Corporate Crime Reporter: Feds Join False Claims Act Lawsuit Against Triple Canopy

Summary: The US Department of Justice has joined a whistleblower suit that alleges defense contractor Triple Canopy filed false claims to the federal government for unqualified security guards under a security contract for Iraq. The suit was originally filed by a former employee of the company. 

Related Article: Associated Press

CBC News (Canada): Ottawa Whistleblower Wins Battle Against Developer

Summary: A water resources engineer in Ottawa, Canada reported the potential for severe flooding in plans for a city project, and was subsequently taken off the project. His concerns were later acknowledged and the whistleblower was thanked by the mayor. However, the company working on developing the project attempted to recover legal costs from the whistleblower, but the Ontario Municipal Board ruled he does not have to pay.

ABC News (Australia): Orkopoulos Whistleblower Claims Moral Victory

Summary: The staffer of a former Australian Member of Parliament (MP) has been awarded $430,000 in her suit that accused the government of bullying and harassment after she blew the whistle on her boss’ misdeeds. The former MP was convicted of 30 counts of child sex offenses, and the whistleblower was helping police to convict him.

Herald Standard (PA): Ex Employee Files Whistleblower Suit Against Fayette Redevelopment Authority

Summary: A former county home energy auditor in Pennsylvania has filed a whistleblower suit, alleging he was laid off after reporting fraud and preferential treatment within the weatherization program of the Redevelopment Authority.

Hannah Johnson is Communications Associate for the Government Accountability Project, the nation's leading whistleblower protection and advocacy organization.

Calgary Herald (Canada): Hutton – Why Redford’s Whistleblower Law Falls Short

Summary: The Executive Director of GAP’s Canadian sister organization, Federal Accountability Initiative for Reform (FAIR), wrote an op-ed for the Calgary Herald, criticizing whistleblower protection legislation recently introduced in Alberta. He praises the move to protect whistleblowers, but says the bill is weak and lays out some key aspects any whistleblower protection legislation should include.

Wall Street Journal: IRS Pays $38 Million in Whistleblower Case

Summary: The IRS has awarded $38 million to another anonymous whistleblower whose disclosures led to a major recovery in corporate taxes. This is thought to be the second biggest financial award given through the IRS whistleblower program that was established in 2007. The name of the whistleblower and the company remain anonymous.

Related Article: Reuters

Grand Forks Herald (ND): Spirit Lake Whistleblower Calls Federal Response ‘Window Dressing’

Summary: Last summer, a federal official reported pervasive child sexual abuse at the Spirit Lake reservation in North Dakota to the US Bureau of Indian Affairs. In response, the federal government took over the social services at the reservation. Now, the whistleblower has filed a new report that condemns the federal response as mere “window dressing” that is failing to act on the “continuing epidemic of child sexual abuse.”

Associated Press: Pharmaceutical Company to Pay $95M to Settle Allegations of Improper Drug Promotion

Summary: Major pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim will pay $95 million to settle whistleblower allegations that the company promoted three drugs for uses that were not FDA approved and offered kickbacks to health care professionals to encourage them to prescribe these drugs. The whistleblower will receive $17 million as his percentage of the settlement.

Related Articles: Reuters, Bloomberg

KSL TV (UT): Safety or Surveillance – What Is the NSA’s Utah Data Center?

Summary: GAP client and NSA whistleblower William Binney appeared on local Utah television to talk about the massive NSA data center being built in the state that will, according to Binney, track and store communications of US citizens.

RT: Whistleblower Who Received CIA Torture Sentenced to Prison

Summary: GAP National Security & Human Rights Counsel Kathleen McClellan appeared on RT to talk about GAP client and former CIA officer/torture whistleblower John Kiriakou’s case. Kiriakou plead guilty to violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act and will serve 30 months in prison. However, all Espionage Act charges were dropped.

In addition, GAP National Security & Human Rights Director Jesselyn Radack joined a Huffington Post Live panel to discuss Kiriakou’s case and the Obama administration’s crackdown on intelligence whistleblowers.

Supreme Court buildingPolitico: SCOTUS Must Be Last Bulwark Against NSA Snooping

Summary: GAP clients and NSA whistleblowers Bill Binney and Kirk Wiebe have written an op-ed calling on the Supreme Court to rule that the NSA cannot listen or read the international communications of US citizens without court oversight. The upcoming case, Amnesty International v. Clapper, argues that the courts should be able to bar the agency from this kind of surveillance, even if Congress has given its permission.

Peninsula Daily News (WA): Border Patrol, Officer Reach Confidential Settlement in ‘Black Hole’ Case

Summary: GAP client and Border Patrol agent Christian Sanchez, who revealed last year that Port Angeles in Washington state was a “black hole” where agents had nothing to do and were paid overtime for no work, has reached a settlement deal with the agency. The settlement was mediated by the Office of Special Counsel, and Sanchez has been reassigned to a post of his choosing and his record has been cleared. GAP praised this action yesterday. 

