By G. F. Scott
November 4, 2007

Upon reading Paul Krugman’s piece, “Fearing Fear Itself,” (The New York Times, Monday, October 29,2007), I was struck by the synchronicity of the experiences people (labeled whistleblowers) in our workplaces are having with what Mr. Krugman describes is happening to our country in general, the danger of succumbing to “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror.”

He points out that “fear-mongering” has been adopted by our current administration as a political strategy, (and I would suggest also an economic strategy), to benefit the members of this administration, their cohorts and those that support them. He further maintains that this fear continues as a chronic infection, easy to stir up again to acute, disabling levels as needed. I would add, whenever a diversion from embarrassing or problematic publicity is deemed necessary in order to protect those who work to further their goals out of the light.

The state of functioning of our government right now is in great disarray. Our systems are not working, as they should. Systems that we expect to automatically work because of our Constitution, laws and policies, that were supposed to support and protect us as we progressed through our duties and responsibilities, have been systematically jammed, fouled, or otherwise rendered powerless. Or at least the perception that has been promoted is that they are now powerless. And as long as we are willing to believe we are powerless, we shall be. Civil Service, Justice, Commerce, Defense, and Legislative Branch – all have been greatly derailed. Oversight, for the most part, is now D.O.A. For what purpose?

The stakes are high. If we follow the money we see literally billions and billions of dollars are at play here. Quicker than a sleight of hand trick, resources have been shifted, redirected and scuttled off, by what appears to be a growing web of privateers whose interests of personal gain intermixed with lust for power have produced the most corrupt threat to our country and our continued political, personal and economic freedom in history. It is an unholy confederation of politicos, moneyed industry magnates, select social/political influence groups and those who are willing to prostitute themselves in hopes of gaining affiliation with those groups, not to mention the promise of financial gain. Not everyone is involved; not everyone is corrupted, but of those who willingly or by coercion go down that path, most of course are not allowed access to the higher levels of power, but are used as an expendable temporary weapon, until the weapon is rendered no longer usable, then discarded. Those same people, planning the strategies, arranging the opportunities, and recruiting the field operatives, and then reaping the benefits, over the bodies of the fallen, increasingly see themselves as above our laws, including our Constitution. And those that are not corrupted? Alone, or at least in their own perception, isolated and alone, they succumb to fear or feel powerless to succeed in any effort to protest and prevail. Some feel despair, anger and depression.

I pondered upon the thought of a “permanent majority” when I heard about Karl Rove’s plan for achieving that for the Republican Party and as some of the tactics he was using to achieve that state became visible. There is much more at risk here than the long rub of two political philosophies and the hoped for eventual dominance of one over the other. S/he who holds the political keys, also may hold the control over the economic keys, or does now due to the meddling with the checks and balances, which were supposed to prevent such totalitarian control. More and more power and control both politically and economically have been drawn in and placed in the hands of a shrinking number of entities. Imagine our country with a permanent majority ruling class, a caste system of sorts, with justice and economic freedom for some, and no open doors for movement through the layers. I do not believe the majority of either party, really wants to see this in their future. But, this is the path I believe we are on now, unless we insist on changing course. And as our resources and environment further degrade, along with our lives, it will only become worse.

Think about the events and stories even of the past year or two regarding evidence of continued movement toward monopolization in industry (authorized step by step by those with oversight authority in our government), corruption in government and industry contracting, (in particular defense contracting), and hobbling of policies and laws long in place to prevent certain corrupt activities and goals from being accomplished with impunity. Think of the many voices attempting to speak out about: the war in the middle east, the attacks on and undermining of the middle class, jobs, contracting, graft and corruption, attacks on public education and the funding of access for all children to a public education, the lack of responsibility for active duty military and veterans, the health and welfare of our children, those who report wrongdoing in their workplace, those who question what our current administration is doing, the crippling of not only our Supreme Court and Justice system, but also most if not all of our law enforcement and oversight agencies, and on and on.

We discuss the gridlock that is happening with our inadequate and decaying transportation systems (prey to reallocation of resources away from use in this country for the public good); we don’t talk about the gridlock occurring to things even more critical to our lives and our futures and our children’s futures. Think of the voices who are being silenced as we speak through legal (or illegal) harassment, intimidation, loss of job and livelihood, threats, punitive actions both financial and social, alleged suicides and potentially worse.

Fear is immobilizing. Fear can cause people to stop thinking. Fear can cause paralysis, both physically, emotionally and intellectually…. if we let it. Mr. Krugman states that most Americans have now regained their balance. He is referring to the fear that comes when levels of stress are conditioned in to the population and triggered by colors on a chart and the fear that takes hold when the mainstream media plays over and over again the script of the day for what terrors are imminent. He is referring to the withdrawal that occurs when familiar places like shopping malls, football stadiums, restaurants, parks, airplanes and even grocery stores now seem populated by phantom evil around every corner and in every shadow.

I believe Mr. Krugman is right that most Americans are responding as the townspeople did in “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” and are no longer dependably running unthinkingly when asked. We’ve taken too much of it for too long, and the majority of us can see it for what it is. We’ve come to terms with our physical security risks, and are standing up to those who would hobble our daily lives and cut off our freedom at the knees.

