Someone sent me this today to share with all of you. –GFS

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Subject: HST: A Voice From The Past

When President Truman retired from office in 1952, his income was
substantially a U.S. Army pension reported to have been $13,507.72 a year.
Congress, noting that he was paying for his stamps and personally licking
them, granted him an "allowance" and, later, a retroactive
pension of $25,000 per year.

When offered corporate positions at large salaries, he declined, stati ng,
"You don't want me. You want the office of the president, and that doesn't
belong to me. It belongs to the American people and it's not for sale."

Even later, on May 6,1971, when Congress was preparing to award him the
Medal of Honor on his 87th birthday, he refused to accept it, writing, "I
don't consider that I have done anything which should be the reason for any
award, Congressional or otherwise."

We now see that some past presidents have found a new level of success in
cashing in on the presidency, resulting in untold wealth. Today, many in
Congress also have found a way to become quite wealthy while enjoying the
fruits of their offices. Political offices are now for sale.

Was good old Harry Truman correct when he observed, "My choice early in
life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician. And to
tell the truth, there's hardly any difference.

(I, for one, think that piano player more honorable than our current
politicians.)

OFFICE OF SPECIAL COUNSEL RAIDED BY FBI
Agency Head and Staff Suspected of Obstructing Justice

Washington, DC -- In a notably ironic turn of events, FBI agents raided the office of Special Counsel Scott Bloch this morning, seizing computers and documents as part of an ongoing obstruction of justice investigation. Bloch, who is charged with protecting federal whistleblowers, has been under investigation for, among other things, whistleblower retaliation within his own agency.
Marshall Chriswell, Communications Director of the National Whistleblower Center issued the following statements on this issue:
"It is shocking that the individual who is primarily responsible for investigating federal whistleblower complaints would be the target of an investigation in which he and his staff are suspected of obstructing justice."
"The Bush administration must take whistleblower protection seriously, relieve Mr. Bloch of his position, and appoint a Special Counsel who possesses the necessary qualifications and integrity to do the job right."

-end-
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Since 1988 the NWC has championed whistleblower protection. The NWC is currently supporting FBI Whistleblower Bassem Youssef, who has reported serious misconduct in the War on Terror, and the NWC is currently assisting Bunnatine Greenhouse (the former Army Corps of Engineers top contracting officer who opposed the no-bid multi billion dollar contracts awarded to Halliburton for the reconstruction of Iraq)
For more information, please visit www.whistleblowers.org and www.whistleblowersblog.org.

FBI Agents Raid Office of Special Counsel

OSC Employees' Attorney Sends Letter to the White House

The Wall Street Journal has reported that “more than a dozen” FBI agents served grand jury subpoenas this morning while searching the U.S. Office of Special Counsel and the home of Special Counsel Scott Bloch. According to the Journal, OSC employees say the raid is in connection with allegations of obstruction of justice by Bloch, who in 2006 used a computer service, Geeks on Call, to completely erase his work computer's hard drive.

Bloch asked the company to eradicate his computer’s files as he was being investigated by the Office of Personnel Management Inspector General in connection with a complaint submitted by a group of anonymous OSC employees, GAP, the Project On Government Oversight, and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.

Last week, attorney Debra Katz, who represents the groups and the anonymous OSC employees, sent a comprehensive summary of Bloch’s abuses during his tenure to President Bush, and called on the President to use his authority to remove the Special Counsel “for cause.”

To Read the Summary Letter

>>> Click Here <<<

http://whistleblower.org/template/index.cfm

FBI Agents Raid the Office & Home
of Special Counsel Scott Bloch!

By JOHN R. WILKE

May 6, 2008 3:10 p.m.

WASHINGTON -- Federal Bureau of Investigation agents raided the Office of Special Counsel here, seizing computers and documents belonging to the agency chief Scott Bloch and staff.

