New Documentary SILENCED Raising Money on Kickstarter to Tell the Story of Government Whistleblowers

Oscar-nominated filmmaker James Spione is producing a new documentary, SILENCED, about the war on intelligence whistleblowers. It will feature GAP National Security & Human Rights Director Jesselyn Radack, along with whistleblowers (and GAP clients) Thomas Drake, John Kiriakou and Peter Van Buren. To raise funds for the documentary, Spione has launched a Kickstarter campaign. Learn more about the campaign and watch the trailer on the GAP blog.

Bloomberg: Obama Memo On ‘Sensitive’ Jobs Stirs Whistleblower Fears

President Obama released a transparency-threatening memorandum late last month which seeks, from key intelligence officers, "new rules to allow federal agencies to fire employees without appeal if their work has some tie to national security." The designation would indicate that employees are unable to appeal any decision removing them from their place of employment.

Coupled with other recent legal decisions, essentially the memo could disable whistleblower rights for federal government employees who have the most opportunity to protect the public at large. GAP's Legal Director Tom Devine and troop safety whistleblower (and GAP client) Franz Gayl are prominently featured.

Key Quote: “There is so much secrecy, and employees have so few rights already in the national security bureaucracy,” said Tom Devine, legal director of the Government Accountability Project, a Washington-based whistle-blower advocacy group. Devine said whistle-blowers’ actions can save lives.

...

He cited a case involving Franz Gayl, a Marine Corps science and technology adviser. Gayl raised questions in 2007 over the postponed delivery of mine-resistant armored vehicles for U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and later lost his security clearance."

HuffPost Live: Do Whistleblowers Need More Protection?

Devine, GAP National Security & Human Rights Director Jesselyn Radack and former GAP client Kenneth Kendrick discuss the current state of whistleblower rights in today’s work environment. Kendrick blew the whistle on the Peanut Corporation of America plant where he worked after discovering health and safety hazards were causing deadly salmonella in peanuts.

Food Service Workers Win a Voice at American University; Push Continues at Other DC Campuses (VIDEO)

GAP's Food Integrity Campaign discusses the success of UNITE HERE in including whistleblower protections in union contracts for American University food service workers. The organization is pushing for stronger worker voices at campus dining halls throughout the nation's capital.

Today, September 24, former DC Fire & Emergency Medical Services (FEMS) department General Counsel and whistleblower Theresa Cusick will finally get her day in court.

Cusick served as FEMS General Counsel until 2007, when she informed an Assistant US Attorney that a FEMS officer – who the attorney had been working with – was under investigation by the Washington, DC Office of Inspector General (DC OIG) for his alleged involvement in a cheating scandal at the FEMS Training Academy. Cusick raised concerns that neither FEMS nor the Office of the US Attorney should rely on the officer until he was cleared of any involvement.

Cusick also blew the whistle in 2007 to the DC OIG that then-Assistant DC Fire Chief Brian Lee ordered her not to communicate with either the DC OIG or the DC Office of the Attorney General (OAG), and attempted to cover up the fact that a fire investigator was being investigated by DC OIG.

After reporting Lee's actions to DC OIG, OAG and DC Fire Chief Dennis Rubin, Cusick was transferred from her position as General Counsel purportedly at the request of then Fire Chief Dennis Rubin.

GAP has represented Cusick since 2009. In 2008, Cusick filed suit under the DC Whistleblower Protection Act (DCWPA) for reinstatement and damages. The District’s attorneys sought dismissal of the case based on a section of the law that had since been overturned, but in August 2010 a judge ruled the case could continue.

GAP Legal Director for Litigation Richard Condit, who serves as counsel to Cusick, stated: “It is unfortunate that the District government and taxpayers have been deprived of Ms. Cusick’s expertise and integrity. We hope that she will have a chance to return and serve the District as a senior attorney.”

GAP released a video in late 2009 revealing questionable statements made by Chief Rubin during testimony he gave in a discovery deposition taken in the case, including referring to Cusick as “a woman barking at me,” and using excessive profanity. You can find the video here.