We are not however dealing with the other threats to our freedom - political or economic. We are still terrorized in our workplaces as we try to ethically do our jobs, and when we question or challenge those in our governance structure or ask to have wrongdoing investigated, and justice done. When we out a wrongdoer, we immediately suffer the consequences of a firestorm for trying to hinder the wrongdoer and his or her probable accomplices in their growing scope of corruption. After we try to go through local channels to seek righting the wrong and justice, we find that those layers of government that we believed were there to help us prevail, to protect us from unconstitutional and illegal activities and criminals have been also disabled. We find ourselves in a vacuum with no gravity for balance and control. And unless our coworkers, who are not a part of the problem, can see directly what we are reporting and experience the firestorm themselves, they tend to discount what we say. It is a form of denial, frantic dismissal of something we’d really rather not know, thank you. There is a tendency to step back and say “My ox isn’t being gored; leave me alone.” It is the fear of the known and the fear of the perceived unknown that is so deadening. It is demeaning, frustrating, and profoundly disillusioning for most.

And those who would benefit from the meltdown, keep raising the stimuli to provoke a fear reaction to paint an indistinct, but frightening perception of what might happen to us if we speak, if we dare try to do something about the problem that it seems we are the only one privy to. It is the fear of being a target, of being alone, of losing our homes, families, friends, of losing our dreams, and our inability to imagine what, other than destruction, lies on the other side of taking those steps, that steals our souls and keeps us from uniting and supporting each other.

It is time we combat and overcome this kind of fear mongering too. We must confront wrong-doing. We must demand that our government agencies, Justice branch, and our elected Legislative branch officials do also. And we must demand that our Executive branch adhere to our laws and stop attempts to cover up wrongdoing, control issues and situations to keep justice from functioning. We must support our friends and coworkers when they do what is right and stand up and be willing to report and testify to what we know too. We must not allow ourselves to be divided and defeated. We must fight for our rights, and our lives and our future by supporting actively, those who take the lead, and we must join them in demanding that our Constitution and laws are upheld, our freedoms preserved, and that justice should function and prevail.

I found this recently. Mr. Helbig prepared a rather detailed argument...

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Was the Navy Defrauded? You be the Judge!

What is the real relationship between certain senior naval officials and their retired counterparts working for Coopers and Lybrand? Was it innocent as Department of Defense Inspector General Audit Report 94-113 claims, or was it really criminal? Ten million dollars was spent to employ them, but even the Inspector General found no measurable value in the resultant product

JUNK YARD DOG OR WHIMPERING PUPPY
President Reagan described Inspector Generals as "junk yard dogs" that take a bite out of crime. This is the case of the "whimpering puppy". I was forced to help prepare a contract that did not follow any of the established rules. I never had any biases one way or the other when I first entered this case; I have, however, been convinced by my extensive research that this series of improperly issued contracts was not just a mistake that was cured by teaching people the rules, but rather a deliberate criminal enterprise that pressured anyone who opposed it. Naval Academy Professor James Barry's 1996 Washington Post op-ed article "Adrift in Annapolis" quoted some of his Midshipman students as saying that the difference between Midshipmen (and Naval officers) and the Mafia was "we wear uniforms". I took an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and DOMESTIC, and I consider senior officers who think first of their personal pocketbook and ignore their own oath of office to be DOMESTIC ENEMIES. I did not see any one take a bribe; I was not offered one, but the behavior I am describing here shows a clear pattern of probable bribery. I ask you to join my challenge to the Department of the Navy, the Department of Defense, the Justice Department, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to leave no stone unturned in examining the unusual relationships behind this series of contracts, and not to just let the perpetrators retire into the sunset free to enjoy the fruits of their conspiracy.

FOLLOWING THE TRAIL
Follow the Trail - the same trail that led me to my conclusion that over 30 separate improper contracts for which you the taxpayer paid out $10 million were not mistakes, but criminal.

INSPECTOR GENERAL AUDIT AND ITS SHORTCOMINGS
The trail begins with the initial suspicions, warnings, the Hotline complaint, and the resultant Inspector General's audit report - followed by my rebuttal, and an overview of what the Inspector General examined together with what it failed to examine.

NAVAL SHIPYARD INVOLVEMENT
You will travel from now-closed Charleston Naval Shipyard, South Carolina, to Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, Hawaii, Nofolk Naval Shipyard, Virginia, Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, New Hampshire/Maine, Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Bremerton, Washington, and finally to my now-closed Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Vallejo, California.

NAVAL AIR DEPOT AND INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITY INVOLVEMENT
We will also travel to also closed Pensacola Naval Air Depot, Florida, and the Naval Intelligence Activity, Suitland, Maryland.

WASHINGTON HEADQUARTERS INVOLVEMENT
Naval Sea Systems Command and Naval Supply Systems Command Headquarters, the Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Research, Development and Acquisition), Department of Defense and Naval Inspector Generals and Naval Criminal Investigative Service play prominent roles.

CONTRACTING CENTER INVOLVEMENT
Contracting activities which did not follow the rules include the Naval Regional Contracting Center, San Diego, California, and its Long Beach, California Detachment plus the Naval Regional Contracting Center, Washington, DC, in addition to the contracts organizations at each of the field locations.

