From OSC Watch.org

By A.H. Martin

July 9, 2008

What happens to Federal employees when the bureaucracy that employs them no longer sees them as a team player, but rather a weak link, not a member of their “team,” or worse, a whistleblower?

This article will give just a brief glimpse into the lives of two such public servants. Every American citizen should care about the treatment of Federal civil servants. Simply stated, if the rights of the public’s servants can be easily compromised, so can the rights of every and any citizen if they find themselves in the unfortunate position of being bullied by the Federal Bureaucracy, in other words, an Enemy of the State.

In the movie “Enemy of the State,” Will Smith found himself being hunted down by a very powerful Federal agency. The leaders of that agency believed he had something that would compromise, or expose the Government’s management integrity—or lack thereof. By no fault of his own, Smith, a private citizen, was targeted and the orders were given to terminate the problem—his life—because he threatened some very powerful ideologies. Gene Hackman was the Federal employee, and he too was targeted. There is a saying that goes something like truth is stranger than fiction.

Within the bricks and mortar of the Federal infrastructure—many Federal employees, and private citizens find themselves targeted as enemies of Federal executives, managers and political appointees. They find themselves there not because they intentionally sold secrets to China or gave military intelligence to the Soviet Union. Rather they find themselves being enemies of management employees because they tried to help another employee, who their boss didn’t like, or stood up for a member of the public…an act that political appointees simply didn’t appreciate, or exposed an exploitation of power.

Martin Salazar is one of those employees. Salazar testified in support of a Discrimination Case before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) for a coworker, Shirley Smith. In return for his support of a mother of two, he could be facing over 12 months in Federal Prison because management was upset with Shirley and even more upset that Salazar would challenge their authority. The young mother, Shirley Smith served 24 months in Federal Prison for filing a false EEO statement, she charged the agency with discrimination through an EEO complaint and she didn’t win the complaint.

In order for the Federal management to retaliate effectively against Martin Salazar for aiding Shirley, collaboration with several parts of government is essential.

The case is in Aiken, South Carolina regarding Martin Salazar (if you Google his name), you will find that his crime was signing a retirement settlement agreement with the wrong birth date on the forms—forms which the agency, who initiated the charges, prepared. He was charged with making a false statement.
You may wonder why their lawyers didn’t do a better job of defending them. You may also refuse to believe that our justice system could be so unjust. Surely there is more to this story. Well there is and it goes something like this.

Remember the firings of the U.S. Attorneys? Well it takes a U.S. Attorney to decide if they will prosecute a case. Some U.S. Attorneys wouldn’t prosecute cases on clearly Administrative matters, while others overzealous U.S. Attorneys will. The US Attorney in Aiken, South Carolina is one of those that would and did. South Carolina has a history of taking actions to put the fear of God in people of color and/or minorities; reminding these people of “their place.”

Both Martin and Shirley are minorities. Martin is a Mexican American, Shirley is African American. If those in power want to send a message to Federal employees not to testify for other employees, or if the people in power want to silence whistleblowers both within and outside of government, sending people to prison for filing discrimination lawsuits is one sure way to accomplish this.

Federal managers and executives only need the “right” U.S. Attorney—one that is a “team player”—to be willing to use their power to retaliate against the employee. The Federal Judicial system is a powerful tool. Lawyers are intimidated every day to comply with the wishes of powerful people at the expense of their client. This is the reality of the legal and judicial system we have in the United States.

Is it illegal? Is it unethical? Is it immoral? Yes to all three questions. The more complicated question is “what can we do about it”? The answer—not much—if you have limited financial resources or political influence.

After his support of Ms. Smith, Mr. Salazar became a true enemy of the Department of Energy (DOE) management officials, and the division they worked for.

These officials do what most Federal managers do when they don’t like an employee who exposes errors/issues—they targeted him, harassed him, alienated him, and bullied him, hoping he would give up and leave. He filed discrimination charges against the DOE, which was the only way he could try to protect himself, his job to provide for his family.