More than a dozen FBI agents served grand jury subpoenas shortly after 10 a.m., shutting down the agency's computer network and searching its offices, as well as Mr. Bloch's home. Employees said the searches appeared focused on alleged obstruction of justice by Mr. Bloch during the course of an 2006 inquiry into his conduct in office.

The independent agency, created by Congress in the wake of the Watergate scandal, is charged with protecting federal employees and deciding whether their complaints merit full-scale investigation -- a first line of defense against fraud and mismanagement in government. It also enforces a ban on U.S. employees engaging in partisan political activity.

The Wall Street Journal reported last year that Mr. Bloch had used "Geeks on Call," an outside computer-service firm, to erase his computer and those of two former staff members in December 2006. (See related article)

Mr. Bloch's agency is typically involved in sensitive investigations of alleged government wrongdoing. Before the departure of White House political director Karl Rove, Mr. Bloch's staff was looking into whether he or other White House officials improperly used federal agencies to help re-elect Republicans in 2006.

At the same time, Mr. Bloch has been under investigation himself since 2005. At the direction of the White House, the federal Office of Personnel Management's inspector general is looking into claims that Mr. Bloch abused his investigative authority, improperly retaliated against employees or dismissed whistleblower cases without adequate examination.

The computer erasures became part of that investigation and are one of the reasons behind today's raid, employees said. Investigators were trying to determine whether the deletions were improper or part of a cover-up, the Journal article reported.

Bypassing his agency's computer technicians, Mr. Bloch phoned 1-800-905-GEEKS, the mobile PC-help service. It dispatched a technician in one of its signature PT Cruiser wagons. In the Journal story, Mr. Bloch confirmed that he contacted Geeks on Call but said he was trying to eradicate a virus that had seized control of his computer. He said the erasures didn't delete any files related to the inquiry.