SENATOR AND ADMIRAL LISTEN
Senator David Pryor would have held hearings three years ago had the Republican takeover of the Senate in the 1994 election not stripped him of his Senate Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Federal Services, Post Office and Civil Service Chairmanship and staff. The late Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral J. M. "Mike" Boorda penned a strong note offering to listen and vowing to act, but tragically never received the briefing I was preparing for him.

WHISTLEBLOWER PROTECTION ACT - A JOKE!
The Whistleblower Protection Act does not adequately protect people who act ethically by refusing to cheat you the taxpayer, or even worse using every possible resource to make you, executive level management, Congress and investigative agencies aware of serious wrongdoing.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?
Draw your own conclusions and act. Let your Member of Congress and Senators know that you want this thoroughly investigated, that you consider $10 million a significant amount of money, and demand an accounting of the value you received for it.

ARE YOU A WITNESS?
If you were present at any one of these activities, or behind the scenes at the contractor Coopers and Lybrand's Government Consulting Practice in Virginia, step forth and tell what you know. Help recover the taxpayers' millions and bring the perpetrators to justice.

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FOLLOWING THE TRAIL
Ex-Mare Island Worker Maintains Fraud Charge - Navy Rejects Claims, But Senator Investigates
Article from Contra Costa Times, October 1995
Dept of Defense Inspector General Audit Report 94-113
Orders Placed Under Federal Supply Schedule Contracts for Total Quality Management Services at Naval Shipyards
Not a Bed Bug Letter, Admiral Boorda Agrees to Listen
Admiral "Mike" Boorda's Handwritten Note
Do Audit Findings Answer or Avoid the Allegations? You Be the Judge.
Allegations, findings and commentary initially prepared to brief the late Chief of Naval Operations, Adm Boorda.
Why a Hotline Complaint? How the IG Began.
The story behind the December 1992 Hotline Complaint.
What Went Wrong With DOD-IG Audit Report 94-113?
The failings and shortfalls of the May 1994 audit report.
Senator David Pryor's Governmental Affairs Subcommittee Investigation
Senator Pryor's letter to the Inspector General and her reply
Principle Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy Vice Admiral W. C.Bowes reply to Senator Pryor
Navy reply to Senator Pryor's initial follow-up questions.
Admiral/Norfolk Connections Spelled Out In Inspector General Letter To Senate Staff
Naval Sea Systems Command Inspector General July 1996 Letter to Senate Staff Investigator Richard Goodman
The Initial Mare Island Statement of Work
TQM References Deleted and Found Out of Scope - Changed to Training
You paid Coopers & Lybrand $446,000 for this!!
The Bar Charts from the Final April 1993 Brief - They were discarded as useless 3 months later in July.
What compelled every Shipyard to use Coopers and Lybrand ...
Unseen Hands, No Need, No Relevance
Charleston Naval Shipyard, Coopers & Lybrand and TQM - Activity-Based Costing, Fraud or Mistake
You spent $2.7 million for these questionably described services; the IG only looked at a small part of them. Why did it not look further? It was there for 2 weeks.
Naval Air Depot Pensacola, Coopers and Lybrand and TQM, Fraud or Mistake
The Inspector General ignored the lead to these orders. None of them were properly issued, and a local Hotline complaint was made, but ignored.
Coopers and Lybrand, Naval Intelligence Activity and TQM, Fraud or Mistake
The Inspector General did not follow the roadmap to these orders. Why not?
Keeping Procurement Fraud At Bay by Paul Dopp
Particularly note SUPPLIER AND CONTRACT FRAUD RED FLAGS (BIDDING AND SELECTION STAGE); the Naval Criminal Investigative Service issued a similar chart, but declined to pursue the indicators - 4. Company Alumni Involvement with Contractor; 6. Competition restricted; 7. Contractor selection unjustified; 8. Contracts repeatedly awarded to the contractor; 10. Narrow bid specifications; 11. No provision to audit contractor; 13. Rushed timing; 14. Split contract; 15. Unclear bid specifications.
Ferreting Out Fraud
An excellent article about the kind of approach the IG should have used.
Jim D'Elia's Web Page on Whistleblowing in the Federal Government
The voice of experience and an active worldwide whistleblower guestbook
Roger's Guestbook
Take a look, see what others are saying and leave your comments. I am constantly trying to better tell this story.

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NAVY WORKERS - DID YOU USED TO WORK AT?

MARE ISLAND NAVAL SHIPYARD
PUGET SOUND NAVAL SHIPYARD
CHARLESTON NAVAL SHIPYARD
NORFOLK NAVAL SHIPYARD
PORTSMOUTH NAVAL SHIPYARD
PEARL HARBOR NAVAL SHIPYARD
LONG BEACH NAVAL SHIPYARD
NAVAL AVIATION DEPOT PENSACOLA
NAVAL INTELLIGENCE COMMAND
NAVAL REGIONAL CONTRACTING CENTER SAN DIEGO
DETACHMENT LONG BEACH
FLEET INDUSTRIAL SUPPLY CENTER CHARLESTON
FLEET INDUSTRIAL SUPPLY CENTER PUGET SOUND
FLEET INDUSTRIAL SUPPLY CENTER PENSACOLA
NAVAL REGIONAL CONTRACTING CENTER WASHINGTON
DO YOU REMEMBER COOPERS AND LYBRAND OR ANY OTHER TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT CONSULTANTS OR TRAINERS? PLEASE, CONTACT ME IF YOU DO.

