All Things Whistleblower: A GAP Blog

Food Safety Spotlight

There was a ton of food safety-related newspaper articles appearing today and over the weekend. While this has been a hot button topic for some time now, the increasing coverage means that more consumers are rightfully questioning the history, naturalness, and integrity of the food they consume. This isn’t just specific kinds of food, either – the breadth of food type where concerns are looming is wide. Consider these stories from just the last couple of days:

• American shrimp producers are pressuring the FDA to increase inspections of foreign shrimp, thought of as being inferior and possibly unsafe
• Some doctors are asserting that the natural sugar found in organic baby formula may have detrimental health effects
• Safety concerns about produce have led to a spike in demand for locally grown food
• Numerous factors, including diet and food quality, have led to an explosion of childhood obesity levels

-- Dylan Blaylock

Clarifications regarding media reports about Ismail Ahmed

Various media outlets have recently reported that GAP whistleblower Ismail Ahmed suffered retaliation after alerting authorities to the United Nations Development Program’s (UNDP) support of a company with links to Islamic militants in Somalia. This is misleading.

Dr. Ahmed was subject to retaliation after providing evidence of corruption involving KPMG and the Somalia country office of UNDP. He tried to alert UNDP to this apparent wrongdoing three times:

• On March 2006, through UNDP’s Fraud Hotline
• In October 2006, to UNDP country office management
• In November 2007, to the UNDP Administrator, with copy to UNDP’s Office of Audit and Investigations (OAI)

The retaliation against Dr. Ahmed began after his October 2006 disclosure and is ongoing.

In April 2008, Dr. Ahmed gave a much more extensive dossier – which contained information about UNDP’s alleged support of a company with suspected links to militant Islamic organizations – to a unit within the United Nations Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS). Dr. Ahmed has not provided UNDP with a complete version of this dossier, which documents the extent of the retaliation he faced and corruption he witnessed, because he made his disclosure externally to OIOS in order to prevent possible destruction of evidence inside UNDP. Dr. Ahmed had reason to believe that an attempt to destroy evidence would be made by specific individuals inside UNDP because this had in fact occurred after his October 2006 disclosure. Although Dr. Ahmed notified OIOS and the UNDP Somalia country office management of his concerns regarding UNDP’s support of a company with suspected links to terrorist organizations, he did not submit his evidence of these links to OAI.

-- Shelley Walden

Whistleblower Week Events Kick Off Today

This week marks the second year of annual events and conferences aimed at raising awareness of whistleblower issues in Washington, D.C. GAP is sponsoring six forums and/or panels during this time period. These include the topics of:

-- Secret Domestic Surveillance
-- Are We Safe When We Fly?: Addressing Issues of Aviation Safety & Security
-- Scientific Freedom & the Public Good
-- Joint Congressional Forum: Congress at the Crossroads for Your Rights
-- Forum on the Office of Special Counsel
-- From Immunity to Impunity: Whistleblowers at International Organizations

For a complete agenda of panelists, time and location, check out this GAP press release.

-- Dylan Blaylock
 

The Morning After

Yesterday, federal agents raided the Office of the Special Counsel (OSC) and the home of Special Counsel Scott Bloch, confiscating numerous computers and file data. OSC is the agency in charge of protecting federal whistleblowers from improper retaliation. GAP and other whistleblower organizations have long been critical of Bloch, accusing him of abusing his powers and not truly advocating for whistleblower rights.

While FBI spokesman would not publicly state what the nature of the raid was, Bloch has been under severe scrutiny since last November when he hired an outside service, Geeks On Call, to erase an unknown amount of information from OSC computers. Bloch has been investigated by the Office of Personnel Management’s IG over allegations that Bloch “retaliated against career employees and obstructed an investigation.”

Employees at OSC have been asked to appear next week before a grand jury about “possible obstruction of justice and destruction of federal records during an investigation.” From the LA Times:

“The Bush administration has been unable to make up its mind whether to ignore him or to act against him,” said Tom Devine, legal director for the Government Accountability Project, a whistle-blower advocacy group. “Mr. Bloch is finally being held accountable for the same cover-ups that he is supposed to be policing. It is a very positive step.”

