Frontline: United States of Secrets, Part II – ‘Privacy Lost’
Last night, PBS’ Frontline aired the second part of its United States of Secrets series that looks at the history of the National Security Agency’s (NSA) surveillance program. The piece covers whistleblower and GAP client Edward Snowden’s initial meeting with reporters, the subsequent early media reports of his disclosures (the metadata collection program and PRISM, which collects content), and the whistleblower’s actions after going public. The documentary goes on to focus on the relationship between the agency and technology companies in the context of Snowden’s disclosures showing how the NSA was grabbing incredible amounts of data. The latter part of the film looks at the infringement on privacy by Silicon Valley programs.
Earlier this week, The Intercept published the latest revelatory article based on Snowden’s disclosures, detailing how the NSA “is secretly intercepting, recording, and archiving the audio of virtually every cell phone conversation on the island nation of the Bahamas.”
US News & World Report: More VA Whistleblowers Coming Forward, Campaign Says
In the midst of the widening Veterans Affairs (VA) medical centers scandal, more whistleblowers appear to be coming forward. This article quotes GAP Legal Director Tom Devine extensively about the historical problems that VA whistleblowers have faced.
Key Quote: Devine says he’s represented a half-dozen VA employees in the past decade, and has seen them put under criminal investigation, stripped of duties, barred from workplaces and harassed. None were charged with committing a crime. Among his clients was Robert Van Boven, a neurologist who blew the whistle on the VA for allegedly wasting $1.2 million, and who Devine says faced a multiyear nightmare following his disclosures.
“Just being put under criminal investigation and living with the possibility you could be branded a crook … those are terrifying consequences,” Devine says, “and the VA’s track record is unmatched for defiance of Whistleblower Protection Act free speech rights, it’s just a fact of life for people in this field.”
Devine says inspector generals and prosecutors sometimes carry out the retaliation without realizing they’re been used for that purpose.
Wall Street Journal: CTFC Hands Out First Whistleblower Award
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has awarded the first whistleblower payment in the history of its two-year reward program. The program was created in 2012 after being established by the Dodd-Frank law, which also created the SEC whistleblower rewards program.
Unfortunately, the “commission didn’t disclose any details about the person who got the money or the nature of the tip, complying with anti-retaliation protections in the regulations that require confidentiality.”
Washington Post: Surveillance Reform Bill Weakened, Privacy Groups Say
Privacy groups are withdrawing their support of a House bill aimed at reforming the NSA’s mass surveillance program. The USA Freedom Act was changed “to win Obama administration approval,” but critics say the revisions go too far.
Key Quote: “This legislation was designed to prohibit bulk collection, but has been made so weak that it fails to adequately protect against mass, untargeted collection of Americans’ private information,” said Center for Democracy and Technology President Nuala O’Connor. “The bill now offers only mild reform and goes against the overwhelming support for definitively ending bulk collection.”
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In particular, by changing the language governing how agencies may collect information under national security authorities, the government has introduced ambiguity into the bill that leaves open the door to large-scale collection, they say.
“Put another way, it may ban ‘bulk’ collection of all records of a particular kind, but still allow for ‘bulky’ collection impacting the privacy of millions of people,” said Robyn Greene, policy counsel for the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute.
An investigation by the Department of Energy Inspector General has found that a whistleblower at the Bonneville Power Administration in Oregon was not retaliated against for exposing discriminatory hiring practices involving veterans. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Or) asked for the investigation in December.
Dylan Blaylock is Communications Director for the Government Accountability Project, the nation’s leading whistleblower protection and advocacy organization.