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Roger Helbig
rhelbig@california.com

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Thank you, for your interest. This page has been visited times since May 22, 98. Please, e-mail me if you can help or need further information.

The War on Whistleblowers
U.S. officials have long retaliated against employees who speak out, burying the dangers they expose.
Now, Congress wants to give whistle-blowers greater protection -- but President Bush vows to stop it.

By James Sandler
Nov. 01, 2007 | If there is any doubt about how the Bush administration treats government whistle-blowers, consider the case of Teresa Chambers. She was hired in early 2002, with impeccable law enforcement credentials, to become chief of the United States Park Police. But after Chambers raised concerns publicly that crime was up in the nation's parks, she was rebuked by superiors and fired. When Chambers fought to regain her job through the legal system meant to protect whistle-blowers, government lawyers fought back, and associated her with terrorists. Despite a multiyear legal struggle, she is still fighting for her job.
Whistle-blowers have faced hostility not only under Republican administrations. During President Clinton's tenure, Bogdan Dzakovic, an undercover security agent with the Federal Aviation Administration, suffered retribution for speaking out about weak airport security -- three years before Sept. 11, 2001. Dzakovic was passed up for promotion time and again, and today, he says, he remains consigned to data entry duties for the Transportation Security Administration.
Every year, hundreds of federal workers sound the alarm about corruption, fraud or dangers to public safety that are caused or overlooked -- or even covered up -- by U.S. government agencies. These whistle-blowers are supposed to be guaranteed protection by law from retaliation for speaking out in the public's interest.
But a six-month investigation by the Center for Investigative Reporting, in collaboration with Salon, has found that federal whistle-blowers almost never receive legal protection after they take action. Instead, they often face agency managers and White House appointees intent upon silencing them rather than addressing the problems they raise. They are left fighting for their jobs in a special administrative court system, little known to the American public, that is mired in bureaucracy and vulnerable to partisan politics. The CIR/Salon investigation reveals that the whistle-blower system -- first created by Congress decades ago and proclaimed as a cornerstone of government transparency and accountability -- has in reality enabled the punishment of employees who speak out. It has had a chilling effect, dissuading others from coming forward. The investigation examined nearly 3,600 whistle-blower cases since 1994, and included dozens of interviews and a review of confidential court documents. Whistle-blowers lose their cases, the investigation shows, nearly 97 percent of the time. Most limp away from the experience with their careers, reputations and finances in tatters.
Legal experts and lawmakers say the system is badly in need of reform. In fact, new legislation to strengthen whistle-blower protections has been moving through Congress this year, with strong bipartisan support, and is expected to come before the Senate this session. But in the latest setback to the system, the Bush White House has vowed to veto the legislation, citing among its criticisms a risk to national security.
"Whistle-blowers are treated like a skunk at a picnic, and there's no excuse for it," Sen. Charles Grassley, the Iowa Republican, said after being provided with details of the CIR/Salon investigation. Grassley has long sought stronger whistle-blower protections and is backing the new legislation toward reform. "It's whistle-blowers who can help us truly understand problems at government agencies. They stick their necks out to speak the truth. They don't take the easy way out."
"It's imperative that there are whistle-blower protections for civil servants when they see something that is wrong," said Lynn Jennings, an attorney who served during the Clinton administration as general counsel for the special whistle-blower court, known as the Merit Systems Protection Board. "They need to know that if they speak out they are going to be protected. Ultimately, it is to save lives, to save money, to save the integrity of the federal government."
To be sure, some cases brought by whistle-blowers are frivolous. Recent cases included one in which an employee sought protection after reporting missing candy bars at a government commissary. In another case, a worker complained about colleagues using a drinking fountain as a spittoon. One government worker was discovered by investigators to have fabricated his entire complaint. Most such cases, however, are weeded out of the system.
But the apparently legitimate cases -- some involving serious issues such as aviation security or tainted meat in the U.S. food supply -- have long been undermined by a lack of resources and case backlogs. And legal precedents created by the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington -- the sole appeals court that hears and interprets the law for the special whistle-blower system -- have made it virtually impossible in recent years for whistle-blowers to win their cases.
The beginnings of modern whistle-blower protections can be traced to the U.S. Senate floor in April 1951, when the junior senator from California proposed a new law, telling his fellow lawmakers that "it is essential to the security of the nation and the very lives of the people" that employees do not become "a parade of yes-men for administration policies." The senator was Richard Nixon, and his proposed law eventually stalled. It might have faded away forever, if not for the scandal that shook public confidence in the federal government under Nixon's own administration two decades later.
In the wake of Watergate, Congress passed the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978. It established the Office of Special Counsel, with a staff of investigators to look into complaints of retaliation against employees who spoke out. The new law also created the Merit Systems Protection Board, the administrative court with a bipartisan panel of three judges, and it assigned a special federal appeals court to interpret the law in the most complex cases.