Mr. Bloch was in the office this morning during the raid but couldn't be reached for comment. The search was still under way early this afternoon, witnesses said.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121009238217171025.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Despite Alert, Flawed Wiring Still Kills GI's
By James Risen
The New York Times
Sunday 04 May 2008
Washington - In October 2004, the United States Army issued an urgent bulletin to commanders across Iraq, warning them of a deadly new threat to American soldiers. Because of flawed electrical work by contractors, the bulletin stated, soldiers at American bases in Iraq had received severe electrical shocks, and some had even been electrocuted.
The bulletin, with the headline "The Unexpected Killer," was issued after the horrific deaths of two soldiers who were caught in water - one in a shower, the other in a swimming pool - that was suddenly electrified after poorly grounded wiring short-circuited.
"We've had several shocks in showers and near misses here in Baghdad, as well as in other parts of the country," Frank Trent, an expert with the Army Corps of Engineers, wrote in the bulletin. "As we install temporary and permanent power on our projects, we must ensure that we require contractors to properly ground electrical systems."
Since that warning, at least two more American soldiers have been electrocuted in similar circumstances. In all, at least a dozen American military personnel have been electrocuted in Iraq, according to the Pentagon and Congressional investigators.
While several deaths have been attributed to inadvertent contact with power lines under battlefield conditions, the Army bulletin said that five deaths over the preceding year had apparently been caused by faulty grounding, and the circumstances of others have not been fully explained by the Army. Many more soldiers have been injured by shocks, Pentagon officials and soldiers say.
The accidental deaths and close calls, which are being investigated by Congress and the Defense Department's inspector general, raise new questions about the oversight of contractors in the war zone, where unjustified killings by security guards, shoddy reconstruction projects and fraud involving military supplies have spurred previous inquiries.
American electricians who worked for KBR, the Houston-based defense contractor that is responsible for maintaining American bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, said they repeatedly warned company managers and military officials about unsafe electrical work, which was often performed by poorly trained Iraqis and Afghans paid just a few dollars a day.
One electrician warned his KBR bosses in his 2005 letter of resignation that unsafe electrical work was "a disaster waiting to happen." Another said he witnessed an American soldier in Afghanistan receiving a potentially lethal shock. A third provided e-mail messages and other documents showing that he had complained to KBR and the government that logs were created to make it appear that nonexistent electrical safety systems were properly functioning.
KBR itself told the Pentagon in early 2007 about unsafe electrical wiring at a base near the Baghdad airport, but no repairs were made. Less than a year later, a soldier was electrocuted in a shower there.
"I don't feel like they did their job," Carmen Nolasco Duran of La Puente, Calif., said of Pentagon officials. Her brother, Specialist Marcos O. Nolasco, was electrocuted at a base in Baiji in May 2004 while showering. "They hired these contractors and yet they didn't go and double-check that the work was fine."
The Defense Contract Management Agency, which is responsible for supervising maintenance work by contractors at American bases in Iraq, defended its performance. In a written statement, the agency said it had no information that staff members "were aware" of the Army alert or "failed to take appropriate action in response to unsafe conditions brought to our attention."
Keith Ernst, who stepped down Wednesday as the agency's director, said, though, that the agency was "stretched too thin" in Iraq and that the small number of contract officers did not have expertise in dealing with so-called life support contracts, like that awarded to KBR to provide food, shelter and building maintenance. "We don't have the technical capability for overseeing life support systems," he said.
For its part, KBR, which until last year was known as Kellogg, Brown and Root and was a subsidiary of Halliburton, denied that any lapses by the company had led to the electrocutions of American soldiers. "KBR's commitment to employee safety and the safety of those the company serves is unwavering," said a spokeswoman, Heather Browne. "KBR has found no evidence of a link between the work it has been tasked to perform and the reported electrocutions."
Ms. Browne declined to respond to the specific accounts of former KBR electricians.
Those electricians have a ready response to anyone who suggests that poor electrical work might be considered an unavoidable cost of war. "The excuse KBR always used was, 'This is a war zone - what do you expect?' " recalled Jeffrey Bliss, an Ohio electrician who worked for the company in Afghanistan in 2005 and 2006. "But if you are going to do the work, you have got to do it safe."