Cusick's trial is set to start this morning (Monday, 9:15 am) at the District of Columbia Superior Court, 515 5th Street, NW, Courtroom A-49.

Dylan Blaylock is Communications Director for the Government Accountability Project, the nation's leading whistleblower protection and advocacy organization.

Episode Shows Need for Passage of Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act

 (Washington, DC) – The Government Accountability Project (GAP) today announced the second successful settlement involving allegations of retaliation against a whistleblower involved in the "Fast & Furious" scandal, the program that resulted in federally-monitored guns ending up in the hands of Mexican drug cartels. GAP praised new leadership at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives (ATF), and an effective mediation program at the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC), for settling the case of ATF agent Larry Alt.

“Mr. Alt has been vindicated, and new ATF leadership is two-for-two in correcting retaliatory acts against Fast & Furious whistleblowers," said Alt’s attorney, GAP Legal Director Tom Devine. "Justice was done thanks to leadership at the Bureau and the Office of Special Counsel, each of which is choosing the high road with whistleblowers."

Last month, the ATF settled retaliation claims filed by agent Pete Forcelli, another Fast & Furious whistleblower and GAP client, who testified to Congress about the U.S. Attorney's Office in Arizona's leadership of the operation. Alt also testified, concentrating on collusion by local Bureau officials regarding the operation. Along with other whistleblower concerns, these disclosures led to cancellation of the program. Forcelli and Alt have been vindicated by actions of the Senate and House of Representatives, and even Attorney General Eric Holder proclaimed that changes he instituted, following the emergence of the scandal, will ensure "that this doesn't happen ever again."

Alt’s Arizona supervisors, however, responded to his Congressional testimony with steady harassment. Consequently, he filed a Whistleblower Protection Act complaint with the OSC because his supervisors stripped him of his duties, lowered his performance appraisal, engaged in a retaliatory investigation, and threatened future actions.

Alt commented on resolution of the lawsuit, stating: "I am happy to say that through the efforts of GAP, the Office of Special Counsel, the Federal Law Enforcement Association and the current ATF leadership that my complaint is resolved. I am pleased with the outcome and hope that this is just one step in the direction of positive resolution of all the issues related to Operation Fast and Furious."

Tropical Storm Isaac, on the verge of becoming a hurricane, is headed toward Louisiana. Officials have pronounced New Orleans ready, while at the same time the governor urged people in low-lying areas and places outside of levee protection to leave for safe ground.

The Army Corps of Enginerrs built a $14.5 billion flood protection system. But they have failed to address an independent evaluation by the US Office of Special Counsel (OSC) in 2009 that there are serious safety and reliability issues with hydraulic pumps that were installed in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. A tenacious whistleblower and former client, Maria Garzino, is US Army Corps of Engineers ("the Corps") mechanical and civil engineer who revealed the inadequate state of New Orleans' floodwater pumps built by the Corps after Hurricane Katrina. The disclosures, which both the Department of Defense Inspector General’s (DoDIG) office and the Corps fought for years, showcase how New Orleans residents are still in great danger if flooding occurs again. (Also captured vividly in the film The Big Uneasy.)

As the OSC told President Obama in 2009:

There appears to be little logical justification for: (1) restricting the emergency pumping capability . . . to only the untested hydraulic pump systems, (2) not requiring the installation of a reliable pumping system which would adequately protect New Orleans, (3) spending hundreds of millions of dollars to install forty MWI hydraulic pumps which are scheduled to be replaced at a cost of $430 million within 3-5 years. . .    

(MWI is owned by J. David Eller, once a business partner of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in a venture called Bush-El that marketed MWI pumps.)

In February 2011, Garzino wrote a letter to President Obama detailing how the Corps knowingly installed equipment that cannot adequately protect the city of New Orleans from flooding; duplicated work that cost U.S. taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars; and deliberately deceived Congress as to the nature of and reason for this work.

