees since 2001?

2) How many times has OSC determined “there are
reasonable grounds to believe a PPP has occurred,
exists, or is to be taken,” as a result of its
investigations of these PPP complaints?

3) For each positive PPP determination, where is
the public record of its determination, its
transmittal of that determination to DOJ, and the
Attorney General Certified DOJ response, as
required by 5 USC 1214(e) and 1219(a)(3)?

4) Why has OSC not subpoenaed DOJ to provide the
information OSC needs to conduct its ongoing PPP investigations?

Date: January 30, 2008

To: Whom It May Concern

From: Joe Carson, PE, ,
netmultiple-time prevailing whistleblower in
Dept. of Energy ,
petitioner in multiple cases against US Office of
Special Counsel (OSC) Knoxville, TN
865-300-5831

Subject: Special Counsel Scott Bloch letter to AG
Mukasey (attached) and LA Times Story of January 29, 2008

I am a co-founder of OSC Watch
, which has 3 objectives: 1)
expose how the OSC, since 1989, has failed to
comply with its primary statutory duty - to
protect federal employees from prohibited
personal practices (PPP’s), 2) stop OSC’s
lawbreaking, and 3) obtain a measure of justice
and restoration for the 10,000 or more loyal,
patriotic, federal employees, who sought OSC’s
protection from PPP’s since 1989 and failed to
obtain the protection OSC is required to
provide. The members of the OSC Watch Steering
Committee are nearing completion of a petition to
Congress to conduct oversight of OSC focused on
OSC Watch’s concerns about systemic and persistent OSC lawbreaking.

I am also a party to a number of legal actions
against OSC, alleging a number of aspects and
instances of OSC’s failure to comply with
relevant law to protect federal employees from
PPP’s or report the results of investigations it
conducts per 1216. In those cases, it is an
assistant United States Attorney who represents
OSC against my claims of OSC’s failures to
protect federal employees, including United
States attorneys, against PPP’s. Had OSC
complied with its statutory duties to protect
federal employees from PPP since 1989, I think
that the Department of Justice, as other federal
agencies, particularly the Department of Energy,
would be much different places and I think
national tragedies, such as 9/11, failure of
levees in New Orleans, loss of space shuttle
Columbia, might have been averted and the
Department of Justice would be much more
resistant to being used as a political spoil. A
trial court decision in one of those cases,
finding significant OSC non-compliance with
aspects of it statutory duties to protect me, is attached.

My comments are Special Counsel Bloch’s letter to
AG Mukasey are focused on its first two pages
about OSC’s PPP investigations (conducted per
1214) and the Hatch Act and 1216(a)(4) investigations at DOJ.

1. Special Counsel Bloch’s legal claims about
his jurisdiction to investigate violations of law
under OSC’s jurisdiction by DOJ are correct, as
far as he goes. But he fails to state what his
fundamental statutory duty is to the DOJ
employee(s) who filed PPP complaints with OSC -
to investigate the PPP complaint, to determine
the whether “there are reasonable grounds to
believe a PPP has occurred, exists, or is to be
taken,” and appropriately report that PPP
determination. If OSC makes a positive PPP
determination, it must report it to AG Mukasey
per 1214(e), to enable AG Mukasey to comply with
his statutory obligation to “prevent PPP’s” in
DOJ, per 5 USC 2302(c). That is where OSC’s
statutory duties end, it has complete discretion
as a prosecutorial agency about formally seeking
corrective action or disciplinary action as a
result of his PPP investigations. Mr. Bloch’s
five year tenure at Special Counsel will end,
coincidentally, in January 2009, his claims about
the end of the current administration are
disingenuous, it is his statutory 5 year tenure ending that is more
relevant.

2) Special Counsel Bloch fails to mention that he
has subpoena power over DOJ to execute his legal
jurisdiction over it, as described at 5 USC
1212(b). He apparently has not subpoenaed DOJ
for information to this point. If he issues
subpoenas DOJ for documents, depositions, or
responses to interrogatories and DOJ does not
comply with OSC’s subpoena, OSC can request the
US Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) to seek
an order from Federal District Court to enforce
it. MSPB would use its attorneys, not DOJ ones, in such an action.

