by Dylan Blaylock
on February 03, 2012
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2012 )
 CNN: Report on Federal Air Marshal Service Paints an Unflattering Picture
Summary: A report to be released next week about misconduct within the Federal Air Marshal Service "paints an unflattering picture of the agency," and states that investigators have "heard too many negative and conflicting accounts" of potential misconduct to summarily ignore them. The report was written by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Inspector General.
Key Quote: But Tom Devine of the Government Accountability Project, a nonprofit whistleblower organization, called the report "a significant vindication for air marshal whistle-blowers."
"It confirms a perceived pattern of retaliation against air marshals who challenged security breaches by Federal Air Marshal Service management," he said.
GAP currently has a petition that you can sign to support whistleblower Robert MacLean, a former air marshal who was retaliated against for exposing security lapses.
FIU News: Why the Whistleblower-Journalist Relationship Matters
Summary: This article highlights next week's stop of the American Whistleblower Tour at Florida International University in Miami. This stop is focused on examining the whistleblower-journalist relationship, and how essential that can be to achieving success in effecting real, positive change for the public.
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by Jesselyn Radack
on February 03, 2012
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2012 )
Under Obama's self-proclaimed "most transparent administration in history," not only did the number of "original classification decisions" rise by 22.6% in his first year in office, but the secret no-fly list has doubled in the past year and now includes 21,000 names, including at least 500 Americans.
As Obama well knows, his predecessor too often used the no-fly list as a punitive measure. I have a bee in my bonnet about this issue, having been placed on the "selectee" portion of the no-fly list after I became the Justice Department whistleblower in the case of "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh. While I no longer have that dubious distinction, no doubt other people have been improperly added to the list and still have no reasonable, convenient or comprehensive redress procedure. In fact,
The government will not disclose who is on its list or why someone might have been placed on it.
After the 2009 attempted "Christmas Day" bombing – an attack stopped by alert, courageous passengers, not by a bloated, ineffective no-fly list –
The government lowered the standard for putting people on the list then scoured its files for anyone who qualified. . . .Among the most significant new standards is that now a person doesn't have to be considered only a threat to aviation to be placed on the no-fly list. People who are considered a broader threat to domestic or international security or who attended a terror training camp also are included, said a U.S. counterterrorism official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive security matters.
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by Shelley Walden
on February 02, 2012
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2012 )
 World Bank headquarters in Washington, DCA provision in the recently passed U.S. Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2012 requires three Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) to make "substantial progress" toward "implementing" best practices for the protection of whistleblowers from retaliation before the U.S. can contribute tens of billions of dollars in cold cash and guarantees to these institutions' general capital increases. This is a major victory for MDB whistleblowers and those who wish to see these organizations operate in a more accountable manner.
According to Section 7082 of H.R. 2055, which was signed into law by President Obama on December 23, prior to the U.S. Congress disbursing funds for the general capital increases of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank), the African Development Bank (AfDB) or the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the Secretary of the Treasury must report that each institution is, among other things, making "substantial progress" toward:
implementing best practices for the protection of whistleblowers from retaliation, including best practices for legal burdens of proof, access to independent adjudicative bodies, results that eliminate the effects of retaliation, and statutes of limitation for reporting retaliation.
Prior U.S. legislation related to MDBs only required the U.S. Executive Director at each institution to advocate for best practice whistleblower protections. The new law requires the MDBs – as well as United Nations agencies – to go a step further and actually implement such policies in order to receive a full financial contribution from the United States. (Incidentally, the law also requires the Secretary of the Treasury to advocate for the implementation of best practice whistleblower protections at the International Monetary Fund, although no funding restrictions are attached to that provision.)
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by Jesselyn Radack
on February 02, 2012
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2012 )
 Actual State Department seal Today's New York Times reports:
South Korean prosecutors indicted a social media and freedom of speech activist this week for reposting messages from the North Korean government's Twitter account.
It seems the U.S. State Department takes tweets and blogs just as seriously. I represent a State Department 23-year-veteran for the Foreign Service, Peter Van Buren, where the State Department monitors his personal Internet activity on his home computer during his private time. Peter Van Buren wrote a book, We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People, which is highly critical of gross reconstruction fraud in Iraq.
