All Things Whistleblower: A GAP Blog

Bush-Era Climate Policy Fiasco Revisted

The following op/ed was written by GAP President Louis Clark. It will appear in many outlets across the country, including the Register Citizen (Litchfield, CT).

In late October, lawyers Allan Zabel and Laurie Williams exercised their First Amendment right of free speech when they posted a YouTube video criticizing the proposed cap-and-trade emissions program. But the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which has employed both Zabel and Williams for 20 years, ordered them to take it down and remove from it mention of their work experience.

Zabel and Williams made it quite clear that their views were their own, and didn’t represent the views of the agency. In mentioning their work experience, they were doing no more than establishing their personal and professional identities—which is the right of all citizens to do. The EPA’s shocking reaction continues the legacy of notorious Bush-era policies which ruthlessly tried to limit free speech for government workers—especially those addressing climate change.

In 2005 the Bush administration attempted to muzzle Dr. James Hansen, the world’s most famous climate scientist. Hansen, a top NASA scientist, publicly commented on data that convinced him 2005 was one of the hottest years on record. He also drew attention to the Bush administration’s scientific censorship.

As Hansen courageously protested, public affairs offices at certain environmental science-oriented government agencies were imposing strict rules on employees. For example, they required that all media inquiries be referred to public affairs offices, which would then determine which staff could “most appropriately” answer them.

The public affairs offices went so far as to demand that public affairs officials sit in during all interviews with scientists.

Later, a 24-year-old NASA public affairs employee, whose only qualification for his position was that he had volunteered for the 2004 Bush reelection campaign, ordered the renowned Dr. Hansen to shut up and follow the rules or suffer “dire consequences.”

However, the scientist refused to remain silent about the dire consequences of climate change. When the official was found to have lied on his resume about having a college degree, the absurdity of such an under-qualified neophyte ordering a courageous, world-famous public servant to suppress his views became obvious even to the Bush administration.

NASA quickly backed down, largely reworking its policy and forcing the public affairs employee to resign.

At the same time, the EPA, which had established a similar gag on its employees, refused to reconsider its policy, and it still stands today—despite the rhetoric of a memorandum from its top administrator indicating a new day had arrived at the agency.

A few days ago, EPA managers apparently relied on this Bush-era public affairs relic to force Zabel and Williams to withdraw their video.

Simply put, by accepting government employment, federal employees shouldn’t be forced to give up their First Amendment freedoms, their safeguards under whistleblower protection laws, their freedom to communicate with Congress, or their rights under anti-gag legislation that protect them from government officials who abuse their authority.

On all four counts, the EPA actions against the San Francisco attorneys break the law.

Global Warming Effects Worse than Anticipated Since Kyoto

An extremely troubling article by the Associated Press has spelled out how the effects of global warming have been much, much worse than expected since the signing of the Kyoto agreement in 1997. From the AP, here are some of the serious problems:

• The world's oceans have risen by about an inch and a half.
• Droughts and wildfires have turned more severe worldwide, from the U.S. West to Australia to the Sahel desert of North Africa.
• Species now in trouble because of changing climate include, not just the lumbering polar bear which has become a symbol of global warming, but also fragile butterflies, colorful frogs and entire stands of North American pine forests.
• Temperatures over the past 12 years are 0.4 of a degree warmer than the dozen years leading up to 1997.

The primary culprit here, at least according to the article, is the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Since December 1997, when the Kyoto agreement was signed, the “level of carbon dioxide in the air has increased 6.5 percent.” Plus, since that time, the overall amount of emissions of CO2 has shot up by 31 percent.

The Senate debate on the “climate bill” was just announced by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to be delayed until at least next spring – taking a backseat to health care.

Army Corps Found Liable For Katrina Damage

A federal judge has ruled that the Army Corps of Engineers is liable for “gross negligence” in maintaining key navigation channels in New Orleans prior to Hurricane Katrina – negligence which resulted in the catastrophic levee breaches that killed well over one thousand Americans.

While this has immediate ramifications for a small group of individuals that brought the claim, it also opens the door for future, probably massive, lawsuits. From the LA Times:

[The judge] awarded a total of $719,000 to a small group of flood victims that sued the government in April 2006.

But according to Pierce O'Donnell, the lead plaintiff's counsel, roughly 100,000 New Orleans-area residents and businesses who have filed flood-damage claims with the Army corps were now potentially eligible for payment.

The piece continues, providing what may become the accepted stance on how Katrina will be viewed in the future:

In a phone interview, O'Donnell hailed what he called a historic ruling, one that backed the widely held contention in New Orleans that the 2005 catastrophe was not just the fault of Mother Nature.

"The judge agreed with us that Katrina was not a natural disaster," O'Donnell said. "Katrina was a man-made disaster caused by the Army Corps of Engineers."

The New York Times also agrees with this synopsis:

It was the first time that the government has been held liable for any of the flooding that inundated the New Orleans area after Aug. 29, 2005, vindicating the long-held contention of many in the region that the flooding was far more than an act of God.

This blatant substandard and shoddy work produced by the Army Corps involving Katrina issues is no surprise to GAP. GAP client Maria Garzino, a Army Corps mechanical and civil engineer, twice was substantiated (most recently in August) by a government agency regarding her claims that the hydraulic pumps installed in New Orleans by the Corps after Hurricane Katrina are faulty and will not work in the event of future hurricanes.

Therefore, the Army Corps failed to safeguard New Orleans in the event of a hurricane prior to Katrina, and they’re failing to safeguard New Orleans from a future hurricane.  

GAP Findings Reinforced by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

During a recent trip to Brazil, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay noted that Afro-Brazilians and indigenous groups face serious discrimination and are “mired in poverty.”