Key Quote: “Mr. Sanchez earned a fresh start, and he has been thanking the Lord,” [GAP Legal Director Tom] Devine said. “He wasn't trying to start a crusade on behalf of taxpayers.”

“His goal was to do his duty by bearing witness and exposing indefensible spending to Congress,” Devine added. 

Related Article: Associated Press

(Washington, DC) – The Government Accountability Project (GAP) today praised the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) for successfully mediating the Whistleblower Protection Act complaint of a U.S. Border Patrol agent harassed for refusing overtime pay when there was no extra work to be performed.

The whistleblower, Christian Sanchez, was stationed at a Port Angeles, Washington office staffed by over 40 employees – an office where there was insufficient work for the prior crew of four. Agents routinely passed the time taking daylong coastal drives and allegedly harassing local minorities. Sanchez took a stand when the entire crew began receiving overtime pay. He refused taxpayers' dollars that he had not earned.

In July 2011, Sanchez briefed Congress in a forum sponsored by Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA) and the Sunlight Foundation, where he disclosed his concerns. The Border Patrol responded by refusing to assign him any meaningful work at all, ordering him to move rocks from one location to another and back, following his car when he and his family traveled, placing his wife and children under constant surveillance while he was at work, opening investigations of him, ordering repeated "random" drug tests, and regularly subjecting him to public ridicule. The Border Patrol even stripped Sanchez of his duties as an agency chaplain.

Associated Press: Ex-CIA Officer Kiriakou Pleads Guilty to Leaking Covert Operative’s Identity to Reporter

Summary: This is extended coverage of GAP client and former CIA officer/torture whistleblower John Kiriakou, who pled guilty yesterday (in a plea deal) to violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. The majority of Kiriakou’s charges were dropped – including all Espionage Act charges. Kiriakou was motivated to take the plea because of the desire to ensure that he could see his children grow up.

Kiriakou was one of the first to publicly acknowledge the use of torture as CIA policy. He will likely serve 30 months in prison. 

Key Quote: After Tuesday’s hearing, one of Kiriakou’s lawyers described him as a whistleblower. Jesselyn Radack, an expert on whistleblower issues with the Government Accountability Project, said it was an outrage that Kiriakou will serve jail time. She was glad, though, that the charges under the Espionage Act — which she characterized as vague and overbroad — were dropped.

Related Articles: The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR, Business Insider, Politico, UPI

Ottawa Citizen (Canada): Watchdog Groups Say Integrity Commissioner Muzzling Critics

Summary: Two Canadian public interest groups have resigned from the country’s integrity commissioner’s advisory panel to protest the removal of GAP’s Canadian sister organization, Federal Accountability Initiative for Reform (FAIR). FAIR’s Executive Director David Huttonhas been a vocal critic of the commissioner, calling his agency a “black hole” where whistleblower allegations frequently disappear.

John KiriakouA change of plea hearing is set for today at 11:00 am in the Espionage Act case against Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) whistleblower John Kiriakou.

Let's be clear, there is one reason, and one reason only that John Kiriakou is taking this plea: for the certainty that he'll be out of jail in 2 1/2 years to see his five children grow up.

The government is prepared to drop 80% of its case, including all Espionage Act charges (sound familiar, ahem Tom Drake). Kiriakou is expected to plead guilty to violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA) for "outing" a torturer. "Outing" is quotes because the charge is not that Kiriakou's actions resulted in a public disclosure of the name, but that through a Kevin Bacon-style chain of causation, GITMO torture victims learned the name of one of their possible torturers. Regardless, how does outing a torturer hurt the national security of the U.S.? It's like arguing that outing a Nazi guarding a concentration camp would hurt the national security of Germany.

In the last couple of weeks, it became public that:

. . .  The CIA officer listed as "Officer A" in the John Kiriakou complaint has been revealed to be Thomas Donahue  Fletcher. Born in 1953. Fletcher is currently a resident of Vienna, VA. Further - source states journalists have known identity of this person prior to August 2008, when Kiriakou allegedly confirmed the identity in an email to Matthew Cole, formerly of ABC News. . . . Thomas Donahue Fletcher was the chief of the Headquarters Based Rendition Group and was personally responsible for the rendition of Abu Zubaydah (as well as other high-value detainees) to the CIA black site in Thailand and witnessed and played a role in Zubaydah's torture.

An effectively-forced plea from John Kiriakou will be the tragic bookend to the torture narrative: Kiriakou will be going to jail, while Fletcher happily enjoys retirement in Vienna VA, safe with protection from "the most transparent administration in history."