Whistle-blowers tell
of cost of conscience
By Catherine Rampell,
USA TODAY, Friday November 24, 2006
From the Web,
November 26, 2006
He knew there were problems. He
didn't think he was one of them.
In 2002, decorated FBI Special Agent Mike German was investigating meetings
between terrorism suspects. When he discovered other officers had
jeopardized the investigation by violating wiretapping regulations, he reported
what he found to his supervisors, in accordance with FBI policy.
At the time, Coleen Rowley, the FBI agent who had raised concerns about how the
pre-9/11 arrest of al-Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui was handled, was
being hailed as a national hero. German says he had also just received a
mass e-mail from FBI Director Robert Mueller, urging other whistle-blowers to
come forward.
"I was assuming he'd protect me," German says.
Instead, German says his accusations were ignored, his reputation ruined and his
career obliterated. Although the Justice Department's inspector general
confirmed German's allegations that the FBI had "mishandled and mismanaged" the
terrorism investigation, he says he was barred from further undercover work and
eventually compelled to resign. FBI spokesman Bill Carter declined to
comment.
The experience is familiar to other government employees who have blown the
whistle on matters of national security since 9/11.
Whistle-blower filings
Since the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the average number of employees
filing whistle-blower disclosures with the government has risen 43%, from an
average of 376 annually in the four years before the attacks to 537 annually
after. The statistics are kept by the Office of the Special Counsel, an
independent federal investigative agency that handles whistle-blower cases if
employees prefer not to directly confront their bosses about suspicions of
wrongdoing.
An increasing number of whistle-blowers allege that rather than being embraced,
they're being retaliated against for coming forward.
In the four years before the terrorist attacks, whistle-blowers filed an average
of 690 reprisal complaints with the OSC annually. Since the attacks, an
average of 835 complaints have been filed each year, a 21% increase.
The number of whistle-blower reprisal complaints is higher than the number of
whistle-blower disclosure complaints because employees can file reprisal
complaints with the OSC even if they had not previously filed their disclosure
with the OSC.
"The sad reality is that rather than learning lessons from 9/11, the government
appears to have become more thin-skinned and sensitive," says Tom Devine, legal
director of the Government Accountability Project, a non-profit group that
offers legal aid to whistle-blowers.
Even advocates have begun to dissuade some government employees from coming
forward.
"When I get calls from people thinking of blowing the whistle, I tell them
'Don't do it,' " says William Weaver, a professor at the University of Texas at
El Paso and a senior adviser to the National Security whistle-blowers Coalition.
"Most of the time they go ahead and do it anyway and end up with their lives
destroyed."
Those who come forward often face harassment, investigation, character
assassination and firing — not to mention the toll their whistle-blowing takes
on their families, Weaver and Devine say.
Lack of protection
For those who are fired or have their security clearances revoked — tantamount
to firing in the intelligence agencies — there is little recourse.
Most national security whistle-blowers are not protected from retaliation by
law. That's because the intelligence-gathering agencies are exempted from
the 1989 whistle-blower Protection Act, which guarantees investigations into
disclosures made by federal employees and protects whistle-blowers from
retaliation.
Whistle-blowers employed by these agencies must seek recourse within the same
agency they are blowing the whistle on. And even if the investigators
within their own agency confirm reprisal allegations, the investigators have no
power to remedy the situation.
Devine says the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has ruled against
whistle-blowers in 125 of 127 of the reprisal cases seen by the court since
1994. "They've gutted the law," Devine says, "and it's degenerated into a
rubber stamp for retaliation."
Lawmakers recently considered two sets of legislation that would affect
whistle-blowers. One attempted to extend the whistle-blower Protection Act
to cover intelligence agency employees through amendments to the 2007 Defense
Authorization Bill.
In October, a conference committee removed the whistle-blower amendments from
the final version of the bill.
The other bill that might affect whistle-blowers stiffens penalties for
knowingly leaking classified information to those not authorized to receive it.
That bill was introduced by Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., in response to recent leaks to
the media about national security programs, says Bond's press secretary, Rob
Ostrander.
"When classified information is printed in the newspapers, it's not just
Americans who read it," Ostrander says. "It's also America's enemies."
Bond's legislation would make prosecuting leakers easier by eliminating the need
to prove the disclosure damaged national security. The measure would
subject those who leak classified information to a fine and up to three years in
prison. It would apply to those who signed a non-disclosure agreement,
regardless of their job at the time of the leak.
The bill uses language identical to that in a 2000 bill — dubbed the "Official
Secrets Act," after a similar British law — that was vetoed by President
Clinton. It has been endorsed by the Association of Intelligence Officers,
a 31-year-old group of 4,500 current and former intelligence officers.
Bond's legislation has been referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee. If
it does not make it to a floor vote by the end of this session, he will have to
resubmit it when the next session begins in January.
The National Security whistle-blowers Coalition, the Government Accountability
Project and various media organizations have criticized the legislation and
claimed it would deter whistle-blowers from coming forward.
Ostrander says, "There are adequate opportunities for whistle-blowers to contact
superiors and the federal inspector general's office or their own
representatives" without leaking classified information to outside sources.
National security whistle-blowers who have come forward since 9/11 aren't so
sure.
Many had been star employees at the top of the pay scale and had spent decades
in civil service before blowing the whistle. The median number of years of
government service for National Security whistle-blowers Coalition members is 22
years, says Sibel Edmonds, an FBI whistle-blower who founded the coalition.
Edmonds and others worry that fear of committing career suicide may dissuade
others from coming forward.
"I'm one of the last people who survived," says Rowley, the former FBI
whistle-blower and Time magazine "Person of the Year" who recently lost her bid
for a U.S. congressional seat in Minnesota. She says widespread, favorable
media coverage saved her FBI career
"But is that the important story here — that one person in the country has been
fired or is not being used to their fullest potential?" she asks. "It's
the country that's going to suffer from a lack of whistle-blower protections."
| 
