varsling
National Security Whistleblowers
Coalition
For Immediate
Release-September 25, 2006
Contact: Sibel Edmonds,
National Security Whistleblowers Coalition, sedmonds@nswbc.org
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. (To review the letter Click
here.)
“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 than 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
E-mail- sedmonds@nswbc.org
Fax-(703)
519-0699
Stephen
Kohn
Chairperson-National
Whistleblower Center
http://www.whistleblowers.org/
Michael
Ostrolenk
Director-Liberty
Coalition
http://www.libertycoalition.net/
Sandalio
Gonzalez
National
President-FHLEOA
Dr. Jeffrey
Fudin
President-VAWBC
Daniel
Hirsch
Board
Member-CFSO
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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