I suggest the following questions for OSC:

1) How many PPP complaints, alleging how many
specific PPP’s, has it received from DOJ employees since 2001?

2) How many times has OSC determined “there are
reasonable grounds to believe a PPP has occurred,
exists, or is to be taken,” as a result of its
investigations of these PPP complaints?

3) For each positive PPP determination, where is
the public record of its determination, its
transmittal of that determination to DOJ, and the
Attorney General Certified DOJ response, as
required by 5 USC 1214(e) and 1219(a)(3)?

4) Why has OSC not subpoenaed DOJ to provide the
information OSC needs to conduct its ongoing PPP investigations?

Incontrovertible evidence - ballot box rips, slices and openings: Click here -
http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=hHL_YMBolRs


Harris Calls For Resignations In New Hampshire Recount Fiasco
Vote fraud expert convinced chain of custody is corrupt, says
"criminal enterprise" is at work

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Updated Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Fresh from her confrontations in New Hampshire during which public
officials were grilled about slapdash chain of custody and ballot box
tampering issues, Bev Harris told the Alex Jones Show that a "criminal
enterprise" is running the primary recount and has called for
Secretary of State William Gardner to resign and his assistant to be
fired.

Harris was fundamental in the vetting and production of the HBO
special Hacking Democracy, and has contributed towards bringing
charges against vote fraudsters who cheated in Ohio in 2004.

Harris traveled to New Hampshire personally to discover for herself
the disgraceful lapses in chain of custody for the memory cards and
ballot boxes used in the recent primary.

Harris is featured in the video below asking public officials about
slits in ballot boxes as they bizarrely deny that the slits are big
enough to allow tampering, amongst a myriad of other disturbing
questions about chain of custody. Follow-up questions are frowned upon
and one official calls security to have Harris removed.

Following Republican candidate Albert Howard's attempts to oversee the
recount, Harris said "I knew that somebody needed to get to New
Hampshire and protect or find out what they're doing with chain of
custody of the ballots....New Hampshire has the memory cards for 81
per cent of its votes counted by this one company - we found there was
a convicted felon involved in that....that' s why I wanted to see what
the chain of custody was".

After hooking up with other vote fraud experts, Harris confronted
public officials and asked pointed questions about chain of custody.

"The problem was we were either not getting answers or we were getting
bizarre answers," said Harris.

New Hampshire Secretary of State William Gardner was questioned on the
whereabouts of the memory cards that hold electronic records of the votes.

"She kept asking him and ultimately he had to admit he didn't know
where they were, and this is days after the election," said Harris.

One of the observers followed the ballots back to the vault where they
were being stored overnight and noticed slits in the ballot boxes that
had not been counted, a complete violation of federal election laws.

"I then came in the next day and asked the assistant Secretary of
State David Scanlan - what about that slit in the end of the box?"
said Harris, after which Scanlan attempted to dismiss the concern by
claiming the slits weren't big enough to allow tampering (an OJ tries
on the glove moment, according to Harris).

One of the observers then proceeded to shame Scanlan by easily
sticking her whole hand into the ballot box.

Officials then claimed that a special tape was in place to seal the
box, but as Harris proves in the video, the tape can easily be peeled
off and re-applied.

"It's a post-it note," said Harris, "You can rip it on and off, on and
off."

Harris then discovered that the ballot boxes were not being transferred
from state to state by police as should be the case, but by "Butch and
Hoppy," two truck drivers who raced around the state at high speed
endangering people and employing evasive maneuvers to escape from
observers who were following them.

"We caught them meeting up with a green jeep in the middle of nowhere
half way through their route and we walk up to them and they drive off
in a different direction," said Harris.

"I wanted to see what the ballots looked like when Butch and Hoppy
take them off the truck, well sure enough they didn't have seals on
them and some of them weren't even closed - they had the box top open
with big gashes and tears in them," said Harris, who also revealed how
officials left ballots in their offices and did not store them in
secure vaults.

"Every way that it could break down it seemed to have broken down,"
said Harris, "Even to the extent of just not following procedures".