But year after year, whistle-blowers complaining of retaliation lost their cases. Some faced insidious tactics by their co-workers and superiors.
Joseph D. Whitson Jr. was a civilian chemist in the Air Force who spoke out about superiors falsifying drug test results. His desk was moved to a room in the basement and his job duties stripped.
Vernie Gee Sr. was an agricultural inspector who sounded the alarm about tainted meat in the U.S. food supply and inspectors taking bribes from slaughterhouses. Gee was beaten up by a plant worker during an inspection -- and then reprimanded by superiors for fighting.
George Randall Taylor, a chief of police at a Navy base in Bermuda , exposed coverups of rapes on the base. He was then forced into a psychiatric hospital.
Before Teresa Chambers was fired from the Park Police, she found used condoms on her car, and someone pepper-sprayed her office door.
"One of the great tricks in whistle-blowing is to get rid of someone for a reason that doesn't seem like it was for whistle-blowing," said Fred Alford, a professor of government at the University of Maryland . "You do all the things you can to get someone to quit, to get them enraged, to get them to act out. Then you can fire them."
Government managers and attorneys almost always argue that measures taken against whistle-blowers were justified because of bad behavior or poor performance by the employee.
"It is usually not that hard for [agencies] to build up a case against somebody if they want to," said Elaine Kaplan, who headed the Office of Special Counsel under President Clinton. "They start looking at your e-mails, they start nitpicking you … It is difficult to prove whistle-blower retaliation."
Details of Chambers' case reflect that struggle.
Prior to becoming chief of the Park Police, Chambers had a distinguished 28-year career in law enforcement. She was a Republican, was eager to serve the nation in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and would be the first woman to lead the force. But her pedigree apparently would no longer matter once her public comments created political embarrassment for the Bush administration.
After 9/11, the administration feared terrorist attacks on high-profile U.S. landmarks, and ordered Chambers to double the number of officers standing guard at icons like the Statue of Liberty and those on the National Mall in Washington . But the Park Police force already faced staffing shortages, and Chambers was forced to pull officers who were patrolling other national parks, leaving those areas vulnerable. Drug dealers soon moved in, and rapes more than tripled. In August 2002, when one of Chambers' patrolmen was handling a traffic accident with insufficient backup, he was run over and killed.
In the fall of 2003, when a Washington Post reporter contacted Chambers for a story about the growing peril in the parks, she responded candidly. The Park Police, she told the Post, needed twice as many officers and millions of dollars to cover overtime expenses. She said officers had been working grueling 12-hour shifts, and department morale was plummeting. "My greatest fear is that harm or death will come to a visitor or employee at one of our parks," she said.
Retaliation against her began almost immediately. Chambers' supervisor, Donald W. Murphy, then the deputy director of the National Park Service, ordered her in an e-mail to never again "reference the President's '05 budget under any circumstances" and summoned her to his office. In court documents later filed by Chambers she described how armed federal agents suddenly appeared and surrounded her in Murphy's reception area, and took away her gun and badge. She was then paraded in front of media when escorted to another building to collect her belongings.
During the course of her case, Bush officials and attorneys attacked Chambers from multiple angles, documents show. One high-ranking official at the Interior Department, which oversees the Park Police, said Chambers was no longer "trustworthy" and that she "potentially endangered large numbers of citizens" by speaking to the media. Murphy, her former boss, said Chambers had been "communicating to the criminal elements," signaling to them that national parks had become their "free territory to exploit." A lawyer for the Bush administration asserted that Chambers had made reconnaissance operations easier for " America 's enemies in the world."
In a recent interview, Chambers questioned whether raising concerns about an understaffed force angered Bush officials who were talking up policies for securing the U.S. homeland. "Was it just a bad day at the White House where I said we needed more officers, when somebody else was standing at a podium saying we've never been safer?" asked Chambers, who now teaches part-time at Johns Hopkins University and maintains a Web site documenting her case. "I don't know."
One advocacy group that assists whistle-blowers, the Government Accountability Project in Washington , has scrutinized past rulings to determine how whistle-blowers fare. GAP's pioneering work showed that whistle-blowers seldom win. But until now, no comprehensive study has been done on whistle-blower cases. The Merit Systems Protection Board does not specifically keep track of cases, but using records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, the CIR/Salon investigation reviewed 3,561 whistle-blower cases filed since 1994, when the Whistleblower Protection Act was last revised by Congress. The cases often traversed a costly and drawn-out series of legal steps prior to a decision. During the Clinton administration, in cases from 1994 to 2000, whistle-blowers won only 3.5 percent of the time. During President Bush's tenure, from 2001 through June 2007, 3.3 percent of whistle-blowers won. Most whistle-blowers spent several years fighting in court.
"Whistle-blowers are overly confident in the law, but in most cases there is no recourse," said University of Maryland 's Alford, who has studied the issue. "We have this idea of whistle-blowers from television -- from '60 Minutes,' from Time magazine. But most whistle-blowers live and die in anonymity."
