 *3/8/11 UPDATE: Senator McConnell's office has confirmed that he did not place the secret hold. Three senators left!
*3/4/11 UPDATE: Senator Vitter's office confirmed that he did not place the hold.
Dear GAP Supporters:
Last month, GAP teamed up with the NPR show On The Media to determine which senator placed a "secret hold" -- on the very last day of the 2009-2010 Congress -- to kill the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act (WPEA). This good government law would have provided federal employees with real protections when they expose fraud, corruption, waste, or other wrongdoing. These protections are sorely needed -- most federal employees have minimal or remarkably weak protections.
Our campaign is working. You and On The Media's supporters have eliminated all but five senators. That's right -- all of the other senators' offices have confirmed that they did not place the hold.
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 On the final day of the previous session of Congress, the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act (WPEA), S. 372, which would have strengthened rights for federal employees who report corruption, was killed by a lone senator's decision to place an anonymous "secret hold" on the bill.
In response to this action, GAP teamed up with the NPR show On The Media (OTM) to identify the culpable senator. OTM asked its listeners, and GAP asked its supporters, to contact their respective senators’ offices and demand to know if they were the party who wrongfully killed this paramount legislation. Click here to check out all the responses so far.
It's working. 82 out of 87 Senate offices have confirmed that they were not the party responsible for placing the secret hold. (Why 87? That's how many individuals continue to serve in the Senate from last term. Through internal connections, GAP is confident that these other 13 individuals are very unlikely to have placed the hold.)
Which means there's only five left. Here's who they are, with notes from a GAP/OTM supporter about the most recent correspondence (each of these senators’ offices has been contacted many, many times):
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Dear GAP Supporters:
Thanks to GAP's supporters and On The Media's listeners, only 13 senators have not yet denied placing the secret hold on the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act (S. 372).
The campaign and sustained public pressure has brought much-needed public attention to the Senate's 'secret hold' process, as well as to the weaknesses of current whistleblower laws. This week, On The Media interviewed marine whistleblower and GAP client Franz Gayl about the workplace retaliation he has faced for blowing the whistle. On The Media also spoke with Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), one of the co-sponsors of the Senate secret hold reform, about the origin and history of the secret hold procedure.
Until this Senate loophole is completely amended, we must hold our elected officials accountable for their voting records. If your senators have not yet responded, please ask them (by phone or twitter) if they were the party who wrongfully killed the whistleblower bill.
Click here to help GAP and On The Media identify the culpable senator!
Whichever way 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.
Lindsay Bigda is Communications Fellow for the Government Accountability Project, the nation's leading whistleblower advocacy organization.
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Despite the Main-Stream-Media's angst over enigmatic Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, he was featured on the cover of the New York Times Magazine and interviewed on 60 Minutes on Sunday. My friend David Swanson has already diaried Julian Assange's 60 Minutes interview in detail.
Regardless of how you see Assange, one quote from his 60 Minutes interview stands out:
If [employees] who say that there is some abuse going on and there's not a proper mechanism for internal accountability and external accountability, they must have a conduit to get that out to the public. And we are the conduit.
Assange presents the solution to Wikileaks. In a world where whistleblowers are protected through a "proper mechanism for accountability," Wikileaks would not have to be a conduit to get information out to the public.
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Earlier this week, the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs held a briefing on “ The United Nations: Urgent Problems that Need Congressional Action.” Some of the most urgent problems discussed during the briefing (which attracted so many audience members that it filled both the hearing and spillover rooms) were the UN’s treatment of whistleblowers and system for investigating corruption, two issues of longstanding concern to GAP. These topics were mentioned several times in the opening remarks of Chairman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (as delivered by the chairwoman pro tempore), who commented on how the UN Development Program (UNDP) fired a whistleblower who exposed wrongdoing in UNDP’s North Korean office and then “ undermined whistleblower protections by limiting access to its audits and refusing to submit to the U.N. Ethic’s Office’s jurisdiction…” One of the questions that the Committee considered during the briefing was how best to use the power of U.S. purse strings to improve the accountability of the UN. Witness Robert Appleton, former chairman of the United Nations Procurement Task Force, provided a particularly insightful response to this question. According to Appleton:
- UN investigators need to be protected from retaliation.
- Investigative bodies at all Intergovernmental Organizations, including the UN, need to be independent from management and have independent budgets and appointment powers.
- The UN needs strong judicial mechanisms that function properly. (Mr. Appleton is currently testing these mechanisms through his own case against the UN).
- The UN must have a strong and effective Ethics Office.
GAP believes that these are all excellent suggestions. We also suggest that the U.S. Congress require the following as a condition of its funding to the UN:
Last week, the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) ordered the National Park Service to reinstate whistleblower Teresa Chambers as Chief of the U.S. Park Police, as well as to reimburse her for back pay and legal costs. Her case garnered national attention when she was removed by the Bush administration in 2004 after telling the Washington Post that "traffic accidents had increased along the Baltimore-Washington Parkway because two, rather than the recommended four, officers were on patrol," as well as that more officers were needed to safeguard the country's national monuments and memorials. The fifty-three page ruling by the MSPB is a tremendous victory, and is precedent-setting for other federal employee whistleblowers. From the Washington Post:
The case also sends an important message that legal safeguards apply to top officials who expose problems, not just to middle- and low-ranking ones.However, Chambers' ultimate victory does not eclipse the struggles faced during her seven-year legal battle. Chambers and her husband engaged in an all-out campaign -- often working 18-20 hours a day (see video below) -- to build a case, with the aid of public interest lawyers and a web of public support. The case suggests that success resulted not only from the slivers of protections afforded under the Whistleblower Protection Act, but also from the Chambers’ own determination, hard work, and network of advocates. Yet, many whistleblowers are unable to dedicate such time and money to their cases, and thus, fall through the cracks.
Dear GAP Supporters:
As you know, last weekend GAP and On The Media launched a campaign to identify the senator who sabotaged the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act (WPEA) with an anonymous "secret hold" on the final day of the last session of Congress. This legislation would stem government corruption, fraud, and wrongdoing.
We're making tremendous progress. We can now rule out 24 senators because of our and On The Media's supporters taking a few minutes to stand up for government accountability.
If you've already contacted your senator, we wholeheartedly thank you. If you haven’t had the time yet to do so, please take three minutes to call your senators!
Click here to help GAP and On The Media identify the culpable senator!
The campaign is growing steadily and has been featured by: On The Media, ProPublica, Newsworks.org, Fairwarning.org, PBS Frontline, and Slate Magazine.
Whichever way 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.
Dylan Blaylock is Communications Director for the Government Accountability Project, the nation's leading whistleblower advocacy organization.
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