"How can you say that you can open someone's ballot box without them
present?" asked Harris.

Based on her experiences with the sham nature of the process, Harris
called for the resignation of the Secretary of State Gardener and his
assistant David Scanlan.

"I think assistant Secretary of State David Scanlan, who is actually
their operations guy, should be dismissed from his position and the
Secretary of State should resign, and they need to refund the money
for both candidates and recount all those ballots in public," said Harris.

"What they're doing here is a criminal enterprise," she added, "It has
all the earmarks of it."

Click here to listen to the MP3 interview.

http://www.prisonpl anet.com/ articles/ january2008/ 012908_recount_ fiasco.htm

===

FAA whistleblowers get their day

2:13 PM Thu, Jan 31, 2008 | PermalinkTerry Maxon E-mail News tips

Business Week has a story about Federal Aviation Administration and its safety oversight about airlines. It's not very encouraging to those who want to believe that the FAA will side with its own employees rather than its airlines.

The story is mostly about an FAA inspector assigned to keep an eye on Northwest Airlines. But there is a reference to Southwest Airlines as well:

Several safety inspectors told BusinessWeek that they had also experienced or witnessed retaliation. (Most of the safety inspectors interviewed by BusinessWeek did not want to be identified by name in this article for that reason.) The House aviation subcommittee is probing an episode in which FAA management allegedly punished an inspector in 2007, according to three sources with knowledge of the subcommittee's probe. Worried that some of the aluminum skins on Southwest's (LUV) older Boeing 737s were prone to cracking, this inspector called for the planes to be rotated out of the fleet until they could all be repaired—a process that would have been time-consuming and costly. He was reassigned though later reinstated in his previous job. A Southwest spokesperson says the airline "is unaware" of the concerns raised by this inspector and "has no knowledge of a probe by the House aviation subcommittee." The FAA declined to comment.

Retaliation against the inspector assigned to Southwest will be the subject of a House aviation subcommittee hearing in March, Business Week says.

I received an email response to this article from Gerald Eastman, The Last Inspector, former Boeing Employee regarding this article. With his permission I post it here and include a link to his site, where you will find much more about alleged FAA, DOT OIG and Boeing Corruption. -VM

"Great story, B.W. I can confirm the corruption of FAA mgmnt noted in the story exists. I witnessed it. The corruption of the FAA's mission from protecting safety to protecting their post-FAA retirement employers exists also between FAA mgmnt and Boeing. I witnessed exactly that when FAA mgmnt covered up the citically deficient state of Boeing's QMS I reported to them. I also wrote to my Senators once the FAA covered up for Boeing instead of investigating the report. The same culture of noncompliance exists between Boeing mgmnt, Boeing's inspectors, FAA mgmnt, and FAA inspectors. The surest way to get both Boeing and FAA mgmnt to retaliate against their inspectors is for inspectors to actually dare to do their safety critical inspection work rather than just pretend to do the job. Find out what happens to an ethical inspector when trying to expose Boeing/FAA corruption at my website, www.thelastinspector.com ."

Gerald Eastman
The Last Inspector

From Business Week
In Depth January 30, 2008, 6:11PM EST text size: TT

Airline Safety: A Whistleblower's Tale

A new report spotlights how FAA inspectors must battle not only carriers but their own agency, too
by Stanley Holmes

After mechanics at Northwest Airlines went out on strike on Aug. 20, 2005, Federal Aviation Administration safety inspector Mark Lund began to see troubling signs. One replacement mechanic didn't know how to test an engine. Another couldn't close a cabin door. Many did not seem properly trained. In Lund's view, their inexperience resulted in dangerous mistakes. One DC-10, for example, had a broken lavatory duct that allowed human waste to spill onto vital navigation equipment. The leak developed during a flight from Amsterdam to Minneapolis. Northwest (NWA) planned to let the plane continue on to Honolulu with the perilous and putrid problem unfixed—until one of Lund's fellow safety inspectors in Minneapolis intervened.