"If you are looking at that record and advising [a whistle-blower], I would suggest seeking out a different venue," said Robert G. Vaughn, a law professor at American University who has written extensively about the Merit Systems Protection Board.
Beth Slavet, a former judge on the Merit Systems Protection Board during the Clinton and Bush administrations, said of the court's record: "It has a chilling effect. Why would you bring a case that you don't think you can win?"
The system's track record has left some whistle-blowers wondering whether their cases were tainted by partisan politics. In the 2003 case of Craig F. Johns, a former special agent for the Department of Veterans Affairs, confidential court documents obtained by CIR and Salon reveal such meddling -- by a Republican judge on the court itself.
Johns' case, which alleged forged training records and anti-gay harassment inside his agency, had crawled through the whistle-blower courts for seven years. In 2003, his case reached its final appeal at the Merit Systems Protection Board. At the time there was a vacancy on the bipartisan three-judge court. Johns' case was being heard by a Democrat and a Republican -- two judges with sharply different interpretations of the whistle-blower law. Beth Slavet, the Democrat, was a former staffer for Sen. Ted Kennedy and had an extensive career practicing labor law. Her Republican colleague, Susanne T. Marshall, had never been an attorney or even graduated college, but had been appointed to the court after a long career as a Republican staffer on the Senate committee for governmental affairs.
The two judges had in fact battled for more than three years over the Johns case, the court documents show, clashing over, among other things, how to address Johns' claims of anti-homosexual harassment. Discrimination laws do not cover sexual orientation, but Slavet felt Johns' case underscored such a need and drafted a decision that would grant Johns' case a new hearing. But Marshall disagreed, and she used a procedural tactic to stall the case until an incoming Bush-appointed judge arrived to replace Slavet, whose term was almost over.
Slavet wrote a scathing memorandum to Marshall in response: "It is fundamentally unfair to the parties and destructive of the process to hold up these cases pending my departure and Mr. McPhie's confirmation," Slavet wrote in the memo dated Feb. 25, 2003, referring to the incoming Bush appointee, Neil McPhie. Soon after, McPhie joined the court and Slavet's term ended. Marshall and McPhie decided the Johns case that August: "Corrective Action Denied."
It was not the only case that Marshall stalled, documents show. There was the case of Lori A. Sutton, a Department of Justice secretary who alleged retaliation after filing an equal opportunity complaint; and the case of Valerie E. Johnson, a Department of Defense commissary worker who alleged retaliation after exposing the reselling of food items that had been picked at by rats. Marshall and McPhie also ruled against these whistle-blowers.
Marshall is no longer with the court and could not be reached for comment. But the current general counsel of the Merit Systems Protection Board, Chad Bungard, disputed that Marshall's stalling of whistle-blower cases should be chalked up to partisan politics. "This could be totally innocuous," Bungard said. "I can't speculate on what Marshall 's intent was."
Craig Johns has since left government work and opened a rescue ranch for injured animals in Texas , naming it the Ranch of Last Resort. "It's very disturbing, to learn about this political interference," he said recently. "This is why I prefer the company of animals to people."
Johns' case, like many others, never made it to the Federal Circuit Court in Washington , the only court that can preside over appeals of whistle-blower cases beyond the Merit Systems Protection Board. Through a series of precedent-setting rulings -- which are binding for the entire whistle-blower legal system -- the judges on the Federal Circuit Court have interpreted the law in recent years to the point where, as one investigator from the Office of Special Counsel put it, whistle-blowers must "utter magic words" to get protection.
Whistle-blowers are often employees who, during the course of their jobs, notice violations of rules or laws; before going public, they may casually mention the wrongdoing to a boss, or write a memo expressing the need to address a danger to public safety. Teresa Chambers is one example of a person who first raised concerns within her department, to no avail. But legal precedents created by the Federal Circuit Court have rigged the odds heavily against such employees.
One ruling determined that employees will not be protected if the nature of what they disclose is "debatable" by others. Another precedent says whistle-blowers won't be protected if the coverup they disclose is common knowledge in the office. Another precedent strips protections for whistle-blowers who complain only to their direct boss but to no one higher up the chain. Perhaps the most notorious precedent, known as "Huffman," says whistle-blowers will not be protected if it is their job to scrutinize safety issues or mismanagement, and they speak out about a coverup -- like meat inspectors who discover a coverup of tainted beef in the food supply, or law enforcement officials who speak out about dangers to public safety.
In other words, these legal precedents have made the law more beholden to murky workplace protocols than to the substance of the allegations, even when those allegations concern serious public safety issues and are proven to be true.
"The problem is that no whistle-blower knows a damn thing about whistle-blowing before they do it. You can't go back and repackage the disclosure to meet the requirements of the law," said a senior Pentagon official who specializes in employment law. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity, fearing that he would not be protected from retaliation if he were openly critical of whistle-blower protections. "Never have your name in print," he said.
Another government lawyer, who insisted on anonymity for the same reason, characterized the Federal Circuit Court's view of whistle-blowers as juvenile. "No one likes a tattletale," he said. "It's that simple."
