Here it is.

Key passage (emphasis mine):

On February 1, 2007, whistleblower organizations met together as the Make it Safe Coalition (MISC) and agreed that we would support only bills that were improvements on the current law and contained no backward steps for anyone. Those goals were almost met on January 28, 2009 when the House of Representatives voted for strong whistleblower rights, including full federal court access for all federal employees.

However, over the summer of 2009 things started to go wrong. In negotiations the NWC attended with representatives from the White House and Congress, it became clear that some in the Senate did not support full protection for federal employee whistleblowers. Additionally, the White House retreated from earlier pledges to support a strong federal employee whistleblower law, and instead explicitly stated in private meetings that they would oppose full court access and due process protections for national security employees.

Things took a further turn for the worse in August of 2009 when the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs “marked-up” and approved the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act. At the committee meeting the Senate sponsors stated that their bill was the “best” whistleblowers could get, and the community needed to get behind it.

In response to the Senate Committee mark-up, the MISC Executive Committee endorsed the bill. However, the NWC saw a number of defects in the legislation that made it impossible for us to support passage of that version of the Senate bill. Instead, we became the “skunk at the picnic” and were placed in a very difficult position of having to publicly oppose that version of the bill.

Here’s a brief rundown: in 2007-08, Obama ran on a platform of open government, transparency, and protecting whistleblowers. He even relied on his experience as a whistleblowers’ attorney to prove his bona fides. He won.

Anonymous activists in support of Bradley Manning (Photo: Bradley Manning Support Network / Flickr).

Around February 2009, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had the opportunity to provide long-sought protections to whistleblowers through the stimulus bill. He blew it. Meanwhile, the Justice Department was in the process of prosecuting (or preparing the prosecution of) the highest number of whistleblowers in history. At the same time, the whistleblower community (and then some) got together to prod the Democratic-controlled Congress to complete a decade-long attempt to update the Whistleblower Protection Act. This was in May 2009.

Then the Senate released their bill, which was watered down and divided the community. The White House was backing away from Obama’s campaign pledge. The National Whistleblowers Center stood their ground, arguing that jury trials are crucial. The Government Accountability Project and a few others, including the Project on Government Oversight, wavered. (They also had access to the White House and plenty of attention (and cash) from corporate-funded foundations with ties to the administration.) A split in the community occurred, and the bill died. Another bill cropped up, but it’s virtually identical to the one that came before.

So here we are: divided, demoralized, and adrift. GAP, POGO, et al are still peddling a weak, if not harmful bill while trying to silence dissent.

Obama is still prosecuting whistleblowers.

Retaliation goes on. Corruption goes on.

There’s a name for the kind of co-option that took place in the past three plus years: veal pen politics.

If WPEA fails to pass, or does pass and causes harm to whistleblowers, will anyone have predicted it?

S. 743/H.R. 3289 is the latest attempt to pass the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act. Here are the past attempts. Apparently the past four attempts were stymied at the hands of holdouts in the Senate. The last attempt, S. 372 in December 2010, was blamed on a secret hold cast by Republican Senators. But that narrative conveniently ignores the fact that the Senate and Administration had the chance to pass it in February 2009 as part of the ARRA stimulus package debate, only to be killed by Senator Susan Collins. And it ignores why the bill was pushed all the way to the end of the Congressional term, empowering hostage-takers who placed the secret hold literally in the last hour of the session. At some level, that falls on Harry Reid, who has control over the Senate calendar, and who didn’t schedule debate until December 2010.

It also doesn’t help that the whistleblower community was divided back then, and continues to be, over what’s in the bill. The current sticking point is the summary judgment provision. We’ll see in a couple of years whether it’s a big deal when pro se whistleblowers at the MSPB get handed one defeat after another for being outmatched by professional agency counsel and biased MSPB judges. It’s not difficult to predict the outcome.

But more important is the process by which the professional advocates decide what to lobby for and how to lobby for it. The umbrella organization responsible for WPEA is the Make It Safe Campaign, created by Tom Devine of the Government Accountability Project. MISC is an ad hoc coalition of non-profits, whistleblowers, labor unions, and organizations. There is a steering committee composed of representatives from the Government Accountability Project, the Project on Government Oversight, Union of Concerned Scientists, American Federation of Government Employees, and the American Civil Liberties Union.  This is the largest and most prominent organization that speaks for whistleblowers on Capitol Hill, but no whistleblower is on the steering committee. Absent explicit request, there are no minutes kept and made available to the general membership, and members must go through the steering committee to communicate with each other, submitting their notices for 24-hour approval. There is no general membership contact list available, despite some of us asking for over 6 months. The National Whistleblowers Center used to be on the steering committee but resigned in protest after being excluded from legislative planning. NWC has opposed S. 372 and may oppose S. 743 due to the summary judgment provision.

If WPEA fails to pass, or if it passes and harms whistleblowers, it cannot be said that everything was tried but was met with irrational opposition in Congress. The fact is that not everything has been tried. The community has not been empowered or enfranchised for long-term input and decision-making. The public hasn’t been reached in an effective way. The advocates try to insert legislation in low-key ways, rather than empower a movement. The norms of transparency and reasoned debate are proving to be illusory.

If WPEA fails to pass or fails as law, now you will know why.

Update: Some whistleblowers issued an open letter to Congress yesterday, which was requested and steered by Tom Devine, only to have him request that we not publish it after the MISC Steering Committee got cold feet. Apparently Congress expects applause and cannot tolerate being criticized for passing a bill that fails to grant real due process (i.e. trial by a jury of one’s peers, which goes back to the Magna Carta of 1215 A.D.). The details will be omitted for now but the events of the past couple of days exemplify Sibel Edmonds’ post that the professional advocates sell whistleblowers down the river behind closed doors when it really counts.