Just two days after the strike began, Lund fired off a "safety recommendation for accident prevention" letter to his supervisors and to FAA headquarters in Washington. It was the loudest alarm he had the authority to ring. Claiming that "a situation exists that jeopardizes life," Lund proposed cutting back on Northwest's flight schedule until mechanics and inspectors could do their job "without error." But instead of taking harsh action against the airline, the agency punished him. On Aug. 29, Lund's supervisors confiscated the badge that gave him access to Northwest's facilities and gave him a desk job. That happened to be the same day the airline sent a letter to the FAA complaining about Lund's allegedly disruptive and unprofessional conduct. The FAA says it treated Lund fairly.
As the airline escalated its war against Lund, he counterattacked. Going over the heads of multiple layers of FAA managers, Lund faxed his safety recommendation to Mark Dayton, then the Democratic senator for Northwest's home state of Minnesota. Dayton, in turn, brought the matter to the attention of the Inspector General for the Transportation Dept., which oversees the FAA.

In the two years after Lund blew the whistle on the unaddressed problems he perceived at Northwest, he says, the FAA made his life uncomfortable. Now Lund is returning the favor. On Sept. 27, 2007, the Inspector General released a report on the episode that lambasted the FAA for its treatment of Lund, who held on to his job despite what he claims was an effort to fire him. At the request of the Inspector General, the agency is now in the process of modifying the procedures it uses to review safety allegations raised by inspectors. The FAA is bracing for more scrutiny on this issue. In March, the House aviation subcommittee plans to hold a hearing on an alleged incident of retaliation involving an inspector for Southwest Airlines.

The "FAA's handling of [Lund's] safety concerns appeared to focus on discounting the validity of the complaints," the Inspector General's office wrote in its report. "A potential negative consequence of FAA's handling of this safety recommendation is that the other inspectors may be discouraged from bringing safety issues to FAA's attention."

On-the-Ground Cops
Lund's story shines a spotlight on a conflict that most passengers have no idea exists: the one between safety inspectors and airlines. The inspectors are the on-the-ground cops who ensure that engines fire up properly, that the wing flaps function, and that all of the other complex machinery in an aircraft is in good working order. They have broad discretion to halt and delay flights—power that often rankles the thinly stretched, financially strapped carriers. When an inspector launches a formal investigation into an apparent safety violation at a passenger airline, something that happened more than 200 times last year, it often triggers costly repairs. And when the bill exceeds $50,000, the FAA must issue a press release alerting the world to the problem.

The airlines sometimes fight back. Executives meet constantly with local FAA officials on a wide variety of issues and occasionally lodge informal complaints against tough inspectors. From time to time, the carriers bring their concerns directly to the agency's top official: the FAA administrator. "If the airline feels uncomfortable, management will call the FAA administrator," says Linda Goodrich, a former inspector who is now vice-president of the Professional Airways Systems Specialists (PASS) union, which represents inspectors and played no role in Lund's dispute with the agency. "The FAA administrator will immediately demand to know what we are doing to them. You can imagine an inspector trying to do his work when his local management is so fearful of the airline."

Several safety inspectors told BusinessWeek that they had also experienced or witnessed retaliation. (Most of the safety inspectors interviewed by BusinessWeek did not want to be identified by name in this article for that reason.) The House aviation subcommittee is probing an episode in which FAA management allegedly punished an inspector in 2007, according to three sources with knowledge of the subcommittee's probe. Worried that some of the aluminum skins on Southwest's (LUV) older Boeing 737s were prone to cracking, this inspector called for the planes to be rotated out of the fleet until they could all be repaired—a process that would have been time-consuming and costly. He was reassigned though later reinstated in his previous job. A Southwest spokesperson says the airline "is unaware" of the concerns raised by this inspector and "has no knowledge of a probe by the House aviation subcommittee." The FAA declined to comment.

Several safety inspectors interviewed by BusinessWeek said the pressure not to impose big expenses on the carriers increased after the September 11 terrorist attacks, which threw the airline industry into an economic tailspin. They said that this led to a decrease in the reporting of safety violations. In the six-year period following September 11, 2001, the number of so-called enforcement investigation reports (EIRs) filed for the six biggest airlines fell by 62%, to 1,480, compared with the prior six-year period, according to FAA data reviewed by BusinessWeek. The number of domestic passengers grew by about 42% during this same period.