-- Dylan Blaylock

FBI Agents Raid Office of Special Counsel

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that “more than a dozen” FBI agents served grand jury subpoenas this morning while searching the U.S. Office of Special Counsel and the home of Special Counsel Scott Bloch. According to the Journal, OSC employees say the raid is in connection with allegations of obstruction of justice by Bloch, who in 2006 used a computer service, Geeks on Call, to completely erase his work computer's hard drive. Bloch asked the company to eradicate his computer’s files as he was being investigated by the Office of Personnel Management Inspector General in connection with a complaint submitted by a group of anonymous OSC employees, GAP, the Project On Government Oversight, and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.

Last week, attorney Debra Katz, who represents the groups and the anonymous OSC employees, sent a comprehensive summary of Bloch’s abuses during his tenure to President Bush, and called on the President to use his authority to remove the Special Counsel “for cause.”

-- Adam Miles 

Folsom's Replacement

The World Bank has selected a new director for its Department of Institutional Integrity (INT), the Bank office charged with investigating internal corruption. The new director, Leonard McCarthy, previously served as the head of South Africa’s “Scorpion” investigative unit, which has brought numerous corruption charges against various African officials.

McCarthy will replace Suzanne Rich Folsom, a former close aide of Paul Wolfowitz, who announced her resignation in January. GAP released a report last September detailing how Folsom’s dual positions as INT Director and Counselor to the President were a blatant conflict of interest, among other serious issues at the department.

-- Dylan Blaylock

First Salmon, Now Right Whales

For over one year, the White House has been blocking a speed-limit rule for ships in some waters where the endangered right whale is found. The rule is meant to protect the species, but the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has been battling with the Vice President’s office over the rule’s institution for the last 14 months.

Cheney’s office continually asserts the rule is not needed, completely opposing scientific consensus on the matter. It is believed that the loss of one pregnant female right whale, whose total species population is less than 400, “could doom the species,” according to the Washington Post article.

Since the blocking of the rule began, at least three whales have died and two have been seriously wounded by ships.

The story is based on documents released by the Union of Concerned Scientists, an environmental group GAP often teams up with. A NOAA scientist sent that group evidence of the back-and-forth struggle between the agency and Vice President’s office.

-- Dylan Blaylock

Major Analysis Rails Factory Farming

A new thorough, 2½ year-analysis from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Pew Charitable Trusts concludes that factory farming “takes a big hidden toll on human health and the environment.”

Specifically, the report details how the amount of human illness is greatly increased by the use of antibiotics in feedlots, and that the environment is at risk due to “animal waste too intensely concentrated to be neutralized by natural processes,” according to the Washington Post.

Normally, with a report like this, corporate agricultural representatives would criticize it for a lack of thoroughness in some aspect, effectively creating doubt. But it’s difficult to do in this case. From the Post:

Several observers said the report, by experts with varying backgrounds and allegiances, is remarkable for the number of tough recommendations that survived the grueling research and review process, which participants said was politically charged and under constant pressure from powerful agricultural interests.

In the end, however, even industry representatives on the panel agreed to such controversial recommendations as a ban on the nontherapeutic use of antibiotics in farm animals -- a huge hit against veterinary pharmaceutical companies -- a phaseout of all intensive confinement systems that prevent the free movement of farm animals, and more vigorous enforcement of antitrust laws in the increasingly consolidated agricultural arena.

The report concludes by urging…

stronger reporting requirements for companies and a phaseout and then ban on antibiotics in farm animals except as treatments for disease, a policy already initiated in some European countries.Let’s hope this important study and its recommendations are followed through on.

-- Dylan Blaylock

Same Old Story

This clip from the CBS Evening News details how a new report by the Government Accountability Office (Congress’s Investigatory Arm) has found that significant political influence has been exerted by Bush administration officials on EPA scientific reports, staff, and processes. Specifically, the administration has slowed and convoluted the EPA’s chemical risk-assessment program, “to the point that the health of millions of Americans could be endangered.”

Much like a GAP-Union of Concerned Scientists report that came out last year detailing wide-scale political interference by the administration with the work of climate scientists (which boils down to increasing the human risk posed by climate change), this report shows the administration is politicizing other scientific departments (in this case, increasing American risk from toxic chemical exposure).

-- Dylan Blaylock

One Whistleblower's Long Journey

This excellent Associated Press article details one whistleblower’s long legal battle with the bank he was fired from for refusing to approve financial statements. His firing, in 2002, continues its legal battle today.

The piece does an excellent job in illustrating: how long and tedious whistleblower legal battles can be; how loopholes in the Sarbanes-Oxley corporate whistleblower law were immediately sought-after by corporations and the Bush administration in 2002; and overall, why stronger protections, such as the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act, are needed today.

-- Dylan Blaylock