I swear, there are mornings of late when I'm reading the paper
and  have to reach for another cup of coffee if only to remember
what's fact and what's fiction. 

Richard North Patterson's latest book, Protect and Defend
deals with the contentious nomination of a liberal woman to head the
Supreme Court (OK, I know that's fiction) and an abortion case dealing
with the issue of parental notification.

So maybe I'm reading too much fiction or watching too much television.  But when you read this story from today's Chronicle of Higher Education,
you have to wonder if someone at the FBI hasn't begun to think the
rules we live by don't really emanate from the Constitution, but rather
from studio lots in Hollywood.

FBI Agents Back Down When Librarian Refuses to Let Them Seize 30
Computers Without a Warrant

By ANDREA L. FOSTER

An e-mail threat that prompted the evacuation of more than a
dozen Brandeis University buildings on January 18 led to an unusual standoff in
a public library in Newton, Mass., a few miles from the Brandeis campus.

Federal Bureau of Investigation agents tried to seize 30 of the
library's computers without a warrant, saying someone had used the library's
Internet connection to send the threat to Brandeis. But the library director,
Kathy Glick-Weil, told the agents they could not take the machines unless they
got a warrant first. Newton's mayor, David Cohen, backed Ms. Glick-Weil up.

After a brief standoff, FBI officials relented and sought a warrant from
a judge. Click here to read the rest of the story…..

For Winslow Wheeler's Defense Budget Tutorials, click here.

You'll find three tutorials on the 2006 budget done by Winslow Wheeler, director of the Straus Military Reform Project.

Defense Budget Tutorial #1: What is the actual size of the 2006 defense budget?

Defense Budget Tutorial #2: Smoke and mirrors in Congress’ Defense Appropriations bills

Defense Budget Tutorial #3A: Pork: Where is it?

In an abrupt reversal of policy, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has returned $700,000 in federal clean-up funds that had been earmarked for cleaning up the Anaconda Mine at Yerington, Nevada, according to agency documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).   As a result, a large infusion of money that would have been used in Nevada to address spreading contamination and radiation at the abandoned mine was never spent.

The turn-about reflected the agency’s decision to accept a much more modest clean-up plan being offered by the mine’s owner, the Atlantic Richfield Company (now owned by British Petroleum).  As late as the summer of 2004, BLM was urgently requesting supplemental funding from a pool called the Central Hazardous Materials Fund (CHF) because the Yerington mine site “is of great concern, as evidence of the potential risk to human health and the environment from identified contaminants of concern found at the site is mounting,” according to one internal memo.  

Just months later, in an email dated November 29, 2004, Robert Kelso, BLM’s lead official for its hazardous waste program in Nevada wrote:

“Because of political pressures, BLM punted away timely, guaranteed protections for Nevadans,” stated PEER General Counsel Richard Condit.  “BLM gave away a bird in the hand for a promise by an oil company that it would finally take some responsibility for the site.”

PEER obtained the documents in preparing for a whistleblower hearing on behalf of BLM’s own former manager overseeing the cleanup of the Anaconda Mine, Earle Dixon.  Dixon was terminated in October 2004, shortly before BLM decided to return the money.  PEER is assisting Dixon’s lead counsel, Mick Harrison, in prosecuting the claim, which goes to hearing February 7th in Reno.

The foregone federal funds came from a central account made of payments collected by the Department of Interior from polluters of federal lands. Moreover, any expenditures from CHF would ultimately be reimbursed by responsible polluters, such as Atlantic Richfield when it took over the Yerington Mine.
In fact, BLM policy “is to use CHF funding to the maximum extent in order to help alleviate the shortage of funding for study and clean-up of sites contaminated with hazardous substances,” according to a 2000 BLM Instruction Memorandum to all of its state offices.

The Anaconda Mine, an abandoned copper mine, covers more than 3,600 acres where acid run-off and waste rock containing low levels of uranium, thorium and other exposed metals have been disposed in unlined ponds.  According to legal filings, Dixon was dismissed for pursuing worker safety, radiation, and pollution violations as well as calling attention to a number of problems that were not addressed because they would drive up remediation costs.  

“The upcoming hearing will establish that BLM was not acting in good faith to secure environmental compliance at the site to protect workers and the people of Nevada,” added Mick Harrison.  “The agency’s files and witness statements show that shortly after Mr. Dixon secured the necessary federal funds to assess known and potential releases of contaminants from the Yerington Mine, he was fired and all six BLM staff  members who supported proper clean-up at the site were also removed from the project.”

###

Read the Kelso memo directing the return of $700,000 in federal clean-up funds for Nevada  

View the 2004 request from BLM for supplemental clean-up monies that were later returned

Look at Earle Dixon’s whistleblower complaint

For the first time, the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, the federal
agency that is supposed to protect whistleblowers and enforce merit
rules in the federal civil service, is declining to identify the number
of cases where it obtained a favorable outcome.  Consequently, it
is impossible to tell if anyone is being helped by the agency,
according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), which is calling attention to the discrepancy in the agency’s latest report that was filed last week.