The decline in EIRs "begs for some type of congressional oversight and inquiry," says Jim Hall, former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board. "The numbers, as they stand alone, are alarming."


The FAA argues that there is no cause for concern. The agency notes that the fatal accident rate has steadily declined over the past decade, and it disputes many of the factual allegations and criticisms leveled by Lund, Hall, the IG, and other flight inspectors interviewed by BusinessWeek. The FAA says that all of the safety issues raised by Lund during the Northwest strike were appropriately investigated, and that the public was never in any danger. It adds that airlines have no power to retaliate against inspectors. "The FAA listens to our inspectors and expects them to investigate all potential safety risks," the agency wrote in response to questions posed by BusinessWeek.

Northwest says that it did not retaliate against Lund, that passengers were never in danger during the 2005 strike, and that it performed appropriate maintenance on every flight during that period, including the one with the broken lavatory duct. The company adds that its training program has always exceeded FAA standards. "Northwest's safety record during this period was unblemished," says Roman Blahoski, media relations manager for Northwest Airlines. "It has always been the policy of Northwest to maintain a collaborative and professional relationship with all of the government agencies that oversee us; this includes the FAA."
"I'll Stop the Airplane" There's little doubt that Lund rubs some people the wrong way. He knows the agency's thick rule book almost by heart, and he interprets it strictly. "Mark stands up and speaks the truth," says fellow inspector Mike Gonzales, who works in Scottsdale, Ariz. "Some people, including even his colleagues, don't like him for that." Another colleague called him "dogmatic" and "hard to like." Before joining the FAA in 1990 Lund worked as an aircraft electrician for the U.S. Navy and as maintenance director for a small airline in Minneapolis. He makes no apologies for his sometimes abrasive personality. "I'm here to keep the public safe," says Lund, who is an official in the local PASS union. If a concern arises, "I'll stop the airplane, and I'll watch every step."


Lund worked in Bloomington, Minn., at the FAA office responsible for supervising Northwest Airlines. In FAA-speak, it was a certificate management office. It had about 60 inspectors and was overseen by the FAA's regional headquarters in Chicago. By the time of the 2005 strike, Northwest had already sent a file of complaints about Lund to Chicago "going back many years," according to the IG report.
Lund claims that most of the airline's complaints arose when he delayed planes. In 1993 Lund prevented five
DC-10s from taking off because Northwest had not repaired passenger-seat defects that would cause them to come apart in a crash. "The paperwork had been signed off, but we found that they had not been repaired properly," Lund told BusinessWeek. He claims that Northwest pressured his bosses, who in turn told him to return to the office and assured him that the airline would fix the problem. "I'm sure they took care of it," he said. "But we have no verification."
While inspecting a Northwest 747 in 1994, Lund discovered that when its oxygen masks dropped in an emergency they were dangling two feet above the head of a typical passenger. That made the masks useless. He stopped the airplane until the problem was fixed. "The carrier went ballistic," said a Northwest Airlines FAA inspector with direct knowledge of the matter. Northwest declined to comment on these incidents.

Once the 2005 strike got under way, Lund and his fellow inspectors established 24-hour-a-day surveillance of Northwest's 4,400 replacement mechanics. Inspectors met with their supervisors every day to discuss potential safety issues. But according to Lund, FAA managers ignored inspectors' warnings. Lund came to the conclusion that he had only one option: to file the special safety recommendation report, which is the only method FAA inspectors have to raise safety concerns without having their words potentially edited by supervisors. The FAA says it "thoroughly investigated" Lund's concerns.


On Aug. 21 Lund worked late into the night drafting a nine-page memo that described his observations of 10 separate maintenance mistakes. Besides advocating a cutback in Northwest's flight schedule, he proposed upgrading its mechanic-training program and increasing FAA surveillance of the carrier. The next day, Lund says, his direct supervisor got a call from a higher-level manager ordering Lund to be barred from inspecting Northwest planes. Then the carrier fired off the letter of complaint against Lund, according to the IG report. It said Northwest "would no longer permit [Lund] to have unescorted access to Northwest facilities." In response, the FAA decided to stop him from conducting on-site inspections altogether.