Since the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, tens of thousands of American troops have been housed in pre-existing Iraqi government buildings, some of them dangerously dilapidated. As part of its $30 billion contract with the Pentagon in Iraq, KBR was required to repair and upgrade many of the buildings, including their electrical systems. The company handles maintenance for 4,000 structures and 35,000 containerized housing units in the war zone, the Pentagon said.
Lawmakers and government investigators say it is now clear that the Bush administration outsourced so much work to KBR and other contractors in Iraq that the agencies charged with oversight have been overwhelmed. The Defense Contracting Management Agency has more than 9,000 employees, but it has only 60 contract officers in Iraq and 30 in Afghanistan to supervise nearly 18,000 KBR employees in Iraq and 4,400 in Afghanistan handling base maintenance.
"All the contract officers can do is check the paperwork," said one agency official, who asked not to be identified. While about 600 military officers supplement the contract officers, Mr. Ernst said, the soldiers are not adequately trained for the task.
The Army has provided little detailed information about the electrocutions, other than to say late Friday that 10 soldiers had been electrocuted in Iraq. A House panel has also reported that two marines died similarly.
In the civilian work force, about 250 workers died from electrocution in the United States in 2006, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
According to the Army warning bulletin, two deaths occurred 10 days apart in May 2004 at different bases in northern Iraq.
Staff Sgt. Christopher L. Everett, 23, of the Texas National Guard was electrocuted in September 2005 while power-washing a Humvee at Camp Taqaddum, in central Iraq near Falluja. His mother, Larraine McGee said Army officials had told her that the equipment he was using was connected to a generator that was not properly grounded, and that soldiers had previously complained of shocks.
"We were told that as a result of his death all the generators were being repaired and that it wouldn't happen again," Ms. McGee said. "But if it is still going on, something's not right."
The most recent fatality occurred on Jan. 2 in Baghdad, when Staff Sgt. Ryan D. Maseth, a Green Beret, died in a shower after an improperly grounded water pump short-circuited.
Nearly a year earlier, KBR issued a technical report to the contracting agency citing safety concerns related to the grounding and wiring in the building in the Radwaniyah Palace Complex, where Sergeant Maseth's unit, the Army Fifth Special Forces Group, was housed.
Another soldier said in an interview that he was repeatedly shocked in the shower in December 2007 and submitted requests for repairs. But nothing was done until the day after Sergeant Maseth's death, when the defense agency ordered KBR to correct the problem, according to Pentagon documents.
Cheryl Harris, Sergeant Maseth's mother, said in an interview that the Army initially told her that her son had taken an electrical appliance into the shower with him. Later, she said, officials told her that investigators had found electrical wires hanging down around the shower. She said she had been skeptical of both accounts and learned the truth only after repeatedly questioning Army officials.
Her family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against KBR, the only such claim brought in any of the electrical deaths.
"I knew Ryan would not get into a shower with an electrical appliance, and having wires hanging overhead didn't make sense," said Ms. Harris, of Cranberry Township, Pa. "My biggest question is really, why would KBR do a safety inspection, know about the electrical problems and not alert the troops?"
Long before Sergeant Maseth's death, KBR electricians were complaining about the dangers of unsafe electrical work at bases.
In 2006, John McLain was working as a KBR electrician at the United States regional embassy compound in Hilla, south of Baghdad, when he made a disturbing discovery. A KBR quality control inspector had recently cited employees there for failing to file quarterly ground resistance testing logs - reports on whether the wiring in the upgraded embassy building was properly grounded and safe.
Mr. McLain soon realized that the testing was not being conducted, because the building had never been grounded, though KBR and at least one Iraqi subcontractor were supposed to install proper safeguards during a renovation the previous year. Mr. McLain said he had sent a series of increasingly blunt memos and e-mail warnings about the safety hazards to KBR officials.
Mr. McLain said other KBR electricians later created logs that incorrectly made it appear that the grounding system existed. KBR fired him in 2007 after he told a visiting defense contracting agency official about his concerns. His candor proved useless, however. Mr. McLain said that the contracting agency official showed no interest. "He said, 'I'm not an electrician; I don't know what you are talking about,' "Mr. McLain recalled.
Noris Rogers, who worked for KBR in Afghanistan in 2005, said he repeatedly complained to his supervisors that electrical work at Camp Eggers, the American military's command base in Kabul, Afghanistan, did not meet the requirements of the company's Pentagon contract.
Mr. Bliss, who saw a soldier in Qalat, Afghanistan, get a severe shock from an electrical box that was not supposed to be charged, said his KBR bosses mocked him for raising safety issues. They were "not giving the Army what it needed," he said, "and not giving the soldiers what they deserved."