The DOE proposed a unilateral settlement with Salazar. He accepted. The DOE prepared the settlement agreement and validated his retirement documents. Both were base upon the DOE’s calculations and set dates for each function; the erroneous separation date and retirement date. Once enacted by the government 16 months later, they charged him with making a false statement. He was arrested, charged and found guilty in Federal District court of making a false statement as he was not part of the “team.” He is now facing 12 Months in Federal Prison for this “crime” he did not commit.

There are laws against retaliation for filing discrimination complaints and testifying. There are also laws against selective prosecution. But who is going to enforce these laws—the Justice Department? The Justice Department was unable, or unwilling to handle the overzealous prosecution of six children in Jena Louisiana. Laws are only as good as the desire and agenda of the empowered individuals responsible for enforcing them.

If Federal executives and managers choose to validate bad dates on retirement papers, that they themselves prepared, and also prosecute unsuccessful discrimination lawsuits, which result in federal crimes of false statement, and then send Federal employees to prison, then the general public, and not just the Federal employee, is at the mercy of Federal Agency officials and U.S. Attorneys, who choose to use the judicial system as a tool to retaliate, bully and destroy the lives of those they do not like, who are not considered “team players.”

Interestingly enough Martin Salazar obtained “sworn Declarations/Affidavits” from two of the three main government witnesses. These same government witnesses made declaration unlike those at the trial, and only now state the truth, “after the fact”, because they are protected from criminal perjury by the very US Attorney that prosecuted this case… can we say “conflict of interest”? In fact, the statements from these government witnesses are more egregious acts than the charges faced by Salazar.

Although the U.S Attorney and the Court were made aware of the potential perjury, neither the U.S. Attorney, or the Court was concerned with these violations; they obtained the ill results of a conviction despite the fact it came from absolute and known lies.

In other words the U.S. Attorney in Aiken, South Carolina is not protecting the public from a criminal, or seeking to uncover the truth, but merely seeking a conviction. Now that they have a conviction, the truth and justice are not of concern. The U.S. attorney is not interested in pursuing witnesses who helped railroad an innocent man. They get away with the real crime—an innocent man goes to prison—where is the justice?

The nightmare of Shirley Smith and Martin Salazar’s life is not a movie and unfortunately not unique.
They, like countless other Private Citizens and Federal Employees, have suffered and have not only lost a job but have lost the God given freedoms of American life for themselves and their families, with the impact of the future consequences from Federal convictions, which is immeasurable.

Federal employment is competitive but it can also be life threatening in untold ways. More and more people are entering public service because jobs in the private sector are not readily available. People want security. At the same time the prison industrial complex is flourishing. Taxpayers are funding the destruction of thousands of lives like Martin’s and Shirley’s on frivolous issues and selective prosecutions. Good people who did the right thing are going to Federal Prison because high ranking Federal employees have friends in positions of power, and exploit these advantages for personal agendas.

The Federal Government is the nation’s largest employer. Over 1.8 million people are employed by our government. The Federal government’s reach touches the lives of absolutely every American Citizen. To be a Federal civil, or public servant brings to mind images of postal workers, forest rangers, FBI Agents, air traffic controllers and of course tax collectors, just to name a few. As an employer, the Federal government has a solid reputation of offering its’ employees job security, and decent salary and good benefits. What the public often doesn’t realize is the that there is a dark side to that good government job.

The dark side reflects an employer that has unlimited money, unbridled power, and undeserved respect within the minds of the American public, media, and judicial system. When an employee finds themselves on the other side of an issue that contradicts management—whether the issue be public safety, national security, or public health, the employee can easily become, to borrow a movie title, an “Enemy of the State.”

Not only is the employee’s livelihood at stake, but also at risk are their lives and the lives of their families; becoming pawns in the abuse of power in “protecting Federal government”; Moreover, the government is spending untold Millions of taxpayer’s dollars to carry out theses atrocities, and will continue to do so at our expense, in covering up Federal executives and managers errors and personal agendas.

Without exposure of the conduct of the Federal bureaucracy unjust actions against its Citizens and against its employees, and a change in the culture of institutional and bureaucratic bullying, we are all vulnerable to becoming Enemies of the State.

What can you do to help?

