http://nswbc.org/Press%20Releases/PR-DefAuth-Sep25-06.htm Over 100 Whistleblowers and Organizations Urge the House Chairman against S.494
Ineffective Senate Amendment Will Not Protect Whistleblowers or National Security
Alexandria, VA---In a letter sent today the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition, together with a Consortium of over one hundred whistleblowers and organizations, urged Congressman Duncan Hunter, Chairman of the House Committee on Armed Services, to support house substitute for an ineffective Senate Amendment which will not protect national security during the final conference on the 2007 Defense Authorization Act.
“After 9/11, the need to effectively protect federal employee whistleblowers is obvious. We cannot afford a repeat of the mistakes that led to 9/11. It is simply intolerable that federal employee whistleblowers have less whistleblower protection then almost every other employee in the United States. A cop on the beat in New Jersey who complained about enforcement of Jaywalking laws had radically more whistleblower protections then an FBI agent complaining that a 9/11 hijacker illegally entered the United States. Congress must act now to protect all American’s from waste, fraud, abuse and security violations,” said Stephen M. Kohn, the President of the National Whistleblower Center and a leading expert on whistleblower laws.
The Senate has incorporated a whistleblower protection provision (S.494) into the fiscal year 2007 defense authorization act. The Senate proposal does not properly protect national security. It excludes key government workers, including employees of the FBI and CIA, from any whistleblower protection whatsoever. According to Kohn, “the Senate proposal is so weak that a federal employee complaining about the illegal entry of one of the 9/11 hijackers into the United States would have radically less protection under federal law than a truck driver complaining about the amount of air in his tires. Unlike S.494, the House version, H.R. 5112, will protect federal employees and needs to be immediately substituted into the conference and enacted into federal law.”
Bill Weaver, NSWBC Senior Advisor, stated: “What is needed is a complete overhaul of whistleblower protection, not a Frankenstein of appendages meant to correct problems that are in fact irreparable within the confines of existing legislation.”
The House Government Reform Committee has conducted extensive hearings on the appropriate standards necessary to protect those patriotic civil servants willing to expose bureaucrats or politicians who are “weak” or incompetent on national-security issues. The Committee has taken leadership on drafting and passing real whistleblower protections intended to defend national security; H.R. 5112.
It is not too dramatic to say that if the provisions in the Senate bill pass, rather than the genuine protections contemplated in the house bill, Congress will have sentenced as-yet unknown Americans to death and injury by failing to protect proven measures – reporting of government malfeasance and negligence – that gird our national security.
The Coalition requested Chairman Hunter’s personal intervention to ensure that the protections offered under HR. 5112 are adopted in conference, not the weak and completely ineffective Senate provision, S. 494, during the final conference on the 2007 Defense Authorization Act.
Signatories:
Bergman, Bill, Financial Market Analyst, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
Bigelow, Steve, Retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel, Joint Chiefs of Staff, J-33
Bittler, Thomas, Training Coordinator, TSA-DHS
Black, P. Jeffrey, Federal Air Marshal (FAMS), TSA/DHS
Bonnette, James., Sr., District Adjudications Officer, Citizenship and Immigration Services-DHS
Brown, James R., Former Operations Officer, Senior CI-HUMINT Investigator, Department of Army
Carman, John, Former Senior Inspector, U.S. Customs
Carpenter, Shawn, Member of Technical Staff, Sandia National Laboratories
Chudson, Jonathan, Former Special Agents, IG-Office, EPA
Cleary, Kevin J., Senior Special Agent, U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security/ICE & U.S. Customs Service (O.I)
Cole, John M., Former Veteran Intelligence Operations Specialist, FBI
Conrad, David “Mark”, Retired Agent in Charge, Internal Affairs, U.S. Customs
Connolly, Frank, Aviation Security Inspector, TSA
Copley, James, Project Manager, DOE
Cruse, Larry, Army Intelligence Analyst, DOD,
Davidson, Kathaleen, Nuclear Security Training Coordinator, Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station
Dzakovic, Bogdan, Former Red Team Leader, FAA
Edmonds, Sibel, Former Language Specialist, FBI