The Federal Circuit Court's longest sitting jurist, Haldane Robert Mayer, was appointed by Ronald Reagan. Prior to his appointment, Mayer had been the acting U.S. special counsel -- the chief whistle-blower investigator. But Mayer resigned from that position in 1982 after the Office of Special Counsel was accused of holding seminars for political appointees and agency managers -- to teach them how to fire whistle-blowers effectively within the confines of the law. The scandal led Congress to strengthen the whistle-blower law, but it did not stop Reagan from appointing Mayer to the bench.
"Judge Mayer is one of the most significant people in the legal system to translate the whistle-blower law passed in response to his own [alleged] abuses of power," said Tom Devine, legal director for the Government Accountability Project.
Judge Mayer did not respond to an interview request.
In fact, many whistle-blower cases never even make it to the court. They first go to the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, the agency charged with investigating whistle-blower complaints. But the agency has long been considered a failure, due to a chronic backlog of cases, lack of resources and poor leadership. Year after year, the special counsel attempts to justify the existence of the agency by publicizing a handful of whistle-blower cases. "You make examples of high-level and mid-level officials to let them know that they are not going to get away with it," explained Scott Bloch, the current special counsel, during an interview in September.
But in reality, only 5 percent of employees said they were satisfied with the treatment their case received from the Office of Special Counsel, according to an agency survey released last year. Whistle-blowers find themselves waiting in line behind hundreds of other employees who file complaints each year.
Elaine Kaplan, the Clinton-era special counsel, left office with more than 1,000 cases backlogged. "We received a tremendous amount of complaints there," she said. "To tell you the truth, we were starting to move cases more quickly toward the end, but no one wants their case to move quickly to a bad conclusion."
Since Bloch's appointment by President Bush in 2003, the office has been fighting critics from both political parties, going round and round over allegations of everything from purging backlogged cases to discriminating against gay whistle-blowers. Bloch himself has for two years been under investigation for retaliating against his own employees.
"People have the right to file complaints if they want to and lawyers can say anything they want," Bloch said when asked about the whistle-blower complaint against him. "But it's all fiction -- all the stuff is made up!"
The new whistle-blower law making its way through Congress, called the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2007, is no panacea. But crucially, say its backers, it would allow whistle-blowers to appeal their cases in other U.S. circuit courts, whose judges may have a different interpretation of the law than those on the Federal Circuit Court. And prior to that stage, if the Merit Systems Protections Board didn't act on a case in a timely manner, whistle-blowers would be able to get a jury trial at a federal district court. Moreover, the legislation would seek to include whistle-blowers in the national security realm, instead of having to rely on more secretive internal procedures at the FBI or other law enforcement and intelligence agencies for recourse.
"These changes would help whistle-blowers appeal negative decisions and hopefully increase the likelihood their complaints of retaliation would be heard," said Sen. Grassley, who is co-sponsoring the legislation.
Briefed on the results of the CIR/Salon investigation, Democratic Sen. Daniel Akaka of Hawaii , who introduced the legislation, said: "What these statistics show is a real need to strengthen protections for federal whistle-blowers and close loopholes in the law created by judicial decisions that are inconsistent with congressional intent. It is important for our laws to protect the rights of these individuals who come forward with legitimate claims."
But the Bush administration has vigorously opposed stronger whistle-blower protections. In a confidential e-mail from 2006, obtained by CIR and Salon, the White House registered strong objections to a congressional committee that was reviewing a similar law to protect whistle-blowers drawn up last year, saying the "excessively overbroad definition of whistleblowing ... forbids using any common sense." And President Bush has said he will veto the new legislation moving through Congress, saying in a two-page Statement of Administration Policy that the new law would "increase the number of frivolous complaints and waste resources" and could "compromise national security."
Sean Kevelighan, a spokesman for the Bush administration, declined to elaborate on the administration's position. "There is a policy that we let the Statements of Administration Policies speak for themselves," said Kevelighan.
But for the thousands of federal employees who have descended into the bewildering world of whistle-blowing, there is only deep frustration or bitter resolve.
"My only regret is the stress that it placed on my family, my wife, myself," said Craig F. Johns, the Veterans Affairs special agent whose appeal was blocked by Marshall, the Republican judge. "I'm still suffering the economic and psychological consequences, but I will never regret speaking the truth."
"I grew up believing that federal service was an honorable profession," said Bogdan Dzakovic, the former undercover FAA investigator, who remains a federal employee, unhappily waiting for his pension. "I realized that [blowing the whistle about security problems] was a totally pointless exercise."
Teresa Chambers, the former Park Police chief, is still trying to appeal her case to the Federal Circuit Court, nearly four years after her firing. "Growing up in municipal policing, it was the expectation that we would be candid with the community that we served," Chambers said. "I was aghast to find out that [in the federal workforce] candor was not only not expected, it was in this case forbidden."

