Nov 09, 2009
Morning Smoke: Former Air Marshal Whistleblower in Court to Appeal His Termination
Morningsmoke FAM Whistleblower Appeals His Termination; Says He Protected National Security [Security Management]
Personnel agency cracks down on appointees 'burrowing' in [Government Executive]
With Feds, BofA's Lewis Met His Match [The Wall Street Journal]
I'm doing 'God's work'. Meet Mr Goldman Sachs [The Sunday Times]
Reforming from the bottom up [Federal Times]
FDA on Pharma Ads 2.0 [nextgov]
CIA answers FOIA request... 20 years later [The FOIA Blog]
Amtrak appoints new inspector general [Federal Eye]
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The War on Whistleblowers
http://www.centerforinvestigativereporting.org/tags/whistleblowercourt
America’s whistleblower courts were created to ensure federal employees could fearlessly speak out about government abuse, corruption and mismanagement. This CIR/Salon investigation reveals that the system set up to protect whistleblowers has instead been used to punish them. At whistleblower court, employees lose nearly 97 percent of the time.
>> Read the story on Salon.com
If there is any doubt about how the Bush administration treats government whistle-blowers, consider the case of Teresa Chambers. She was hired in early 2002, with impeccable law enforcement credentials, to become chief of the United States Park Police. But after Chambers raised concerns publicly that crime was up in the nation's parks, she was rebuked by superiors and fired. When Chambers fought to regain her job through the legal system meant to protect whistle-blowers, government lawyers fought back, and associated her with terrorists. Despite a multiyear legal struggle, she is still fighting for her job.
Whistle-blowers have faced hostility not only under Republican administrations. During President Clinton's tenure, Bogdan Dzakovic, an undercover security agent with the Federal Aviation Administration, suffered retribution for speaking out about weak airport security -- three years before Sept. 11, 2001. Dzakovic was passed up for promotion time and again, and today, he says, he remains consigned to data entry duties for the Transportation Security Administration.
ActBlue: making democracy more democratic
http://horsesass.org/?p=4156
A win for the whistleblowers, and how to look odd naked
http://www.nursingtimes.net/whats-new-in-nursing/off-duty/beyond-the-bedpan/a-win-for-the-whistleblowers-and-how-to-look-odd-naked/5007366.article
Margaret Haywood, the whistleblowing nurse who exposed the atrocious standards of care being inflicted on elderly patients at the Royal Sussex Hospital in Brighton. In the bad corner, the Nursing and Midwifery Council, who rewarded Ms Haywood by striking her from the nursing register, bringing an abrupt end to a distinguished 20-year nursing career and leaving Ms Haywood with no discernable livelihood.
Why Sarbox Whistleblowers Don't Win
http://www.itbusinessedge.com/cm/community/features/interviews/blog/why-sarbox-whistleblowers-dont-win/?cs=23083
In an overwhelming amount of cases, decision makers found that whistleblowers weren't getting their claims within the boundaries of the Act. One group — a lot of them — was procedurally barred because they didn't get their claims in within 90 days, which is the statute of limitations. In another chunk, the claims were barred because they didn't work for a publicly traded company. The statute's pretty clear that you have to work for a covered employer. Another large chunk of claims were barred because what the plaintiffs disclosed or complained of did not fit into one of the six Sarbanes-Oxley boxes. A smaller part of that involved findings that the whistleblower could not have reasonably believed that the activity complained of violated one of those six boxes....WHISTLEBLOWERS PROTECTION BLOG
International Whistleblower News (November 9, 2009)
[Russia] Humphries, Conor, “Russia fires police YouTube whistleblower,” Reuters, November 8, 2009.
Appalachian Patria A junior Russian policeman was fired on Sunday after making a YouTube appeal to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin accusing senior officers of corruption, a claim dismissed by authorities as false, news agencies reported. The policeman from the Black Sea port of Novorossiisk last week posted a seven-minute clip that accused senior officers of forcing him to work weekends and solve imaginary crimes, as well as blocking him from claiming compensation for an injury. Click here to read more.
[Iran] Arrests of journalists since disputed June election now top 100, Without Borders for Press Freedom, November 5, 2009.
Reporters Without Borders welcomes the release of Agence France-Presse correspondent Farhad Pouladi, who was arrested on 4 November. The official news agency IRNA and AFP’s Tehran bureau confirm that he was freed from Evin prison yesterday afternoon. But Niels Krogsgaard, a Danish journalism student who was arrested the same day, is still being held, the Iranian authorities say. Click here to read more.
http://hillbillyrave.blogspot.com/2009/09/long-time-ago.html
Saturday, September 26, 2009
A Long Time Ago
All of this talk about General McChrystal in the news has taken me back some. I once knew him as Captain McChrystal in my early days of 3rd Ranger Battalion. He was the Commander of Alpha Company and I was in HHC. I was a Cook in those days and I came in contact with everyone. At the time I would have gladly traded with one of my buddies as a Rifleman in a Fireteam...They did fun things and got weekends off, as where I just worked all of the time...But, through coming in contact with everyone I learned allot and gained a perspective on things that I won't put into words.
My buddies that were in the "Line Comapanies" did live a hard life.
In my memory, Cpt McChrystal was a popular Commander, so was his First Sergeant, 1SG Laws, a Vietnam War Ranger. All of us young kids held them in great respect. Alpha Co. was a crack Company. I don't know by what and who's standards, everyone claims some degree of greatness in the Military, but, at the time they had been dubbed the "best Infantry Company in the Army". There was obviously some chemistry in the Company. There was a reference to them as "Alphabots" for having a almost robotic mannerism. Veterans of different Ranger Bns will usually chuckle and say that every A Co. in the Regiment is kind of like that. I'm no one to say that it's true.
