Government Accountability Project

Since 9/11, a steady stream of national security whistleblowers have come to GAP with tales of wild and rampant wrongdoing on several levels of our government. Unfortunately, due to the nature of their work, these whistleblowers can often face a terrible agency culture and weak/nonexistent protections when they attempt to speak out about illegal activity, waste, fraud or abuse.

GAP’s National Security & Human Rights program acts as both legal counsel to these whistleblowers, and as an advocate for necessary changes to the system – both to better protect such innocent employees, and to speak out in favor of greater overall transparency and against wrongful government behavior. GAP’s advocacy stems from the principle that adherence to the rule of law, even in times of great crisis, is the best mechanism for securing our homeland.

GAP has honed our oversight of a broad range of National Security issues in several key areas:

• Disaster Accountability: Federal agencies in charge of disaster accountability must fall under continual scrutiny for their past and current actions.
• Politically-Motivated Discrimination:

  National Security Highlights

  • Senate Report = Fusion Centers, Don't Drink That Kool-Aid
  • Whistleblower Mash-Up: Bradley Manning, Sweden's Version of "Due Process" & WPEA
  • Disharmonic Convergence of Free Speech Free Fall
  • Practice What You Preach: Obama Preaches Free Speech to the UN
  • What Do a Retired Catholic Bishop, UAE Commentator & Julian Assange Have in Common?
  Analyzing the practices installed by the federal government to target certain ethnic subsets or activist members for heightened and invasive surveillance.
• Secrecy & Transparency: Monitoring how the federal government responds to outside groups urging transparency, with special regard to the “hybrid secrecy classifications” that the government has created in recent years.
• Surveillance: Curbing attempts by intelligence agencies to invade Americans’ privacy by constantly monitoring American activities and communications.
• Torture: Investigating the use and justifications of the federal government’s infliction of torture and cruel and inhumane treatment upon American citizens and detainees.

GAP’s National Security & Human Rights Director is Jesselyn Radack
GAP’s National Security & Human Rights Counsel is Kathleen McClellan

Media Appearances

In recent years, this program area of GAP has enjoyed prominent media attention, especially related to the casework of NSA whistleblowers Thomas Drake, and Bill Binney & J. Kirk Wiebe, all of whom are GAP clients.

Additionally, Jesselyn Radack is widely recognized as one of the country's leading whistleblower rights pundits, appearing or being cited in multiple major media outlets, including 60 Minutes, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and RT, just to name a few. For an extensive list of Radack's television appearances, visit the program's Pinterest page by clicking below, or here.

One recent media presentation centering on key concerns of the National Security & Human Rights program – the treatment of national security/intelligence whistleblowers by the Obama administration – can be watched in the video below. This episode of the Al-Jazeera program The Listening Post, entitled "Blowing the Whistle on Obama's America," features Radack, Drake, and GAP Executive Director Bea Edwards.