Ellsberg, Dan, Former Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of Defense (ISA), DOD
Elson, Steve, Veteran Agent, FAA
Fei, Christopher, Former Mail Room Clerk Contractor, Army Corp of Engineers
Forbes, David, Aviation, Logistics and Govt. Security Analysts
Gonzalez, Sandalio, Retired Federal Agent, DEA
Goodman, Melvin A., Former Senior Analyst/ Division Manager, CIA; Senior Fellow at the Center for International Policy,
Guagliardi, Ray, training coordinator, TSA-DHS
Hirsch, Daniel M., Foreign Service Officer, U.S. Department of State
Hnatio, John, Former International Program Manager, DNN, NNSA & DOE
Jenkins, Steve, Intelligence Analyst, NGIC, US Army
Johnson, Larry, Deputy Director- Counterterrorism, Department of State; Analyst, CIA
Kwiatkowski, Karen U., Lt. Col. USAF (ret.), Veteran Policy Analyst-DOD
Lau, Lok, Former Special Agent, Counterintelligence, FBI
Levine, Michael, Retired Supervisory Special Agent/Covert Operations Specialist, DEA
Lipsky, John, Supervisory Special Agent, FBI
MacLean, Robert, Federal Air Marshal Service, TSA-DHS
Mansour, Joe, Occupational Safety Specialist, Federal Bureau of Prison
MacMichael, David, Former Senior Estimates Officer, CIA
Maschke, George W., Former Intelligence Officer, U.S. Army Reserve
McCullers, Shawn B., Federal Air Marshal (FAMS), TSA/DHS
McGovern, Raymond L., Former Analyst, CIA
McInerney, Cullen, Supervisory Special Agent, Joint Terrorism Task Force, Federal Air Marshal Service, DHS
Nowacki, Michael, Former Staff Sergeant, Military Intelligence, United States Army
Nunn, Sandy, Former Special Agent, US Customs
O’Neill, Michael J., Retired, USAF, Technical Sergeant, Command and Control Supervisor; former Screening (Operations) Manager, TSA-DHS
Pahle, Theodore J., Senior Intelligence Officer (Ret), DIA
Price, Paul, Language Analyst, NSA
Puello, Franklin, Former Supervisor for Transportation Security Screeners, TSA-DHS
Reinbold, Thomas G., retired Lt. Commander, Naval Security Group-Office of Naval Intelligence; Retired Senior Cryptologic Engineer, NSA
Rempfer, Thomas L., Major (Current)
Robinson, Dr. Lonnie, Agricultural Specialist, U.S. Customs Service, DHS
Russell, William H., Computer Specialist, R & E Division, NSA
Sarshar, Behrooz, Retired Language Specialist, FBI
Savich, William, Special Agent, Bureau of Diplomatic Security, U.S. State Department
Schott, Suzanne Grace, Former Screening Supervisor, TSA-DHS
Springmann, Mike, Foreign Service Officer-5; Second Secretary & Vice Consul, Department of State
Starns, Robert, Special Agent in Charge, Diplomatic Security Service, Department of State
Stella V., Marie, Retired Lead Information System Security Officer, FAA,
Stroup, Jay, Former Federal Security Director, TSA
Sullivan, Brian, Special Agent, Risk Program Management Specialist, FAA
Tice, Russ, Senior Intelligence Analyst & Action Officer, NSA
Tortorich, Larry J., Retired Naval Officer, US Navy & Dept. of Homeland Security/TSA,
Turner, Jane, Veteran Special Agent, FBI
Vincent, John, Veteran Special Agent, Counterterrorism, FBI
Walp, Glenn, PhD, Former Office Leader of the Office of Security Inquiries, Los Alamos National Lab, DOE
Woo, Robert, Special Agent, Counterintelligence, FBI
Wright, Robert, Veteran Special agent, Counterterrorism, FBI
Sibel D. Edmonds
Director-NSWBC
Stephen Kohn
Chairperson-National Whistleblower Center
www.whistleblowers.org
Michael Ostrolenk
Director-Liberty Coalition
www.libertycoalition.net
Sandalio Gonzalez
National President-FHLEOA
www.fhleoa.org
Dr. Jeffrey Fudin
President-VAWBC
www.vawbc.com
Daniel Hirsch
Board Member-CFSO
www.worldcrafters.com
Matthew Fogg
Executive Director-Congress against Racism & Corruption in Law Enforcement
Dane Von Breichenruchardt- President
US Bill of Rights Foundation
National Security Whistleblowers Coalition, founded in August 2004, is an independent and nonpartisan alliance of whistleblowers who have come forward to address our nation’s security weaknesses; to inform authorities of security vulnerabilities in our intelligence agencies, at nuclear power plants and weapon facilities, in airports, and at our nation’s borders and ports; to uncover government waste, fraud, abuse, and in some cases criminal conduct. The NSWBC is dedicated to aiding national security whistleblowers through a variety of methods, including advocacy of governmental and legal reform, educating the public concerning whistleblowing activity, provision of comfort and fellowship to national security whistleblowers suffering retaliation and other harms, and working with other public interest organizations to affect goals defined in the NSWBC mission statement. For more on NSWBC visit www.nswbc.org
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