 Not actual State Department seal. (Photo courtesy of Flickr user orphum)A month before the publication of his book, Mr. Van Buren began to experience a series of adverse personnel actions, which are ongoing today. The State Department tried a variety of different tactics to censor Mr. Van Buren's book and prevent him from promoting it. After vague references to ethics rules failed, it tried threats of criminal action. After those failed, it started coming down on his blogs (which had been posted since April 2011 without criticism) and LIVE media appearances, saying they needed to be pre-cleared.
Sounds familiar in light of South Korea's recent attempts at censorship. South Korea brought the recent charges under its National Security Law – which bans "acts that benefit the enemy" but fails to specify what those acts are.
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by Peter Van Buren
on February 02, 2012
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2012 )
Not actual State Department seal. (Photo courtesy of Flickr user orphum)With war maybe on its way in Iran, problems in Syria and Iraq, never mind troubles everywhere else abroad, what does your Department of State have time to focus on? This blog apparently.
Not to suggest State is overstaffed, but somehow in managing all those international thingies they also have time to demand that I remove the State Department Seal from a blog post. The post, linked here, used the Seal as part of a satirical/parody memo from Hillary to the media, instructing them on how the Department wants them to not tell the truth about events in Iraq. No sentient being could have confused that blog post with an actual State Department memo.
 If you want to see the offensive blog post, click here. If you want to see a real State Department memo, go troll through the 250,000 documents on Wikileaks. I shouldn’t post a link to Wikileaks on this blog, or I’ll get in trouble again with the nancy boys who run Diplomatic Security. Read’in is hard work, and they still are sorting out a “link” from a “leak.”
If you’d like to read the State Department’s email to me demanding I remove the Seal from my blog, here it is.
There is, as always, precedent. In 2005 the George W. Bush White House demanded that The Onion stop using George’s seal. So, um, right on State, you’re in lock step with the White House on this issue, albeit seven years late.
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by Hannah Johnson
on February 02, 2012
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2012 )
 Tell Congress to Support TSA Whistleblower Robert MacLean!
Summary: GAP, in conjunction with the Project on Government Oversight, has started a petition in support of whistleblower Robert MacLean, the former air marshal who was fired after he revealed the TSA’s plan to reduce the number of air marshals on flights.
When MacLean discovered that the TSA was planning to cut costs by removing air marshals from flights – at a time during heightened intelligence warning of hijackings – he did the right thing and blew the whistle. Many senators, at the time, praised the warning and fixed the situation by calling for the TSA to correct it (which the agency did). But MacLean was fired for his disclosure, and the government board that was supposed to protect him from retaliation sided with TSA.
Now, MacLean has one last chance to appeal the ruling made by the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board. Representatives Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), plan to submit a friend of the court brief in defense of MacLean.
‘Addiction Incorporated’ Shows the Difficulties of Blowing the Whistle
Summary: Tomorrow is the Washington, DC premiere of Addiction Incorporated, a new documentary about Big Tobacco whistleblower Victor DeNoble. After the 7:40 showing at E Street Cinema, GAP Executive Director Bea Edwards will host a Q&A with DeNoble and film director Charles Evans, Jr.
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by Dylan Blaylock
on February 01, 2012
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2012 )
*Editor's Note: Unfortunately, Victor DeNoble was forced to cancel at the last minute and filmmaker Charmaine Parcero will take his place in the post-screening Q&A session.
Perceptions of whistleblowers in feature films are generally favorable, and do much to combat unjustified negative connotations that a few people still hold toward workplace truth-tellers. The Insider, Serpico, The Constant Gardener, All The President's Men, The Whistleblower ... all of these films are based on true events, and show the power (and difficulty) that one person can have when choosing to step forward with the truth.
Well-known whistleblower-themed documentaries, however, are a bit more rare. But one new film, Addiction Incorporated – premiering this week in Washington DC, in association with GAP (info below) – does a truly great job of showcasing how a worker can stumble into corporate wrongdoing, immediately know something is not right, and (unfortunately) be effectively stifled for several years. And while the film's subject can be a difficult one – how cigarette companies knowingly kept health information about their products from the masses, resulting in countless deaths – it is quite enjoyable to watch, with a clear and interesting narrative.
The majority of the picture is driven by the story of scientist-turned-whistleblower Victor J. DeNoble, who journalists and politicians laud as being the individual that greatly helped turn the tide against Big Tobacco and its suppression of eye-popping health data. DeNoble was hired by Philip Morris in the early 1980s to develop a healthier cigarette (or so he was told). For years, the company had been trying to figure out how to make its customers not die from heart problems. In DeNoble's words, Philip Morris:
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