by Beatrice Edwards
on January 11, 2011
(
2010 )
Satyam Tech Center; Photo by Ranjit Nair
Roughly two years ago, Ramalinga Raju, the CEO of Satyam Computer Services, confessed to his board that the company -- the fourth largest IT outsourcer in India at the time -- was insolvent. Approximately $1 billion in assets, Raju admitted then, did not exist. Satyam, an acclaimed good corporate citizen, collapsed spectacularly, earning itself the moniker “India’s Enron” in a few short weeks. Defrauded investors filed a series of lawsuits, and criminal charges sent Raju, his PriceWaterhouseCoopers auditors, and other Satyam officers to jail to await trial. There they remain, while the Securities and Exchange Bureau of India untangles the web of false invoices, inflated payrolls, fraudulent accounts, doctored balance sheets and offshore businesses that surround the Satyam debacle.
Background
The company had enjoyed a meteoric rise in the corporate outsourcing business that began with its surprising selection as the principal IT vendor for the World Bank’s internal information technology work. In the late 1990s, Satyam was an obscure, mid-size, family-owned IT company headquartered in Hyderabad, India. There it was discovered by Mohamamed V. Muhsin, Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the World Bank. Muhsin, at the instigation of James Wolfensohn, had assumed the responsibility for establishing the IT architecture of the Bank. For reasons that remain somewhat unclear, he enlisted Satyam in the enterprise, selecting it over larger and better-known companies. In the digital hysteria leading up to following the Y2K scare, Satyam received a flow of ever-larger contracts from the bank, and rumors began to circulate in Muhsin’s department that held a financial interest in the company.
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by Lindsay Bigda
on January 11, 2011
(
2010 )
 ProPublica: Which Senator Secretly Sabotaged the Popular Whistleblower Protection Bill?
This ProPublica piece looks at GAP and On The Media’s crowdsourcing effort to discover which senator placed a secret hold on the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act, effectively killing the legislation. A related Newsworks.org story also highlights the campaign.
Thirty-seven senators have been contacted thus far, and ten have explicitly denied placing the hold. Please help us blow the whistle on the senator who refused protections to government whistleblowers.
WCPN (NPR Cleveland): Ethics Expert Endorses Local Effort
GAP Senior Counsel Richard Condit spoke at a seminar in Cleveland about a proposed county plan to foster ethical and accountable government. Condit praised several components of the document and also offered recommendations, such as providing greater protections for government whistleblowers. The local chapters of the League of Women Voters and Society of Professional Journalists sponsored the event.
Key Quote: (Condit) - “In many instances, the best people to tell you what’s going on, are the people on the ground, are doing the day to day job, the people that are observing what goes on and what goes right and what goes wrong.”
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by Lindsay Bigda
on January 10, 2011
(
2010 )
Dear GAP Supporters:
As you know, the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act (WPEA) was killed by an anonymous "secret hold" by a lone senator on the final day of the last session of Congress.
Over the weekend, GAP and On The Media launched a campaign to identify the senator who sabotaged this crucial legislation that would stem government corruption, fraud, and wrongdoing. On The Media is asking its listeners, and GAP is asking our supporters to contact their respective senator's offices and ask them if they were the party who wrongfully killed this paramount legislation.
So far, 25 senators have been contacted. Seven senators (or their staffers) have come forward to explicitly deny being the culprit.
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by Lindsay Bigda
on January 10, 2011
(
2010 )
 On The Media (NPR): Blow the Whistle
This OTM segment features a follow-up interview with GAP Legal Director Tom Devine on the death of the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act (S. 372) in the lame duck session of Congress. The legislation was killed at the last minute (despite passing in the Senate just weeks before) due to one anonymous senator’s decision to place a secret hold on the bill.
GAP and On The Media are working together to identify the senator who placed the secret hold. On The Media is asking its listeners, and GAP is asking our supporters to contact their respective senator's offices and ask them if they were the party who wrongfully killed this paramount legislation. Then, however senators may answer, you can report your correspondence to On The Media at blowthewhistle@wnyc.org and their site will post the information.