http://salon.com/news/feature/2007/11/01/whistleblowers/index_np.html

After all the trauma that has been going on over the betrayal of Justice Whistleblowers the past couple of days, I think it is important to point out how much I respect those who put themselves on point to report wrongdoing when and where they found it. I have the utmost respect and admiration for people who can see the big picture and who are willing to stand up and confront what should not be. I thank all of you and encourage you not to give up. I do not believe your causes are lost, even though the very people who were supposed to champion your causes have let you down in a big way. I think some forces are gathering thanks to all of you and many others who are working in other ways to bring about justice. I believe we are making some progress. Please continue to stand up and stir things up.

For those who need to (and I hope you will continue to do so) report wrongdoing, I would suggest going to the truly anonymous tip line of the Project on Government Oversite (POGO) to report it there.

Go to POGO.org and then click on report corruption link on their site page, or use this page address: http://www.pogo.org/p/x/exposecorruption.html

Someone mentioned on a blog on The Next Hurrah yesterday that they thought it was good the whistleblowers could know they were not alone and see who else was blowing the whistle. While it is true, as the commenter said, that combining related tips and reports may help support the processing and holding the wrongdoers accountable for the sum total of the various reports, outing all of the reporters was NOT the way to do it. They and their families have been put at risk, more than most know. I would suggest people immediately contact POGO for assistance. There are a great many "cases" being put together right now. Yours may be a part of a much bigger picture, and you may may be helped and supported by others reports, and they may be helped and supported by yours.

I leave you with a quote courageous Boeing Whistleblower, Gerald Eastman, has posted on his site, The Last Inspector.com:

"The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing." -Albert Einstein

Take care of yourselves and join together to support each other and form a more indomitable force!

Victorian Muse

From TPM Muckraker
The Story Behind The Whistleblower Email Screw-Up
By Paul Kiel - October 29, 2007, 5:56PM

Friday night, we reported that the House Judiciary Committee had mistakenly sent the email addresses of would-be whistleblowers to everyone who had written in to the committee's Justice Department politicization tip line. A committee spokesperson responded to that story with a statement apologizing for the "technological error."
In a statement released this afternoon (which can be read in full below) a committee spokesperson clarified that the error was, in fact, human. For those of you interested in the nitty gritty, the "nonpartisan, clerical employee" of the committee who was tasked with sending the email out to the list screwed up by assuming that checking "private" in Microsoft Outlook's Distribution List function meant that recipient names would be hidden. Alas, not so.
The full statement is below.

The tip line was created to be a confidential method for Justice Department employees to provide the Judiciary Committee with information that might aid the Committee in its ongoing investigation of alleged politicization at the Justice Department. Because of the confidentiality agreement, the Committee will not discuss any emails sent on this tip line. An erroneous communication was sent that may have compromised the anonymity of recipients of the email. An earlier statement labeled this a "technological error." To be clear, this was a user error in operating the email program.

The Committee apologizes for the concern this error may have caused, and is making every effort to protect the confidentiality of those who chose to provide information on the tip line. Any whistleblowers who sent in tips to this website are entitled to full legal protection. We are determined to ensure that they receive that protection and are taking steps to further that objective.
The following is a detailed chronology of this tip line and of the error that occurred:

1. In the course of several investigations this year, the House Judiciary Committee received information that there were individuals who wanted to share information about wrongdoing at the Department of Justice but were reluctant to do so over the phone. It was determined that it would be desirable for them to have a means of electronically communicating with the Committee.

2. On or about June 20, the tip line web page was launched. Within a day or two thereafter, the Committee Minority raised concerns with the House Parliamentarian that the terms of the web page might violate the Rules of the House. Specifically, the Minority asserted that, because the web page solicited the tips, the tips were Committee records and the Minority was, then, entitled to equitable access to these records and, therefore, access to the tips could not be restricted to Majority staff and Majority Members. The Parliamentarian agreed with the Minority’s interpretation of the Rules.

3. Majority and Minority staff engaged in discussions to determine what restrictions could be placed on access to the tips, consistent with House rules, which would help secure the confidentiality of the information. It was agreed that during those discussions neither the Majority or Minority would have access to the tips.
4. The Majority and Minority recently reached an agreement as to the conditions for access to the tips. Specifically, it was agreed that the tips would be held in "Executive Session," with access limited to Committee members and specifically designated staff, and that any broader release of the tips could only occur upon a vote of the full Committee. The Committee voted to approve a resolution that reflected the agreement on October 24.

5. Because the conditions for access to the tips had been changed from what had been indicated on the web page, the resolution further specified that a Committee staff member would advise everyone who had submitted information via the tip line of the changed conditions for access and giving them three business days to withdraw any information submitted. During these three business days, the Resolution specified, it would continue to be the case that no Committee staff or Member would review the tips.

6. A nonpartisan, clerical employee of the Committee was tasked with sending the email.

7. To carry out this task, the employee created two distribution lists in Microsoft Outlook called "Right Justice" and "Right Justice2". The employee’s recollection is that a checkbox in the Outlook Distribution List function was checked which was marked "private." The employee mistakenly believed that this would hide the names on the distribution list from the recipients. However, in fact, while it appeared to the employee that the name of the distribution list would be the only text on the "to:" field of the email, all addresses were shown when the email was received. This was an inadvertent clerical error, and contrary to speculation, not the result of "hacking" or any malicious act.

8. As a result of this mistake, all email addresses of all recipients were visible to everyone who received the email. No further information or content of any of the emails was revealed.

9. There were more than 150 emails on the list. Among the emails on the list was apparently the public email address of the Vice President as well as other presumably fictitious email addresses containing profanity. Presumably, these were submitted as pranks to the tip line. The Committee has not accessed the content of the emails purporting to be sent from these addresses and has no way of knowing how or why these emails are included in the list.

10. A substantial number of email addresses also appear to include portions of the proper names of individuals. To comply with the resolution of the Committee and to avoid even further potential exposure from potential whistleblowers, the Committee will not release the list of recipients or any further details about the list.

11. The Committee is familiar with legal protections involving whistleblowers and stands ready to assist any whistleblower who feels that they are in any jeopardy as a result of this mistake or for any other reason. We have not yet been contacted by any such whistleblower in this regard.