(Photo: JNW Photography/flickr)

Dissenters’ Digest takes a look at last month’s top stories covering whistleblowers, watchdogs, and government accountability.

National Security Creep. The month began with a setback for federal employees with a ruling by the Federal Circuit that allows agencies to designate employees’ positions as “non-critical sensitive” and thereby strip away any civil service protections.

Politicizing the Workplace. A Washington watchdog shed light on potential Hatch Act violations by FAA officials who instructed employees that voting for the GOP–and the attendant budget cuts that that would supposedly involve–might cost them their jobs.

$104 Million. UBS whistleblower Bradley Birkenfeld received a $104 million IRS award, the largest ever, for his help in bringing many tax cheats to justice. Despite his actions, Birkenfeld spent 40 months in jail. However that sentence may have been based on false information.

House Passes WPEA. The House of Representatives passed the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act by unanimous consent. The Senate is due to consider the measure after the November elections. The measure passed by the House will not protect national security whistleblowers, provide jury trials, or protect whistleblowers terminated under the Bush and Obama administrations. These provisions were under serious consideration, and some of them were even passed by the Senate in May, but lack of fearless, transparent advocacy by the lead lobbyists is to blame for a bill that falls short of what’s needed. Further, efforts to raise awareness among the federal whistleblower community about the lobbyists’ questionable tactics largely fell on deaf ears, raising questions about the extent to which the liberal good government establishment has “cornered the market” by co-opting its victims and suppressing dissent.

Below the Fold:

• An ethics institute noted that whistleblower retaliation is on the rise.
• The Obama campaign bragged about its whistleblower persecutions
• A Libyan alleged waterboarding by the CIA, according to a watchdog report.
• Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who is staged in an Ecuadorian embassay in London, accused President Obama of exploiting the Arab Spring.
• The Federal Circuit’s monopoly on patent issues is said to have caused it to “wreck” the patent system.
• The Office of Special Counsel found that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius violated the Hatch Act when she urged the re-election of President Obama in a speech while on official duty. Calls for her dismissal have begun.
• In September, there were 82 articles about the WPEA, as measured by Google News.

(photo: Serguey / wikimedia)

Dissenters’ Digest takes a look back at news stories covering whistleblowers, watchdogs, and government accountability. Look for it every other Saturday evening at www.dissentersdigest.com.

See You In Court: House Republicans vowed to take Attorney General Eric Holder to court over documents withheld from Congress in its Fast and Furious scandal investigation.

Defiant: Ignoring a surrender order by the London police, Julian Assange has remained in the Ecuador embassy while awaiting President Correa’s decision on his political asylum request.

Abstention: The Justice Department won’t prosecute Attorney General Holder following Congress’ historic contempt vote.

Below the Fold:
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Stonewalled, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA)

Dissenters’ Digest takes a look back at news stories covering whistleblowers, watchdogs, and government accountability. Look for it every other Saturday evening at www.dissentersdigest.com.

Contempt: A House committee voted to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt for refusing to submit documents in connection with the Fast and Furious gunwalking scandal. President Obama invoked executive privilege, for the first time, to shield the documents from Congress. The measure may soon be presented to the House for a final vote. Meanwhile, Democrats are decrying the move as a political “witch hunt.”

Stonewalled: Senator Chuck Grassley is getting stonewalled by the Food and Drug Administration over an inquiry that it’s been spying on federal whistleblowers. The Senate and related House investigations were sparked by a lawsuit filed by six FDA whistleblowers who were allegedly targeted for surveillance. The National Whistleblowers Center is representing them in court. Relatedly, the Office of Special Counsel, which is also investigating the FDA over the same matter, released a memo this week to the federal government, urging agencies not to spy on whistleblowers. Doing so, the memo said, might lead OSC to conclude that retaliation is afoot.

Looking Backwards: President George W. Bush ignored a number of the CIA’s pre-9/11 warnings, according to new FOIA documents declassified and revealed this week.

Cover-Up: An Army Lt. General is accused of blocking a corruption probe in Afghanistan to help President Obama’s re-election.

Below the Fold:
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From POGO spokesman Joseph Newman:

Newman said he believes the Obama administration is spooked by the WikiLeaks case and is using the Espionage Act to send a message to other employees to “button it up” — though some of these cases pre-date the Manning case.

He acknowledged that the six defendants are not “apples to apples,” clarifying that the Project on Government Oversight “doesn’t necessarily condone” what Manning did. But for others, he questioned whether the information they leaked was being overlooked in the rush to punish.

This is from an organization that relies upon and, from time-to-time, supports whistleblowers (though some argue, not without merit, that POGO exploits whistleblowers in its efforts to cozy up to the powers that be).

For a different take on the Manning case, see this:

A generation before Bradley Manning, Daniel Ellsberg understood that some laws were worth breaking to expose and bring accountability to far greater crimes. Ellsberg tried to voice his grievances within his chain of command, as Manning did, before being ignored.

I have heard many people justify the government’s treatment of Manning simply because of the risks he allegedly took. “He should have known better,” they say, missing the point. Asked in 1971 if he was prepared to go to prison for releasing the Pentagon Papers, Ellsberg’s reply was simple: “Wouldn’t you go to jail to end this war?”

Future posts will explore POGO’s financial ties and its role in the veal pen that is the whistleblower community.

P.S. This isn’t the first time that POGO throws its values out the window to please the power structure.