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See Original Article Here:

http://www.oscwatch.org/blog/2008/07/09/when-public-servants-become-enemies-of-the-state/

Hal Weitzman, Financial Times.Com, states in article “Boeing levels off after losing altitude” published July 14, 2008, that earlier this spring Boeing seemed to be looking becalmed in the doldrums. He cites reasons, such as repeated delays of 787 and losing contract awards to other companies. He then discusses the GAO report and the continuation of the Tanker Deal 2 competition. He finishes by musing on things that could go wrong for Boeing with the installation of a new administration next fall, and the possibility of more customers deferring orders. This in spite of the news reports of healthy sales at the Air Show in England yesterday.

Link to Original: http://us.ft.com/ftgateway/superpage.ft?news_id=fto071420080612469850&referrer_id=yahoofinance

BOEING: WE SCREWED UP, GIVE US $500 MIL
DEFENSETECH.ORG, CHRISTIAN LOWE - EDITOR

"When a child who is on trial for murdering his parents pleads for leniency on grounds that he is an orphan, we call that chutzpah," says Space News' Washington Aerospace Briefing. "When a U.S. defense contractor botches a program demands a huge termination fee when the contract is cancelled, we call that... standard operating procedure."
So no, we weren't completely shocked to hear that Boeing is seeking about $500 million from the National Reconnaissance Office in termination fees associated with the Future Imagery Architecture spy satellite program. The NRO cancelled the optical portion of Boeing's multi-billion dollar FIA contract last year after becoming fed up with the company's technical struggles and that lead to innumerable delays and soaring costs.

FIA was supposed to be “a constellation of satellites that would gather clearer and more-frequent images -- even at night and when there is a cloud cover -- of enemy military activity than current satellites can,” the Los Angeles Times notes. Originally scheduled to launch in 2005, at one point, FIA looked like it might become the “most expensive program in the history of the intelligence community,” according to Globalsecurity.org.

When Boeing won the FIA contract, back in 1999, it was something of a coup. As the Times observes, “Much of Boeing's space expertise was in making rockets to launch satellites and developing commercial telecommunication satellites. It had little experience manufacturing satellites with optical lenses that can take close-up pictures from space of objects on the ground.” That was Lockheed Martin’s area of expertise. “Boeing bid very aggressively even though it didn't understand the technology as well as Lockheed," the ubiquitous Loren Thompson told the LAT.

So it’s no surprise that Boeing started burning through cash and dropping deadlinesa, once FIA got underway. “As early as 2002, the government had to reprogramming of about $625 million [and possibly as much as $900 million] from other intelligence programs… to get the program back on schedule,” Globalsecurity.org says. “By the end of 2004 the House Intelligence Committee remained concerned about the viability and effectiveness of a future overhead architecture, given the apparent lack of a comprehensive architectural plan for the overhead system of systems, specifically in the area of imagery.”
By 2005 – after $10 billion on FIA, including about $4 or $5 billion in cost overruns – the government finally had enough, taking the project away from Boeing, and giving it to Lockheed.
Boeing's request for a half a B to make up for the lost work is big. But it's not totally unprecedented, Washington Aerospace Briefing says. The company is still arguing with the Pentagon over $2.3 billion for the A-12 stealth carrier aircraft program, cancelled in 1991.
(Big ups: AT, JS)
UPDATE 2:28 PM: AT points out that there were some interesting names associated with Boeing's controversial FIA win. In Boeing's '99 press release, we read:
Ed Nowinski, Boeing FIA Program Manager, stated, 'This was a very hard-fought competition and the win is the result of the total commitment of our team.'

Who is Ed Nowinski? Check out this press release, from 1996:
MELBOURNE, Florida, August 5, 1996—Harris Corporation has named Ed Nowinski as vice president of Strategic Planning and Business Development for the company's Electronic Systems Sector.
Mr. Nowinski most recently was the director of imagery intelligence for the U.S. government's National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and director of development and engineering for the Central Intelligence Agency.

Mr. Nowinski joined the CIA in 1967 and rose rapidly to positions of increasing responsibility during his career with the CIA and NRO, including director of the Data Communications Group, deputy director of development and engineering, and director of systems engineering. During his government career, he was instrumental in establishing several of the country's premier intelligence collection systems.

