CBS Sports: North Carolina Investigator will Interview Whistleblower
This piece provides an update on the academic “paper-class” fraud scandal involving University of North Carolina athletics. The independent investigator the school hired last month to look into the scandal now says he will interview whistleblower Mary Willingham, who is credited with exposing the fraud. Willingham may have recently faced retaliation by school officials for exposing the problematic literacy levels of UNC revenue-sport student athletes.
Washington Post: NSA Surveillance Program Reaches ‘Into the Past’ to Retrieve, Replay Phone Calls
According to a new report based on documents provided by NSA whistleblower and GAP client Edward Snowden, the intelligence agency utilizes a surveillance system capable of recording “100 percent” of a foreign country’s telephone calls that can then be rewound and replayed as long as one month after they take place.
Key Quote: The call buffer opens a door “into the past,” the summary says, enabling users to “retrieve audio of interest that was not tasked at the time of the original call.” Analysts listen to only a fraction of 1 percent of the calls, but the absolute numbers are high. Each month, they send millions of voice clippings, or “cuts,” for processing and long-term storage.
The Oregonian: Clackamas County Must Pay $322,236 for Wrongful Dismissal of Whistleblower
A high-level employee in Oregon’s Clackamas County claims he was fired in retaliation for raising concerns that his boss awarded contracts without competitive bidding, split contracts to avoid board oversight, and misrepresented a $300,000 expenditure. An arbitrator ruled that the dismissal was a violation of both county rules and state laws, ordering the county to pay $322,236 in damages.
Corporate Crime Reporter: Bristol-Myers Squibb Nailed for Evading Taxes
Lantheus Medical Imaging Inc. and its former parent company, Bristol-Myers Squibb, will pay $6.2 million to settle a whistleblower case alleging that the company knowingly evaded New York state and city taxes and made millions of dollars’ worth of sales.
Sarah Damian is New Media Associate for the Government Accountability Project, the nation’s leading whistleblower protection and advocacy organization.