PASS union official Goodrich and a half-dozen safety inspectors interviewed by BusinessWeek said they were aware of similar cases but there were no public records of these incidents because the inspectors in question had not taken the extreme step of complaining to a senator. "Lund was willing to lose his job over principle. He was a serious exception to the rule," says Goodrich.
A comparable case unfolded in 1999 when a safety inspector named Charles Lund (no relation) sent an e-mail to FAA officials and airline executives complaining that the agency was not adequately supervising U.S. carriers flying to Russia. Four months later the FAA demoted him. After an investigation by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, an agency that investigates mistreatment complaints by Federal employees, the FAA agreed to rescind the demotion and pay Lund's legal fees. The FAA declined to comment on the episode.

Blowouts on Landing

In Mark Lund's case, Northwest's complaint managed to get him temporarily silenced. But the airline's problems continued to mount. During the first six weeks of the strike inspectors identified at least 121 safety problems stemming from workers' lack of training and inability to "properly complete maintenance functions," according to the IG report.

Although nobody was injured during the strike, at least one of these incidents was quite serious. On Aug. 20, four tires blew out when a Boeing 757 touched ground in Detroit, a potentially life-threatening safety failure. According to Northwest's Blahoski, "there was no prior history of…brake valve issues on this aircraft and the mechanical failure was not a result of any maintenance process or procedure irregularities."

In early September, 2005, the IG's office dispatched a team to investigate Lund's complaints. Its staff determined that other inspectors shared his concerns; they reported that "replacement workers were not receiving proper training and were not properly addressing technical problems as they arose," according to the IG report. The inspectors also said that FAA management discouraged levying fines against Northwest, "thus leading to ineffective oversight of the carrier."


Lund worked in the office for six weeks until the Inspector General's office brokered a deal that allowed him to return to his former duties in early October, 2005. Once reinstated, he got to work investigating the emergency 757 landing in Detroit. Lund uncovered photos and other documents indicating that in Seattle a replacement mechanic had inadvertently jammed a brake cable. This prevented full release of the brake, causing the tires to blow out upon landing, he concluded.

Emboldened, Lund sent off another safety recommendation on Oct. 12, 2005, describing his findings. He repeated the unheeded recommendations of the earlier memo and added a small barb. "Northwest Airlines is an operating air carrier," Lund wrote. "It is not a school to train its mechanics while it operates at a safety risk to the public."

Within a month the strike ended, and life started to return to normal for Northwest. But Lund believes FAA management started to try to fire him. Supervisors started criticizing him for small errors. His directions were suddenly sent to him in writing and he was given strict deadlines for the completion of tasks. Supervisors "singled me out," says Lund. "It created additional stress."


Lund was also given orders he found unpalatable, according to co-workers. Once, a manager forced him to revise a report to edit out a reference to a minor safety problem. "When he refused, they issued a letter of warning and then a letter of reprimand," says one inspector with direct knowledge of the matter. That put Lund on the edge of dismissal. "They didn't want any more problems with the carrier and they didn't want any problems with Mark," this inspector says. The FAA did not comment on accusations that it attempted to dismiss Lund.
Vindication from the IG's office took nearly two years. As the IG recommended, the FAA is creating a new procedure to review concerns raised by inspectors. It will require independent agency staffers—from outside the inspector's direct line of supervision—to investigate disputes between inspectors and airlines. Lund says he now has less conflict with Northwest and FAA supervisors than before. The report "reaffirms to me to keep going, to keep doing what I'm doing," says Lund.