Link to Original: http://www.defensetech.org/archives/002142.html

Someone sent this comment in today:

“Your boys are still in the game – it must have cost them millions in campaign donations.”

This reader also included links to these articles. I include them here for additional information of interest. –GFS

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Article link to “Boeing to stick with KC-767 for US tanker recomplete” here: http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2008/07/13/225300/boeing-to-stick-with-kc-767-for-us-tanker-recompete.html

Article link to “Boeing’s Skyhook Shot: Redefining the Aerial Heavy-Lifting Market?” here: http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/Boeings-Skyhook-Shot-Redefining-the-Aerial-Heavy-Lifting-Market-04970/

Article link to “Air India to Showcase Boeing 777 at Farnborough Air Show” at: http://kn.theiet.org/transport/index.cfm?ObjectID=1B38E14F-F784-6272-A8E8C48DC1E1D2CE

Editor’s Note: This article was removed and appears to be no longer available.

Article link to “Boeing Develops Anti-gravity Propulsion” at: http://weirdandinteresting.blogspot.com/2008/07/boeing-develops-anti-gravity-propulsion.html

Article link to “FS2004 Quality Wings Boeing 757-200 Beta” at: http://fsdownload.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1043

Thursday, July 10, the Boeing Company had charges of computer trespass against former employee and Boeing Whistleblower, Gerald Eastman reduced and agreed that the charges will be dismissed entirely if Mr. Eastman agrees to tell Boeing about what data he took from the company’s computers. The Boeing Company has had Eastman’s computers for over a year, now, and surely has taken apart every document, including Eastman’s private information by now. Eastman is to be held to an agreement to follow a certain set of requirements by the Boeing Company with the threat of prison, as decided by a judge without a trial or jury, if Boeing deems Eastman has in any way violated the agreement until late January of 2009. -GFS

See Seattle PI original article “Felony charges reduced for ex-Boeing employee” at: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/printer2/index.asp?ploc=t&refer=http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/370310_eastman11.html

Thursday, July 10, 2008 the King County Prosecutor’s Office announced it would not retry Boeing Whistleblower, Gerald Eastman. They further said that Eastman has agreed to help Boeing recovers information that he leaked to the media and that if he does not “live up to the agreement” a judge can find him guilty of 10 misdemeanor counts of computer trespass, and he could face years in prison.

Eastman’s attorney stated that Eastman’s jury at the first trial which resulted in a mistrial, “was faced with a ‘vague statute’ that does not specifically say it is a crime for an employee to access information that an employer doesn’t want him to have. Given the facts of the case, she said, the jury’s failure to reach a verdict was not surprising and showed that the panel had paid close attention during the trial.”

The jury had asked numerous questions of the judge regarding consideration of Eastman’s whistleblower status and whistleblower laws, and was frustrated by the judge’s and King County Prosecutor’s office successful attempt to prevent any consideration of those facts in the trial proceedings. The trial resulted in a hung jury as some of the jurors refused to be pushed to a conviction considering the facts and King County’s management of the case. A mistrial was declared and the jurors told the judge and King County that the case should not be retried. -GFS

See the Seattle Times original article “Ex-Boeing worker will not face new trial for leaking files” at:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/PrintStory.pl?document_id=2008044404&zsection_id=2003925728&slug=webeastman10m&date=20080710

Friday, July 11, Boeing Whistleblower, Gerald Eastman, agreed to a settlement with his former employer, the Boeing Company, regarding the company’s prosecution of him regarding “leaked company documents.” Eastman has agreed he will try to get leaked company documents back from the Seattle Times, PI and any other place they were released. In return, Eastman will not face retrial, and after six months, if Boeing feels he has cooperated and not violated the terms of the agreement, the case against Eastman will be dismissed. If Boeing complains that he has violated the agreement, a judge may then find him guilty of at least 10 misdemeanor counts, each with a penalty of up to a year in jail. –GFS

See the Seattle Times original article “Whistle-blower settles case” at:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/PrintStory.pl?document_id=2008046014&zsection_id=2003925728&slug=eastman11m0&date=20080711