Ruling 'Nullifies' Civil Service Rights

(Washington, D.C.) –  Today, the Government Accountability Project (GAP) harshly criticized a ruling last Friday from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that, according to the decision's dissent, “nullifies” the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, and the merit system. The ruling potentially affects all federal employees.

In Berry v. Conyers & Northover, the court overruled a previous decision by the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB). The Federal Circuit, on Friday, held that national security procedures will replace civil service appeals and merit system rights –such as the Whistleblower Protection Act – for employees removed from “noncritical sensitive” positions. Previously, such national security procedures were limited to removal of security clearances for access to classified information.

As dissenting Judge Timothy B. Dyk pointed out:

The majority… holds that hundreds of thousands of federal employees—designated as holding national security positions—do not have the right to appeal the merits of adverse actions to the Board simply because the Department of Defense has decided that such appeals should not be allowed.

GAP Legal Director Tom Devine warned the longer term consequences may be worse. “The Federal Circuit has given agencies a blank check to categorize almost any federal job as 'sensitive’ – demoted from the civil service merit system to a national security world of secret law.”

Sensitive positions, according to the court majority, are any that could “implicate national security,” whether or not they involve access to classified information. Technically, that means that an employee holds a sensitive position if they are officially eligible to apply for a security clearance anytime in the future.

GAP praised today's action by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) to curtail illegal government surveillance of whistleblowers. In a memorandum to all Executive branch departments and agencies, Special Counsel Carolyn Lerner urged all federal agency chiefs to assess current employee monitoring practices, and to prevent any actions that would "interfere with or chill" federal employees from exercising their legally-required duty to disclose fraud, waste, abuse and corruption to appropriate authorities. The Special Counsel also warned agency leaders that such surveillance violates employees' legal rights to make confidential disclosures, and could lead to a determination that an agency has retaliated against such employees for engaging in legally-protected conduct.

"The Special Counsel's warning against illegal surveillance and subsequent retaliation against whistleblowers is politely unequivocal," commented GAP Legal Director Tom Devine. "Special Counsel Carolyn Lerner's leadership is essential to protect the merit system from illegal spying on whistleblowers. Big Brother has moved into agencies throughout the government, and illegal surveillance of whistleblowers has become the norm."

Dylan Blaylock is Communications Director for the Government Accountability Project, the nation's leading whistleblower protection and advocacy organization.

First Whistleblower Trial of Several to Come Involving DC Fire Dep't Brass

This coming Tuesday, May 29, former DC Fire & Emergency Medical Services (FEMS) department General Counsel and whistleblower Theresa Cusick will finally get her day in court.

Cusick served as FEMS General Counsel until 2007, when she informed an Assistant US Attorney that a FEMS officer – who the attorney had been working with – was under investigation by the Washington, DC Office of Inspector General (DC OIG) for his alleged involvement in a cheating scandal at the FEMS Training Academy. Cusick raised concerns that neither FEMS nor the Office of the US Attorney should rely on the officer until he was cleared of any involvement.

Cusick also blew the whistle in 2007 to the DC OIG that then-Assistant DC Fire Chief Brian Lee ordered her not to communicate with either the DC OIG or the DC Office of the Attorney General (OAG), and attempted to cover up the fact that a fire investigator was being investigated by DC OIG.

After reporting Lee's actions to DC OIG, OAG and DC Fire Chief Dennis Rubin, Cusick was transferred from her position as General Counsel at the request of Chief Rubin.

GAP has represented Cusick since 2009. In 2008, Cusick filed suit under the DC Whistleblower Protection Act (DCWPA) for reinstatement and damages. District attorneys sought dismissal of the case based on a section of the law that had since been overturned, but in August 2010 a judge ruled the case could continue.

GAP Legal Director for Litigation Richard Condit, who serves as counsel to Cusick, stated: “It is unfortunate that the District government and taxpayers have been deprived of Ms. Cusick’s expertise and integrity. We hope that she will have a chance to return and serve the District as a senior attorney.”

