The Whistleblogger

Chalk up a small victory for a whistleblower who spoke up about environmental protection breaches at the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI)—and was fired for doing the right thing. On August 2, 2017, the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) granted a stay to GAP client Jeffrey Missal, putting him back to work while the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) completes its investigation.

Fifteen years ago, GAP successfully persuaded Congress to include a whistleblower protection provision in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX). The purpose of Section 806 of SOX is to combat a “corporate code of silence,” which “discourage[s] employees from reporting fraudulent behavior.” Congress sought to empower whistleblowers to serve as an effective early warning system and help prevent corporate scandals.

This summer, the Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), Francis Gurry, is circulating the draft of a new whistleblower protection policy for the consideration of WIPO Member States.

The fossil fuel cancer comes out of its brief remission

After a moment of optimism, during which it seemed the United States might finally begin planning for a future free of fossil fuel dependence, pipelines are back.

Since the November election, the pendulum of public benefit versus private gain has swung sharply in the wrong direction, and pipeline companies are riding the wave. After months of slow progress during the closing months of the Obama Administration, it became evident following the Trump victory that the fossil fuel empire was striking back.

A final draft of a key federal report on the science behind climate change has been leaked to the New York Times and made public. The “Climate Science Special Report” (CSSR), produced by the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), is a cornerstone of the Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4), a periodic study of climate change impacts across US regions.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, Department of Energy Secretary Rick Perry, and others are calling for a red-team/blue-team (RT/BT) exercise to resolve differences of opinion regarding the science of global climate change. The approach is meant to resolve conflict through a structured debate. It is typically employed by military analysts and business strategists to improve decision-making and reach agreement on contested issues.

Francis Gurry, the embattled Director General of the United Nations’ World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), publicly denounced the US Congress as a ‘kangaroo court’ because it has been scrutinizing his dubious dealings with the North Korean government and his treatment of WIPO whistleblowers.

Army Veteran, Licensed Clinical Social Worker, and Department of Veterans’ Affairs (VA) employee Christopher “Shea” Wilkes first disclosed secret patient wait lists at the Overton Brooks VA Medical Center in Shreveport, Louisiana, in 2013, and the retaliation soon followed.

Early last month, GAP and co-counsel Richard M. John, of Smith & John, Attorneys at Law, Shreveport, Louisiana, filed a retaliation complaint with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) on behalf of Mr. Wilkes.

Miranda Brown, a whistleblower at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) lost her case in the United Nations Dispute Tribunal (UNDT) as established in a written decision issued June 26, 2017.

Read more here. 

For me, the most telling moment of former FBI Director Jim Comey’s June 8th testimony occurred early in the hearing, when Mr. Comey choked up as he recalled the White House’s publicly stating that the President had fired him because the “FBI was in disarray.”