Before I got Mobilized for Iraq I corresponded with a guy from A Co. from those days and ran into another while I was at Ft. Knox this summer. Gen McChrystal is still popular with those guys. I say that because they speak positively of him. Rising so high in rank doesn't do it. There is a common notion that Senior Officers...And many Senior NCOs are out of touch. Being in charge doesn't make you popular. It's being you that makes you popular. And I've learned that having first hand knowledge doesn't make you right if you only look at something from one angle.
There is no man that was in that Bn at the time that I can glorify. At 20 "glorify" to me had a hint of blandishment, at 41 the word is vain. There's no man that I respect that I could do that to.
One of the figures that stands out the most from that era of my life was "The Purd"...My Company's 1SG. 1SG Purdy. He was later promoted to CSM. Stories still abound in circles from people that knew him or knew of him. Some actually show the different sides of him. Some stories I've not known whether to believe or not. Several years back he wrote a piece that was put on Col. Hackworth's web site. It's a popular...That word again...Rant article, posted in frustration by...I was going to say Soldiers far and near, but, "all sorts of people" is better. Soldiers are people. I see more of it than a rant. I've found advice in it.
All of the stories say, in some way, he was a tough Son of a Bitch...That he is. He WAS called a relic from the past and allot of people thought he was crazy and I'm sure they still think he is. People can believe what they want, but I will tell you something. He was no premodonna, he was no chest beater and when he spoke everyone listened.
Rangers Lead The Way!
The Appalachianist
Center for Investigative Reporting
Featured Investigation:
 | Over the next year, FRONTLINE/World and CIR will report on key issues of climate change, focusing on the trillion-dollar carbon trading market. We’ll look at which proposals to reduce emissions by 2020 really add up; at the hidden interests behind these solutions; and the new industry players. In this first report, CIR's Mark Schapiro travels deep into Brazil's forest to investigate how this abstract carbon economy is affecting real people. |
Recent Investigations:
 | Despite state investigators and other experts saying that a detective’s ties to Your Black Muslim Bakery’s young leader compromised his investigation of journalist Chauncey Bailey's slaying, the Oakland Police Department will not discipline him. |
 | Records show that communities across California had difficulty managing millions in anti-terrorism grants handed out by Congress after Sept. 11. Paperwork went missing and purchasing rules weren't followed. Is the state ready for more in stimulus funds if preparedness cash proved so difficult? This story is part of a collaborative project by California Watch, the Center for Public Integrity and CIR examining the effectiveness of America’s homeland security efforts. |
 | While the nation’s understaffed immigration courts strain under a backlog that has grown to more than 200,000 cases, thousands of new border agents and hundreds of government attorneys have been hired, pushing more cases onto an already overburdened system. As a result, cases often take months if not years to complete. On any given day there are more than 30,000 people in immigration lock-up. |
 | A new web-video series from CIR highlighting investigative reporting—as it happens—by journalists around the world. The series features interviews with journalists, who share the stories behind their groundbreaking international investigations into human rights abuses, financial corruption, political malfeasance, environmental destruction and other abuses of power. |
 | After the collapse of communism in 1989, millions of former Soviet bloc residents migrated abroad, breathing life into one of the oldest criminal enterprises—the trafficking of humans into sexual slavery. Since then, thousands of Eastern European women have been sold into prostitution. Photojournalist Mimi Chakarova investigates this rarely documented journey. |
 | Just after the U.S. took Baghdad in 2003, the Green Berets began training young Iraqis with no military experience in the desert of Jordan. The resulting brigade was a deadly, elite, covert unit, fully fitted with American equipment, that would operate for years under U.S. command and be unaccountable to the normal political process. Shane Bauer reports for The Nation. Support was provided in part by CIR's Goldensohn Fund. |
 | Baghdad | Los Angeles, a four-month collaboration between the Annenberg School for Communication at USC and the Center for Investigative Reporting, explores the impact of the Iraq war in Southern California through original multimedia reporting. |
 | A special CIR project exposing the flaws and unintended consequences of the campaign finance system. The Secret Money Project, a joint initiative between CIR and NPR, tracked the money and forces behind independent campaign ads in the 2008 election. Other stories co-produced with the Los Angeles Times, ABCNews.com, and Politico. |
 | Why does the U.S. government permit the sale of children's toys and cosmetics containing toxic chemicals that were banned by the European Union? Mark Schapiro, author of Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products and What's at Stake for American Power explores that question. |
Crash Test Dummy | Can GM be revitalized? Producer Steve Talbot has déjà vu.
The Price of Sex: Women Speak | Women trafficked as sex slaves tell their stories.
The Investigators | A web-video series that goes behind the story with investigative reporters.
Evidence Ignored: A Timeline | Chauncey Bailey Project reveals conflicts of interest.
The Secret Money Project | CIR and NPR track independent campaign ads in the 2008 election.
Nuestra Familia, Our Family | Award-winning doc goes inside a California gang.
Secret Police Video | Police recorded suspects talking about Bailey's murder.Whistleblowers meet to share stories, plot strategies
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1005/101105c1.htm
Time for whistle-blower protection?
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_3_19/ai_96893643
Insight on the News, Jan 21, 2003 | by Martin Edwin Andersen
The selection of three courageous whistle-blowers by Time magazine for its "Persons of the Year" cover story points to a fact largely "uncovered" by the magazine: Only those federal whistle-blowers who attain celebrity status enjoy real protection against reprisal.
President aims to step up hiring of veterans 11/09/09
Obama directs agencies to establish offices to guide veterans through the job application process and help them adjust to civilian life.
[Evan Vucci/AP]
http://www.govexec.com/?oref=topnav
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