With Dean Foust in Atlanta

Keith Olbermann: Special Comment Regarding FISA

By Keith Olbermann
MSNBC Countdown
Thursday 31 January 2008
Transcript

And finally, as promised, a Special Comment - of FISA and the telecoms.
In a presidency of hypocrisy - an administration of exploitation - a labyrinth of leadership - in which every vital fact is a puzzle inside a riddle wrapped in an enigma hidden under a claim of executive privilege supervised by an idiot - this one… is surprisingly easy.
President Bush has put protecting the telecom giants from the laws… ahead of protecting you from the terrorists.
He has demanded an extension of the FISA law - the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act - but only an extension that includes retroactive immunity for the telecoms who helped him spy on you.
Congress has given him, and he has today signed a fifteen-day extension which simply kicks the time bomb down the field, and has changed nothing of his insipid rhetoric, in which he portrays the Democrats as 'soft on terror' and getting in the way of his superhuman efforts to protect the nation… when, in fact, and with bitter irony, if anybody is 'soft on terror' here… it is Mr. Bush.
In the State of the Union Address, sir, you told Congress, "if you do not act by Friday, our ability to track terrorist threats would be weakened and our citizens will be in greater danger."
Yet you are willing to weaken that ability!
You will subject us, your citizens, to that greater danger.
This, Mr. Bush, is simple enough even for you to understand: If Congress approves a new FISA act without telecom immunity and sends it to your desk and you veto it - you, by your own terms and your own definitions, you will have just sided with the terrorists.
Ya gotta have this law, or we're all gonna die. But you might veto this law!
It's bad enough, sir, that you are demanding an ex post facto law which would clear the phone giants from responsibility for their systematic, aggressive, and blatant collaboration with your illegal and unjustified spying on Americans, under the flimsy guise of looking for any terrorists stupid enough to make a collect call or send a mass e-mail.
But when you then demanded again, during the State of the Union address, that Congress retroactively clear the Verizons and the AT&T's, you wouldn't even confirm that they actually did anything for which they deserved to be cleared!
"The Congress must pass liability protection for companies believed to have assisted in the efforts to defend America."
Believed?
Don't you know?
Does the endless hair-splitting of your presidential fine print, extend even here?
If you, sir, are asking Congress, and us, to join you in this shameless, breathless, literal, textbook example of fascism - the merged efforts of government and corporations who answer to no government - you still don't have the guts to even say the telecom companies did assist you, in your efforts?
Will you and the equivocators who surround you like a cocoon never go on the record about anything?
Even the stuff you claim to believe in?
Silly me.
Of course Mr. Bush is going to say "believed."
Yes, it sounds dumber than if he had referred to himself as "the alleged president," or had said today was "reportedly Thursday," or had claimed "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq.
But the moment he says anything else, any doubt that the telecoms knowingly broke the law, is out the window, and with it, any chance that even the Republicans who are fighting this like they were trying to fend off terrorists using nothing but broken beer bottles and swear words couldn't consent to retroactively immunize corporate criminals.
Which is why the Vice President probably shouldn't have phoned in to the Rush Limbaugh Propaganda-Festival yesterday.
Sixth sentence out of Mr. Cheney's mouth: The FISA bill is about, quote, "retroactive liability protection for the companies that have worked with us and helped us prevent further attacks against the United States."
Oops.
Mr. Cheney is something of a loose cannon, of course.
But he kind of let the wrong cat out of the bag there.
Because Mr. Bush - and the corporations he values more than people - didn't want anybody to verify what Mark Klein says.
Mark Klein is the AT&T whistleblower who appeared on this newscast last November, who explained, in the placid, dull terms of your local neighborhood I-T desk, how he personally attached all of AT&T's circuits - everything carrying every phone call, every e-mail, every bit of web browsing - into a secure room…
…Room Number 641-A, at the Folsom Street facility in San Francisco - where it was all copied so the government could look at it.
Not some of it; not just the international part of it; certainly not just the stuff some truly patriotic and telepathic spy might be able to divine had been sent or spoken by or to a terrorist.
Everything.
Every time you looked at a naked picture, every time you bid on eBay, every time you phoned-in a donation to a Democrat.
"My thought was 'George Orwell's 1984,'" Mr. Klein told me, reflecting back, "and here I am, being forced to… connect the Big Brother machine."
