This post was written by GAP Homeland Security Director Jesselyn Radack for her Daily Kos blog.

The timing of Bradley Birkenfeld's petition for clemency should be lost on no one. Today is tax day--the day that honest, hardworking Americans file their tax returns.

Bradley Birkenfeld is the whistleblower who exposed the $20 billion offshore illegal tax fraud scheme of UBS, Switzerland's largest bank. The U.S. thanked him by sending him to prison. In other words, the person solely responsible for the recovery of billions of U.S. tax dollars is the same person who has served more time than anyone connected to the UBS scandal.

I urge you to join a sign-on letter to President Obama urging clemency for Mr. Birkenfeld. My organization, the Government Accountability Project, has done so.

Today is tax day, the day that honest hardworking Americans file their tax returns. But on tax day this year a great injustice continues:

Today is also the day that President Obama can fix this injustice by issuing a full presidential pardon or commuting Mr. Birkenfeld's sentence to time-served immediately. Mr. Birkenfeld put tax money back in the hands of every American. We must return the favor and demand the he be released from prison.

Yesterday, the Department of Transportation had some harsh words for Toyota. After months of bad publicity from multiple technical problems with its automobiles, which have resulted in deaths across the globe, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said the following:

“We now have proof that Toyota failed to live up to its legal obligations…Worse yet, they knowingly hid a dangerous defect for months from U.S. officials and did not take action to protect millions of drivers and their families. For those reasons, we are seeking the maximum penalty possible under current laws.”

Specifically, this statement is only in relation to one of Toyota’s automobile problems – the “sticky pedal” issue. Other serious issues that the company and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) have been looking into include sudden increases in engine RPM, and sudden “unintended” vehicle acceleration, which may or may not relate to software issues.

The news yesterday boils down to this: The NHTSA is bringing a $16.4 million fine against Toyota, again just for the “sticky pedal” issue, because the agency has evidence that the company hid this problem from government officials. You see, according to the NHTSA, auto companies are supposed to notify the agency “within five business days if they determine that a safety defect exists.” The NHTSA has also found that Toyota:

…knew of the sticky pedal defect since at least September 29, 2009. That day, Toyota issued repair procedures to their distributors in 31 European countries and Canada to address complaints of sticky accelerator pedals, sudden increases in engine RPM, and sudden vehicle acceleration. The documents also show that Toyota was aware that consumers in the United States were experiencing the same problems.

Toyota, however, failed to tell American officials that about the sticking pedals for another four months. The company now has two weeks to decide to either fight the fine, or accept it (which would signal of an admission of guilt).

A new report by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) inspector general recommended that its whistleblower reward program be overhauled.

Under the program, which began in 1989 and is limited to insider trading cases, only a total of $159,537 has been paid to five people. According to the report, Bernie Madoff's multibillion-dollar fraud went undetected for 16 years because of the mismanagement of the program, despite the SEC having received six "substantive complaints that raised significant red flags" about his operations.

The Enforcement Director of the SEC has agreed with all the report's recommendations, which included fixing the application process, enacting better procedures for determining the merit of an application, and improving communication with the public about the plan.

The SEC recently asked lawmakers to expand its whistleblower award authority to any case that results in recouping fines of over $1 million. The House and Senate are considering the proposal. The SEC Chairman said in testimony:

"Right now, the main reward for being a whistleblower is the good feeling you get of having done something important, because (the SEC doesn't) have the authority to pay except where the whistleblowing relates to insider trading."

A closer look by the Washington Post at a 2007 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) investigation of safety in Toyota vehicles shows that Toyota ignored the agency's findings and avoided an extensive recall that could have cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Documents show that the company had developed a “game plan” for dealing with the investigation to minimize cost.

NHTSA investigators found numerous safety issues, directly dealing with “unintended acceleration” with the designs of Camrys, Priuses, Avalons and Lexus ES350s.

However, Toyota downplayed the findings and would only agree to a minor recall of one type of floor mat.

NHTSA, which has the regulatory power to force a recall, chose not to because it said the pedals and mats weren't unsafe ENOUGH. The agency said:

"In order for NHTSA to push a company to recall a vehicle for a safety defect, we must have evidence that it presents an unreasonable risk to safety… After upgrading the investigation, and after many discussions and meetings with Toyota, the company remained resistant to recalling the floor mats."

Last year, Toyota finally admitted that some cars would need to be fixed to prevent entrapment of the accelerator, after two years and some 20 deaths attributed to unintended acceleration.

ProPublica presents a list of involved people who are denying any knowledge of Lehman Brothers controversial usage of an accounting trick that allowed the company to hide its financial troubles before eventually filing for bankruptcy in 2008. Included is Lehman Brothers CEO, who claims that he didn't know about the issue because he doesn't use a computer and couldn't open attachments on his BlackBerry. The article has a nice video explaining the accounting trick.

New court filings in the case of Federal Air Marshal whistleblower and GAP client Robert MacLean argue that MacLean's direct supervisor was engaged in “an illicit affair with a female subordinate, on whom he bestowed numerous professional favors.” However, the supervisor was protected from punishment for this violation of agency rules because he made a dirty deal to carry out the director of the air marshal program's instructions to fire MacLean. GAP legal director Tom Devine is quoted in the article, from the Orange County Register:

MacLean’s attorney, Tom Devine of the Government Accountability Project, responded to the government’s response: “The development about Mr. Donanti was not offered to impugn his character,” it says. “It demonstrates that he had a conflict of interest, because his professional survival depended on acting as the agency’s hatchet man against a problematic Federal Law Enforcement Officer’s Association (FLEOA) leader."

The article also discusses the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act, which would give whistleblowers many more rights and protections. The act was likely to pass the Senate by unanimous consent last year but two Republican senators (Jim Bunning and Kit Bond) put holds on the bill. Bunning has since removed his hold.

In public safety news, the head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), David Strickland, said yesterday that the proportion of complaints against Toyota vehicles, when compared with other automakers, was “unremarkable.” Strickland also said that until the agency finds a specific cause of vehicle defect, they have little recourse. Strickland will probably face criticism about what the NHTSA should have done about years of complaints about Toyotas, and how it should handle further complaints when he testifies in front of the House Energy and Commerce Committee today. Strickland’s testimony will mark the fourth congressional hearing about Toyota defects. Former NHTSA head Joan Claybrook, who will also testify today, will argue that more needs to be done to protect drivers.

Sherron Watkins, the Enron whistleblower, reviews the new book by Harry Markpolos, the man who tried to blow the whistle on Bernie Madoff, but failed when the Securities and Exchange Commission refused to listen to him.

It seems that the Obama administration is sending out signals that it’s willing to forgo an independent consumer protection agency, at the sake of getting a bill through the Senate. From WaPo:

A free-standing agency had been a central part of the original blueprint released by the Obama administration, which said it is essential to have one agency with the sole mission of protecting consumers from lending abuses. In the lead-up to the financial crisis, that responsibility was spread across numerous agencies and often took a back seat to ensuring the well-being of banks.

Sounds pretty reasonable. Reasonable enough for the House to pass it in December, at least. Alas, there are problems in the Senate, where Republicans are worried about over-regulation and concerned about “creating a new bureaucracy.”