The High Commissioner’s comments echo those made by GAP in a recently released report about discrimination against Afro-Latinos and indigenous peoples in Latin America and the failure of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) – the most important multilateral lender to Latin America – to address it. GAP’s report found that:

In Brazil, differences in income by race are dramatic: nearly 70 percent of the extremely poor in Brazil are Afro-Latino, and Afro-Latinos earn 44 percent less than their white counterparts. The same pattern prevails in neighboring Colombia, where 80 percent of Afro-Colombians live in conditions of extreme poverty. (p. 10)

Commissioner Pillay noted the continued marginalization of indigenous and Afro-Latino groups in Brazil. She said that most of Brazil’s indigenous people, “are not benefiting from the country’s impressive economic progress, and are being held back by discrimination and indifference, chased out of their lands and into forced labour.”

Similarly, GAP’s report found that Afro-Latinos and indigenous peoples – which together make up more than 40 percent of the population of Latin America and a majority of the region’s poor – are significantly underrepresented in IDB operations and projects designed to address poverty. Data released by the IDB show that the institution allocated a paltry 0.13 percent ($58.3 million) of its total lending and grants (approximately $45 billion) between 2001 and 2005 to projects that incorporated components benefiting Afro-Latino and indigenous communities directly.

Sen. Levin: UBS-U.S. Settlement on Tax Havens is "Tortured"

This post was written by GAP Homeland Security Director Jesselyn Radack for her Daily Kos Blog.

Today's Washington Post has an article on exactly what I got slammed for writing yesterday; namely, that the UBS-Swiss settlement was no "bargain." For those of you who say I need to get my facts straight, maybe you'll believe the MSM Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

Annually, the treasury loses over $100 billion in revenue due to illegal offshore tax havens.  UBS, Switzerland's largest bank, admitted that for years it helped thousands of American clients hide billions of dollars from the IRS.

Yesterday, the IRS revealed the criteria for the lame settlement of a civil lawsuit in which the U.S. sought the names of 52,000 UBS tax cheats.

I explained why this was lame, http://www.dailykos.com/....  Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich) agrees:

The tortured wording and the many limitations in this annex [to the settlement agreement] shows the Swiss government trying to preserve as much bank secrecy as it can for the future, while pushing to conceal the names of tens of thousands of suspected U.S. tax cheats. . . It is disappointing that the government went along.

Incompetence #1: The U.S. sought the names of 52,000 tax dodgers and settled for 4,500--fewer than 10%

Incompentence #2: They knew back in June 2007, courtesy of whistleblower Brad Birkenfeld, that there were 19,000 undisclosed accounts.

Incompetence #3: If your Swiss bank account was under $1 million, you're off the hook.  

Incompetence # 4: If you voluntarily disclosed your Swiss bank account under the IRS "Amnesty" (the IRS's words, not mine) Program, then you will not face criminal liability.

Incompetence #5: The government underfined the bank.

Incompetence # 6: The government indicts people like Raoul Weil in show maneuvers, knowing he won't be extradited.

Incompetence #7: The U.S. had UBS kingpin Martin LIEchti in its claws back in April 2008 and released him back to Switzerland, scot-free.

Incompetence #8: The whistleblower, Brad Birkenfeld, who in the words of prosecutor Kevin Downing, we would have had no other means to have learned what was going on but for an insider in that scheme providing detailed information, which Mr. Birkenfeld did, is the ONLY one going to jail in this whole scandal.

Breaking Justice Dept. Corruption in Birkenfeld Case: U.S. Gave UBS Kingpin Immunity

This post was written by GAP Homeland Security Director Jesselyn Radack for her Daily Kos Blog.

It's gone from bad to worse.  I've written previously about how Brad Birkenfeld, the whistleblower who shattered 75 years of Swiss bank secrecy, is the only one going to jail in this multi-billion dollar scandal.  But now my dyspepsia has turned to projectile vomiting.  I have asked in previous diaries why, when the U.S. had UBS kingpin Martin Liechti in its claws, it set him scot-free back to Switzerland.

Well, we now know why.  Consistent with a disturbing trend, the United States granted the worse of the worst immunity, and is imprisoning not just a bit player, but the whistleblower... and an American.

If you don't know about financial whistleblower Brad Birkenfeld already, then I recommend you watch this:

In Le Temps today, Switzerland's leading daily newspaper, http://www.bilan.ch/...
it states that Martin Liechti received immunity.  I know it is in French, but the relevant part translates as follows:

Despite incriminating documents pointing to LEICHTI, he was granted immunity.

But the U.S. would have had nothing on Liechti (as evidenced by the fact that it searched his place some five years ago and couldn't make a case), but for Brad Birkenfeld, who blew the whistle on Liechti and other top UBS executives.

So, it is especially shocking to find that the U.S. granted immunity to Liechti, the mastermind, when it wouldn't grant immunity to Birkenfeld, and actually prosecuted him!  

There is no justice.  What can you do?  Watch the YouTube video, rate it, and post a comment.  Spread this wretched story.

FDA: No Regulation of Online Drug Facts

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is on the second day of a two-day hearing to discuss the possible regulation of online marketing by drug companies. The FDA has strict rules on print and television advertising, but so far has not developed similar rules for internet marketing and social media.

Many at the hearing agreed much of the drug information available online is not adequately regulated, including on popular websites like Wikipedia and Drugs.com. Bias is also a problem, the hearing concluded, especially on sites like Twitter than limit the amount of language allowed.

The hearing comes after the FDA sent letters to more than a dozen drugmakers, including behemoths Eli Lilly and Merck, warning them that their online advertising was misleading because it did not contain warnings or risk information.