You know, Mr. Bush, if Mr. Klein's "Big Brother Machine" - the one the Vice President conveniently just confirmed for us - if it was of any damn use at all at actually finding anything, you could probably program it to find out who started that slanderous e-mail about Barack Obama.
Use Room 641-A to identify that E–assassin, sir, and I'll stand up and applaud you.
Yeah, I'm holding my breath on that one, too.
But of course, sir, this isn't about finding that kind of needle in a haystack. This isn't even about finding a haystack. This is about scooping up every piece of hay there ever was, and laying the groundwork for the next little job which you have to outsource to AT&T and Verizon.
It was your Director of National Intelligence, Mr. McConnell, letting this one out of the same bag.
The need for Homeland Security to stave off cyber-attacks against the government's computer networks.
And how do they do that, sir?
By constantly monitoring the internet - the whole internet.
And who actually, physically, does that, Mr. Bush?
Right. The same telecom giants for whom you want immunity - Quickly. So quickly, you wouldn't believe it.
Because this previous domestic spying, and this upcoming policing of the internet - they may be completely evil, indiscriminate, unlawful. So you have to dress it up, as something just the opposite.
It isn't evil… it's "to protect America."
It isn't indiscriminate… it's "the ability to monitor terrorist communications."
It isn't unlawful… it's just the kind of perfectly legal thing, for which you happen to need immunity!
There's yet another level to this, and here we move from Big Brother… to Sleazy Son.
Mr. Bush's new Attorney General, Mr. Mukasey, the one who has already taken four different positions on water-boarding, and who may yet tie that record on this subject of telecom immunity - he has a very personal stake in this.
There happens to be a partner in the law firm of Bracewell and Giuliani, named Marc Mukasey. And Bracewell and Giuliani and the Attorney General's son Marc, just happen to represent… Verizon.
You know, Verizon - Telecom Giant.
And all of a sudden this is no longer just a farce in which "protecting the telecoms" is dressed up for us as, 'protecting us from terrorist conference calls.'
Now it begins to look like the bureaucrats of the Third Reich trying to protect the Krupp Family industrial giants by literally re-writing the laws for their benefit.
And we know how that turned out: Alfried Krupp and eleven of his directors were convicted of War Crimes at Nuremburg.
Nevertheless.
For those of us watching a President demanding this very specific law (the one the Germans had was called the "Lex Krupp") there is one surprising bit of comfort in all this:
Clearly, Mr. Bush is at his hyperbolic worst here.
Consider how his former chief of staff Andy Card came on and scolded Chris Matthews and me after the State of the Union address.
"The President's address tonight was very important," Card said, "because it really was a sobering call to reality for us.
"And the reality is, we have an enemy who wants to hurt us. The primary job of the president to protect us.
"He talked about protecting us. He talked about the needs to have the tools to protect us."
Indeed, Mr. Bush.
The primary job of any president is to protect us.
Not just those of us who own Internet and Telephone companies - All of us.
And even you, sir, with your intermittent grasp of reality… even with your ego greater than a 100-percent approval rating… even with your messianic petulance - even you could not truly choose to protect the corporations instead of the people.
I am not talking about ethics here. I am talking about blame.
Even if it's you throwing out the baby with the bathwater, Mr. Bush, it still means we can safely conclude… there is no baby!
This is not a choice of protecting the telecoms from prosecution, or protecting the people from terrorists, sir.
It is a choice of protecting the telecoms from prosecution, or pretending to protect the people from terrorists.
Sorry, Mr. Bush. The eavesdropping provisions of FISA have obviously had no impact on counter-terrorism, and there is no current or perceived terrorist threat, the thwarting of which could hinge on an e-mail or a phone call going through room 641-A at AT&T in San Francisco next week or next month.
Because if there were, Mr. Bush, and you were to, by your own hand, veto an extension of this eavesdropping, and some terrorist attack were to follow, you would not merely be guilty of siding with the terrorists, you would not merely be guilty of prioritizing the telecoms over the people, you would not merely be guilty of stupidity, you would not merely be guilty of treason… but you would be personally, and eternally, responsible.
And if there is one thing we know about you, Mr. Bush, one thing that you have proved time and time again under any and all circumstances, it is that you are never responsible.
Good night and good luck.
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