Associated Press: Sen. Warner, Rep. Kinzinger Urge Pentagon to Finish Probe of F-22 Pilot Whistleblowers
Yesterday, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va) and Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Il) sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel urging that a Pentagon investigation into the actions of Virginia Air National Guard pilot-whistleblowers be drawn to a close after two years. The whistleblowers publicly exposed oxygen-delivery problems with the F-22 fighter jet or “Raptor.” After the pilots appeared on 60 Minutes in 2012, each was retaliated against harshly, and one has been grounded since.
Key Quote: “It is now almost two years since these pilots have come forward, and the Defense Department’s investigation is not complete,” wrote Warner, a Democrat, and Kinzinger, a Republican. Kinzinger attended officer training with Wilson.
“This drawn-out process sends a chilling message throughout the Air Force, and in all service branches, that if you come forward as a whistle-blower to report wrongdoing, there is a high likelihood that your career will be derailed, you may lose pay and benefits, and you and your family will suffer retaliation,” the lawmakers added. “This cannot stand.”
Related Article: WTKR
In what is being perceived as a move against the federal government, “major U.S. technology companies have largely ended the practice of quietly complying with investigators’ demands for e-mail records and other online data, saying that users have a right to know in advance when their information is targeted for government seizure.”
However, as GAP National Security & Human Rights Director Jesselyn Radack rightfully points out in her blog, the policy change does notaffect either requests approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court or National Security Letters, meaning the NSA and FBI can still collect information en masse.
King 5 News (Seattle): Calls for Safety Changes Date Back Decades at Hanford
Recent incidents at the Hanford Nuclear Site in Washington state are again raising concerns over the safety measures to protect workers, a long-standing issue that has plagued many of the site’s projects for decades. This article points out “in the past six weeks, 28 workers reported being exposed to sudden releases of unknown chemical vapors from various underground nuclear waste tanks.”
GAP has been critical of the Hanford plant for years. The leading Hanford oversight and whistleblower organization, Hanford Challenge, spun off from GAP’s nuclear oversight program several years ago. This article lists several problematic reports and studies into Hanford worker safety, including one by GAP-turned-Hanford Challenge Director Tom Carpenter.
Key Quote: “And it really burns me up,” said Tom Carpenter of the Seattle-based watchdog group Hanford Challenge. “It makes me very angry that after all these years workers are not given free and easy access to supplied air. I think it should be required.”
Carpenter helped write a 2003 report for the watchdog Government Accountability Project that concluded: “In the face of repeated worker complaints of vapor odors and adverse health effects, CHG’s [the contractor at that time] failure to require basic respirator use and refusal to allow employees to wear skin protecting or supplied air respirators upon request is egregious conduct and may constitute ‘knowing endangerment’ under federal and Washington State law.”
Dylan Blaylock is Communications Director for the Government Accountability Project, the nation’s leading whistleblower protection and advocacy organization.