Today, Special Counsel Carolyn Lerner, head of the Office of Special Counsel (OSC), is calling on the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to conduct better internal safety oversight, and act upon many whistleblower safety disclosures coming from the agency. The OSC cites several "troubling safety disclosures" by a litany of FAA employees, including air traffic controllers. Additionally, the OSC's press release cites "sharply critical findings by FAA's own internal watchdog unit," and that Department of Transportation (DOT) has "failed to take timely corrective action" in addressing these whistleblower concerns.

The press release was sent out in conjunction with a letter to President Barack Obama, detailing a number of the recent safety disclosures, including improperly fitted night vision goggles, incompetent air traffic controllers in New York, insufficient oversight of Delta's maintenance program, and faulty wind instruments, among others. The FAA has one of the highest whistleblower filings per employee of any executive branch agency, and about half of the whistleblower complaints from the agency since 2007 involve aviation safety.

This is only the most recent example of Lerner's crusade for whistleblower rights since taking office last summer. Her office played a big role in publicly outing the Dover mortuary scandal – which was uncovered by whistleblower complaints to her office – and leaned on the military to reinstate the security clearance of MRAP whistleblower Franz Gayl.

GAP agrees with the OSC's concern regarding the FAA. We have had a number of FAA whistleblower clients in the past few years, alleging various safety and security concerns.

Inspectors General may sometimes be the fox guarding the hen house, but they're all that there is, and once and a while they work. An Inspector General can save taxpayers billions by investigating whistleblower claims of fraud, waste, abuse, mismanagement or illegality.

The recent the General Services Administration (GSA) scandal demonstrates the need for IGs.WaPo reports that while testifying before congress yesterday,

Inspector General Brian Miller told a congressional committee scrutinizing an $823,000 Las Vegas conference that his office has asked the Justice Department to investigate “all sorts of improprieties” surrounding the 2010 event, “including bribes, including possible kickbacks.”

WaPo reports that the Las Vegas conference for GSA employees was an extravagant affair put on by expensive contractors - most of who were awarded no-bid contracts:  

Taxpayers picked up the tab for a mind reader, bicycles for a team-building exercise and a slew of private parties at the conference. . . . the freewheeling spending, which included poolside entertainment by a clown and a “Red Carpet” talent show. . .

Yet despite that the GSA IG is investigating waste and fraud like taxpayer-funded clowns (no, I don't think that's referring to Congress), there are currently 10 Inspector General positions vacant at other federal agencies.

The ten vacancies are down from 12 in February 2012, so many that the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) launched a web page to track Inspector General vacancies. The current vacancies include critical agencies such as the Department of State, Department of Labor, and the Department of Defense.

This week the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals accepted a "friend of the court" or amicus curiae brief in support of Federal Air Marshals (FAM) whistleblower Robert MacLean from three Members of Congress who long have been champions of the Whistleblower Protection Act (WPA). Representatives Elijah Cummings (D-MD), Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) and Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) urged the court:

...to restore a basic premise for merit systems principles, and to restore the statutory infrastructure necessary for the WPA to be viable – that only Congress through exercising its statutory authority, or the President through appropriate Executive Order, can restrict the public free speech rights of government employees to disclose information protected under the WPA, and Congress must act with specificity. An agency's rules and regulations cannot cancel or otherwise modify the right to public freedom of expression codified in the WPA, whether issued at its own initiative, or through derivative authority from a broad congressional directive to manage its information. This principle was a carefully considered, repeatedly reaffirmed cornerstone premise when whistleblower rights were created in the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978.

This congressional advocacy is particularly significant, because Cummings and Maloney are the two most senior, ranking members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee

MacLean's appeal has stakes unsurpassed by any whistleblower dispute of recent years – not just for whistleblower decisions, but for public safety as well. The roots of retaliation occurred in 2003, after intelligence agencies confirmed a planned, more ambitious rerun of 9/11 by al-Qaeda. In the midst of unprecedented emergency measures, the Federal Air Marshall Service (FAMS) inexplicably reversed course and canceled all FAM protection for targeted flights.