|
|
Additionally, experts say, whistleblowers are sometimes required to meet with their supervisor, members of the agency’s legislative affairs team or other officials inside the agency, and by then, the firewall between senior leadership and the whistleblower is often obliterated, most likely exposing them to possible retaliation from their superiors.
While it doesn’t happen every time, “the [intelligence community] frequently tells people that they would have to go through [legislative affairs],” said Mandy Smithberger, the director of the Center for Defense Information at the Project on Government Oversight.
...
“It’s a gray area. … Congress hasn’t weighed in as much as they should about what they consider to be a protected channel,” said Smithberger.
A key danger for the whistleblower is that, by going out on their own, they will not be protected and could in fact be labeled a leaker for sharing classified information improperly.
“Retroactive classification certainly has been a concern,” said Smithberger. In one instance, a client of the Project on Government Oversight — who blew the whistle on the hostage recovery process — was reprimanded for giving a public presentation that had already been cleared by the Army.
“That’s kind of what happens consistently in these cases,” she said. “The agency looks over your record with a fine-tooth comb. If you’ve handled classified information, if someone looks at your record closely, pretty much everyone has ‘mishandled a document.’”
Yet those issues only become a problem once that person has raised complaints, she explained.
|
|
|
|
|
Luck’s retirement dinner will take place about 10 weeks before attorney general William Barr is scheduled to throw a $30,000 “family holiday party” at the Trump International Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue. Barr’s plan reportedly passed muster with Department of Justice ethics officials because it is not an official DOJ event. Still, it “creates the appearance that high-level political appointees or allies of the president may feel like they need to spend money at the president’s businesses as a show of loyalty, and that is something that makes me deeply uncomfortable and should make taxpayers deeply uncomfortable,” Liz Hempowicz of the nonprofit Project on Government Oversight, told the Washington Post.
|
|
|
|
|
So far, in other words, the F-35 has had an abysmally low rate of availability. Technically speaking, it remains in “initial operational testing and evaluation,” during which, as defense journalist Dan Grazier has noted, it achieved a “fully mission capable rate” of just 11 percent in its combat testing phase. (The desired goal before going into full production is 80 percent, which is, in a sense, all you need to know about the “success” of that aircraft so many years later.) Compounding those dreadful percentages is another grim reality: the F-35’s design isn’t stable and its maintenance software has been a buggy nightmare, meaning the testers are, in a sense, trying to evaluate a moving and messy target.
|
|
|
|
|
We need not offer a complete catalog the history of CCA/CoreCivic and its abuses: a simple Google search will generate enough to make a moral human being cringe. Shane Bauer went undercover at CoreCivic and last year wrote a history of this brutal industry for Mother Jones, for instance. Deaths, sexual abuse, torture, improper use of solitary confinement (a practice condemned by the UN) are the tip of the iceberg. Pending cases (of which there are at least twelve known to Project On Government Oversight, a nonpartisan independent watchdog that champions good government reforms) include more cases of sexual abuse and forced labor. Abuses also include visitors: in one pending lawsuit a woman claims that, while undergoing a security screening during a visit to the facility in April 2014, she was forced to verify she was menstruating by allowing a female guard to inspect her genitalia.
|
|
|
|
|
The Project on Government Oversight reported that Interior appointees went to work on critical minerals within the first weeks of Trump’s presidency. POGO’s report further found that mining industry influence began immediately following Trump’s inauguration.
“The documents POGO obtained offer a window into mining industry representatives’ efforts to influence the Interior Department’s development of the list beginning in the first month of the Administration and leading up to the President’s order for a new list,” according to the report.
|
|
|
|
|
According to data collected by the Project on Government Oversight, 11 presidentially appointed IG positions currently lack permanent leaders, and only two of those currently have a nomination pending in the Senate.
|
|
|
|
|
According to the watchdog Project on Government Oversight, 13 of the 74 inspector general positions lack a permanent director. Of the vacant positions, 11 require presidential nomination, but only two have a person named. Several of the vacancies date back to the Obama administration, when Republicans criticized President Obama on the issue, The Washington Post reported.
|
|
|
|
|
Whistleblower Protection Blog
|
|
[A]ccording to a recent investigation by the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), it’s doing a terrible job. Could better protections for whistleblowers get the effort back on track? One of the recommendations in the POGO report notes that “whistleblowers could help make enforcement of the audit firm industry easier and more effective.”
The PCAOB was set up to monitor accountants and prevent the kind of fraud and financial collapses that have destroyed consumer savings, brought down huge companies and gutted the economy. From the story:
But, in key respects it’s been doing a feeble job.
Over its entire history of more than 16 years, when it comes to some of the biggest firms under its jurisdiction, it has taken disciplinary action over only a tiny fraction of the apparent violations its staff has identified. Meanwhile, the financial penalties it has imposed pale into insignificance compared to the fines it apparently could have imposed.
From the report:
To better oversee the industry, the board should incentivize whistleblowers to come forward when they suspect violations of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, PCAOB rules, and other laws, rules, and professional standards governing the audits of public companies, brokers, and dealers. Whistleblowers should receive a reward if their report results in a PCAOB enforcement action. Whistleblowers are a critical tool in the fight against waste, fraud, abuse, and corruption. These individuals keep a watchful eye on the government and industry. Whistleblowers could help make enforcement of the audit firm industry easier and more effective. The board should protect from retaliation workers who make protected disclosures, deter efforts to discourage people from coming forward, and provide resources so workers know the right way to bring information to light. Such a program could be modeled on the whistleblower offices at the SEC and the Internal Revenue Service, which are both authorized by Congress to provide monetary awards to individuals who come forward with information that leads to enforcement actions. Congress has a long history of financially rewarding whistleblowers—dating back to the False Claims Act in 1863, when Congress was concerned that suppliers were ripping off the Union Army during the Civil War.
|
|
|
|
|
As Mandy Smithberger of the Project on Government Oversight has noted, “A lot of the projects that are having their funding removed are directly supporting the military and their families.” Examples include firing ranges, childcare, and a fire rescue and crash station for Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida, which is still recovering from the damage done by Hurricane Michael. And a full $400 million in funding is being diverted from projects in hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico.
|
|
|
|
|
.png)
No comments:
Post a Comment