Ironically, the OSC report for Fiscal Year 2005 was compiled pursuant
to the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 but it omits the
key measure of its results.  The stated rationale for this
omission is also puzzling:

    “In order to avoid presupposition of the existence
of violations, and to eliminate the possibility of   
 creating bias toward prosecuting non-meritorious cases,
quantified goals concerning Favorable     Actions are
not used.”

“This is like a district attorney refusing to say what his conviction
rate is for fear of creating bias against criminals,” stated PEER
Executive Director Jeff Ruch, whose organization has been critical of
the track record of the Bush-appointed Special Counsel Scott
Bloch.  “Amazingly, Bloch’s 77-page report on his results in the
previous year contains almost zero substantive information about what
he accomplished.”

Prior OSC reports listed the number of favorable actions, such as
re-instatement or reversal of a disciplinary action, including the
percentage obtained in whistleblower cases.  The numbers of
favorable outcomes for complainants, however, showed a dramatic
drop-off under Bloch during his first year and are not reported at all
in the latest report covering Bloch’s second year in office:

“Given his disastrous trend, no wonder Scott Bloch wants to stop
releasing actual numbers,” Ruch added, pointing to record numbers of
federal employees who are blowing the whistle since George W. Bush
became president but with diminishing results produced by the Office of
Special Counsel in these cases.

Bloch has also stopped reporting numbers for successful mediation
outcomes.  Last year, Bloch forced the head of the highly-regarded
Mediation Unit to resign to avoid a forced relocation to an office in
Detroit that Bloch attempted to create.  The Detroit office fiasco
is just one of several Bloch missteps that are part of a retaliation
complaint filed by remaining OSC employees against Bloch.

The Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (also known as GPRA)
was a Newt Gingrich-era “reform” that was supposed to hold “federal
agency agencies accountable for achieving program results,” according
to its preamble.  In reality, the annual reports have become
meaningless paper exercises that are rarely used in the shrinking
number of Congressional oversight hearings.

“As Scott Bloch has proven, an agency can file a tuna sandwich as its GPRA report and nothing will happen,” Ruch concluded.

If I see wrongdoing in my agency (especially with the new personnel system coming) I would challenge it. If I have been threatened by management or seen others harshly dealt with for expressing concern at mistreatment then I might even challenge them outside the official chain of command.

I read a very distressing story yesterday about 11 FAA employees who were fired and later reinstated on appeal. It seems that the real reason for the terminations (this came from a witness who was actually testifying on behalf of the FAA) was to bring about a change in culture.

This sounds like a code word for being out of step with the personnel system. The arbitrator found no reason to question their job performance nor was any reference to their job performance made in the reason for termination.

This kind of abuse of authority concerns me deeply.

What individual or even group of individuals would have the courage to stand up and confront that kind of intimidation?

Firing 11 employees in the same area for no good reason should have raised red flags all the way up the management chain - unless the instruction to use this intimidative tactic originated from the top. — Joe

Maybe more people would show up at the polls if their money were on the line — as if it isn't already?!?

Just six days after hearing oral arguments, the new Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court this week handed down a unanimous though unsigned ruling in a major campaign finance case from 2003, Wisconsin Right to Life v the Federal Election Commission.In their opinion, the Court ordered the three-judge Federal District Court to consider the merits of the plaintiff group, which argued that their right to petition the government had been violated when a grass-roots campaign ad they wanted to run violated the McCain-Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002.  McCain-Feingold prohibits ads within 60 days of an election if one of the candidates is mentioned. 
The ruling, which came as a surprise to court watchers and those on both sides of the campaign finance debate, could invite a rehearing by a very different Supreme Court. The 2003 decision followed the 4-4 with Sandra Day O'Connor breaking the deadlock. 
Always the best on the court: Linda Greenhouse's story can be found at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/24/politics/politicsspecial1/24donate.html

Dr. Jonathan Fishbein of Potomac, MD has been reinstated to his job as
special assistant to the deputy director of the National Institute of
Allergy and Infectious Diseases.  He had been fired July 1, 2005
after filing several complaints against the division and its
management, including intimidation and sexual harrassment complaints of
Fishbein's employees against Jonathan Kagan, the deputy director of the
division.

You couldn’t be more correct, my dear anonymous one. You noted: "So there must be some distinguishing between truly courageous whistleblowing and self-serving tattling. How to distinguish those two, I don’t know, but in public discussion of whistleblowing, you certainly don’t hear about any kind of distinction between these two types and that is not helpful."

Where do such public discussions occur? In the court room? If so, could this be related to recent complaints about Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito being unsympathetic to the little guy? Maybe Alito and others in his courtrom deemed a complainant or two to be the "lackluster alcoholic ‘whistleblower’" you described.

Ah, how to be certain? I guess we can’t. I suspect even if all of us were in a courtroom when such matters were being evaluated, we probably wouldn’t achieved unanimity in determining whether or not the whistleblower was worthy of protection.

Fred Apelquist, contributing editor