Please help us identify the culpable senator!
Los Angeles Times: Who Killed the Whistleblower Bill?
This op-ed by GAP Legal Director Tom Devine explains how the whistleblower reform bill was killed last minute in Congress through one senator’s “secret hold,” despite overwhelming support for the bill. Devine argues for congressional reform of the “secret hold” process, which he deems “an open invitation to corruption.”
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by Dylan Blaylock
on January 08, 2011
(
2010 )
 Dear GAP Supporters:
As you know, the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act (WPEA) -- a critical reform that would have provided real, solid protections to federal employees who wish to speak out about wrongdoing, corruption, and fraud that they witness -- was killed by an anonymous "secret hold" by a lone senator on the final day of the last session of Congress. This action came just a few weeks after the Senate passed a stronger version of the legislation by unanimous consent -- making this action particularly underhanded.
Senators are in the middle of debating rule changes to specifically end this type of cowardly action. In the meantime, however, GAP is working in conjunction with the NPR show On The Media to identify which senator placed this hold. This will bring needed public attention to the issue -- with the hopes of passing this crucial legislation as soon as possible.
Click here to help GAP and On The Media identify the culpable senator!
On The Media is asking its listeners, and GAP is asking our supporters to contact their respective senator's offices and ask them if they were the party who wrongfully killed this paramount legislation. Then, however senators may answer, you can report your correspondence to On The Media at blowthewhistle@wnyc.org and their site will post the information. With your help, we can blow the whistle on the senator that refused protections to government whistleblowers.
Click here to help GAP and On The Media identify the culpable senator!
Dylan Blaylock is Communications Director for the Government Accountability Project, the nation's leading whistleblower advocacy organization.
by Lindsay Bigda
on January 07, 2011
(
2010 )
 The New York Times: Ex-C.I.A. Officer Named in Disclosure Indictment
Former CIA Officer Jeffrey Sterling was arrested yesterday and indicted under the Espionage Act. Sterling is being charged with disclosing classified information to a national newspaper about a secret operation to impede weapons production in an unnamed country.
GAP Homeland Security and Human Rights Director Jesselyn Radack notes that this action is representative of the terrible trend by the Obama administration of bringing “leak prosecutions” against whistleblowers, effectively criminalizing the practice. Radack compares Sterling’s case with that of Thomas Drake -- the NSA whistleblower who was also indicted under the Espionage Act for “retaining” classified information.
Click here to read and comment on Radack's blog.
The New York Times: No Retreat for Veteran EPA Whistleblower in Era of 'Harsher and Vicious' Retaliation
This article looks into the background of EPA whistleblower Hugh Kaufman -- a senior policy analyst at the agency -- and details his involvement in several high-profile EPA cases, as well as his own lengthy retaliation suit.
Kaufman is critical of Representative Darrell Issa, the new Chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, for his planned hearings on the WikiLeaks controversy. Kaufman believes that Issa “is turning a committee that is supposed to serve as Congress' watchdog into a panel for partisan witch hunts.”
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by Jesselyn Radack
on January 07, 2011
(
2010 )
Former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling was charged under the famously ambiguous Espionage Act for "leaking" classified information to a reporter. This gives Obama, the "transparency" president, the dubious distinction of bringing the most "leak prosecutions" of any administration, ever.
Nowhere in the Washington Post article on this latest witch-hunt does the word "whistleblower" appear. But that's what he is.
Yet another indictment under the Espionage Act. Of a whistleblower. By disgraced prosecutor William Welch, who himself is still under criminal investigation for botching the prosecution of late-Senator Ted Stevens.
There's a lot that the MSM gets wrong in the articles this morning, so let me clarify what I can.
First, as to Mr. Sterling, who worked for the CIA for nearly 10 years, he was the only black officer assigned to the Iran Task Force in January 1995 and the first black case officer to file a racial discrimination suit against the CIA. After the CIA spent your taxpayer dollars training him in Farsi and having him log long hours on the Iranian Desk, CIA officials considered him a liability because of his skin color, telling him he couldn't be a good spy because
you kind of stick out as a big black guy.
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