Bloomberg Markets Magazine: Koch Brothers Flout Law With Secret Iran Sales
Koch Oil Refinery
Photo (CC) via Zach K
This article details several whistleblower disclosures regarding Koch Industries, the notable international energy, "chemical, textile, trading and refining conglomerate." The lengthy article details the cases of one employee who was fired from the corporation shortly after discovering illegal bribery deals, another employee who exposed an alleged systematic circumventing of environmental regulations involving emissions, and other employees disclosing wrongful and unethical practices.
Key Quote: From 1999 through 2003, Koch Industries was assessed more than $400 million in fines, penalties and judgments. In December 1999, a civil jury found that Koch Industries had taken oil it didn’t pay for from federal land by mismeasuring the amount of crude it was extracting. Koch paid a $25 million settlement to the U.S.
Phil Dubose, a Koch employee who testified against the company said he and his colleagues were shown by their managers how to steal and cheat -- using techniques they called the Koch Method.
Daily Nation (Kenya): Why Blowing the Whistle on the UN has Become a Complete Waste of Time
With the release of the film The Whistleblower, outside analysts of the United Nations are realizing that protections for that organization's whistleblowers have not adequately improved over the last decade -- since the time of the U.N. sex-trafficking scandal that the film details. In fact, the same retaliation that The Whistleblower faced in 1999 could happen today, argues GAP's Shelley Walden, whose recent blog posts (here and here) were relied upon and cited (many times) for this article.
Key Quote: Ms. Walden says that UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon weakened protections for UN whistleblowers significantly in 2007, when he decided that UN programmes and specialised agencies could create their own piecemeal whistleblower policies.
Most of these new policies are weaker than the 2005 policy that GAP helped the UN to draft. He has also challenged several UN Dispute Tribunal orders and decisions favourable to whistleblowers.
Moreover, the Office of Internal Oversight Services, the investigating arm of the UN, has often refused to investigate whistleblower retaliation cases.
Seacoast Online (Maine): Whistleblower - Portsmouth Scrapyard Leeched Pollutants 'for some time'
The owners of a Maine company that is responsible for safely storing scrap metal near the Piscataqua River promised, in 2002, that no "leeching" -- the release of heavy metals and chemicals into the environment -- would occur. In April of this year, the EPA announced that the site was leeching "mercury, PCBs, and other contaminants." This issue was addressed several years ago by a whistleblower.
Associated Press: Long Road from Farm to Fork Worsens Food Outbreaks
The Colorado farm that produced the listeria-laden cantaloupe (which has killed at least 17 people) named the 28 states where the fruit was shipped … but illnesses have been reported in other states as well. This story touches on the complexity of the food industry and the increased need for better product traceability.
We Do Not Assassinate Americans
In this blog post, GAP National Security & Human Rights Director Jesselyn Radack is critical of the Obama administration's assassination of Anwar al-Aulaqi, an American citizen with links to al-Queda, without due process rights as outlined in the Constitution.
Dylan Blaylock is Communications Director for the Government Accountability Project, the nation's leading whistleblower protection and advocacy organization.
