This year’s annual Washington, D.C. whistleblower gathering and conference, the National Whistleblower Assembly (NWA), begins this Sunday, March 8, with events running through Wednesday, March 11. These events are open to the public, free of charge. See Details for schedule.
Some highlights:
March 8: Sunday’s day-long events, being held at the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law, will consist of workshops, panel discussions, and “street law” legal education sessions. Topics will range from food safety to whistleblower rights breakthroughs. The day will also feature speeches by noted whistleblowers Coleen Rowley and Dr. Jeffrey Wigand.
March 9: Monday morning’s kickoff event at Congress is a plenary session aimed at raising awareness about pending federal whistleblower protection legislation. Last month, legislation that would have granted federal employees involved with stimulus funds the right to blow the whistle on uncovered wrongdoing, waste and fraud, were stripped out of the House-Senate conference committee that reconciled the $787 billion “Stimulus Bill.” Speakers for this event include Senator Claire McCaskill and Rep. Chris Van Hollen.
(To support accountability in the stimulus spending)
March 10: A special Tuesday panel discussion (on the Hill) will focus on privacy rights, entitled “Domestic Surveillance: The Next Steps.” This panel, which will run from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. in the Russell Senate Office Building, will feature prominent individuals and nonprofit leaders involved with the warrantless wiretapping scandal since the story broke in 2005. The panel will focus on: the current FISA provisions; lawsuits against the DoJ regarding Office of Legal Counsel memos justifying the use of domestic surveillance; the Obama administration’s public stance on the matter; and what interested citizens, groups and politicians can do to ensure privacy rights. That panel will feature Thomas Tamm, a prominent National Security Agency whistleblower involved with the scandal’s public reveal, Marc Rotenberg, Executive Director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, and Michael MacLeod-Ball, Chief Legislative and Policy Counsel for the ACLU.
March 11: At Wednesday’s “Living History Forum,” whistleblowers can make a record of why they risked their careers to defend the public, and what happened (on the Hill).
Climate Science Watch is a program of the Government Accountability Project, a 30-year-old nonprofit public interest group that promotes government and corporate accountability by advancing occupational free speech, defending whistleblowers, and empowering citizen activists.