A Post sent to me today regarding the scandal the Brits are weathering concerning the deep sixing of an investigation into alleged Saudi Corruption, (the Serious Fraud Office is accused of unlawfully stopping the BAE-Saudi Corruption Investigation in December of 2006), from someone who read it on http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/pdf/document/Jrmedia.pdf

It sounds ominously familiar compared to what's been happening stateside. GFS

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Selected Quotes from UK newspaper on High Court ruling of 10 April 2008 that the Serious Fraud Office acted unlawfully in stopping the BAE-Saudi corruption investigation in December
2006.

"What started as a David versus Goliath challenge, brought by a group of activists
dismissed as “treehuggers”, on Thursday [10 April 2008] culminated in a damning
condemnation of the [UK] government that is likely to reverberate for years to come."
Financial Times
"Even the most optimistic of campaigners from Corner House Research and the
Campaign Against Arms Trade could not have expected to hear one of Britain’s most
senior judges castigate officials – including a former prime minister – for placing the
entire criminal justice system under threat."
Financial Times
"There are moments when a statement of the obvious cuts through the fog of selfinterest
and evasion that clings to much of politics, and clears the way for a genuine
fresh start. The High Court's stunning condemnation of the decision to abandon an
investigation into alleged bribery by BAE Systems is such a moment. 'No one,' Lord
Justice Moses and Mr Justice Sullivan declared, 'whether in this country or outside, is
entitled to interfere with the course of our justice.' It should never have fallen to their
lordships to point this out."
The Times
"The High Court . . . said there was no proof at all that British national security would
have been put at risk by anything the Saudis threatened to do. The purpose of the
threat was simply designed 'to prevent the SFO from pursuing the course of
investigation he had chosen to adopt'. In that, the judgment went on tersely, 'it
achieved its purpose'. "
The Independent
" . . . as the judges commented, there is 'the suspicion' that the security issue was 'a
useful pretext for ditching an SFO inquiry that was harming commercial interests."
The Guardian
". . . the government leapt on 'national security' as a pretext to kill off an inquiry that
threatened bothersome diplomatic, political and economic consequences. "
The Observer
" . . . the government has drafted legislation [draft Constitutional Renewal Bill] to
enshrine in law the Attorney General's right to stop criminal proceedings on grounds
of 'national security', while surrendering the right to meddle in all other cases. In other
words, the government will relinquish a power it never used and strengthen one it has
clearly demonstrated it can abuse."
The Observer
PDF Created with deskPDF PDF Writer - Trial :: http://www.docudesk.com

A Post sent to me today regarding the scandal the Brits are weathering concerning the deep sixing of an investigation into alleged Saudi Corruption, (the Serious Fraud Office is accused of unlawfully stopping the BAE-Saudi Corruption Investigation in December of 2006), from someone who read it on http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/pdf/document/Jrmedia.pdf

It sounds ominously familiar compared to what's been happening stateside. GFS

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Selected Quotes from UK newspapers
on High Court ruling of 10 April 2008 that the Serious Fraud Office acted
unlawfully in stopping the BAE-Saudi corruption investigation in December
2006.
"What started as a David versus Goliath challenge, brought by a group of activists
dismissed as “treehuggers”, on Thursday [10 April 2008] culminated in a damning
condemnation of the [UK] government that is likely to reverberate for years to come."
Financial Times
"Even the most optimistic of campaigners from Corner House Research and the
Campaign Against Arms Trade could not have expected to hear one of Britain’s most
senior judges castigate officials – including a former prime minister – for placing the
entire criminal justice system under threat."
Financial Times
"There are moments when a statement of the obvious cuts through the fog of selfinterest
and evasion that clings to much of politics, and clears the way for a genuine
fresh start. The High Court's stunning condemnation of the decision to abandon an
investigation into alleged bribery by BAE Systems is such a moment. 'No one,' Lord
Justice Moses and Mr Justice Sullivan declared, 'whether in this country or outside, is
entitled to interfere with the course of our justice.' It should never have fallen to their
lordships to point this out."
The Times
"The High Court . . . said there was no proof at all that British national security would
have been put at risk by anything the Saudis threatened to do. The purpose of the
threat was simply designed 'to prevent the SFO from pursuing the course of
investigation he had chosen to adopt'. In that, the judgment went on tersely, 'it
achieved its purpose'. "
The Independent
" . . . as the judges commented, there is 'the suspicion' that the security issue was 'a
useful pretext for ditching an SFO inquiry that was harming commercial interests."
The Guardian
". . . the government leapt on 'national security' as a pretext to kill off an inquiry that
threatened bothersome diplomatic, political and economic consequences. "
The Observer
" . . . the government has drafted legislation [draft Constitutional Renewal Bill] to
enshrine in law the Attorney General's right to stop criminal proceedings on grounds
of 'national security', while surrendering the right to meddle in all other cases. In other
words, the government will relinquish a power it never used and strengthen one it has
clearly demonstrated it can abuse."
The Observer
PDF Created with deskPDF PDF Writer - Trial :: http://www.docudesk.com