Peter Van Buren - Silent State – Washington’s Campaign Against Whistleblowers

On January 23rd, the Obama administration charged former CIA officer John Kiriakou under the Espionage Act for disclosing classified information to journalists about the waterboarding of al-Qaeda suspects. His is just the latest prosecution in an unprecedented assault on government whistleblowers and leakers of every sort.

Kiriakou’s plight will clearly be but one more battle in a broader war to ensure that government actions and sunshine policies don’t go together. By now, there can be little doubt that government retaliation against whistleblowers is not an isolated event, nor even an agency-by-agency practice. The number of cases in play suggests an organized strategy to deprive Americans of knowledge of the more disreputable things that their government does. How it plays out in court and elsewhere will significantly affect our democracy.

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http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175500/

Ed Silverman - Grassley Probes FDA Over Employee Whistleblowers

How does the FDA treat employees who blow the whistle? US Senator Chuck Grassley, a long-standing agency nemesis, wants to know. And so he has written FDA commish Margaret Hamburg to explain the circumstances surrounding a controversial episode in which several current and former agency employees say they were harassed and dismissed after complaining about device reviews to Congress. 

Their charges were contained in a sensational lawsuit filed last month, in which they accused the agency of secretly reading their personal email accounts, while the agency maintained they illegally disclosed confidential business information after writing to Congress to complain they were being coerced to approve devices that posed unacceptable risks (back story).

For instance, the employees, who are all scientists and doctors and worked in the Center for Devices and Radiological Health, charged three devices could have missed signs of detecting breast cancer; one device risked falsely diagnosing osteoporosis, and an ultrasound device could malfunction while monitoring pregnant women in labor.

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http://www.pharmalot.com/2012/02/grassley-probes-fda-over-employee-whistleblowers/

FDA STOMPS ON THE FIRST AMENDMENT: TAKE ACTION

As reported in the Washington Post on January 30, 2012, six current and former FDA employeesare suing to stop the agency from illegally spying on private communications to Congress and otheroversight agencies. The problem began in 2007 when nine scientists and doctors in the Office ofDevice Evaluation complained internally that the FDA was in the process of approving at least twelveradiological devices which were potentially harmful and posed risks to millions of patients. Insteadof investigating the devices, the FDA set up a secret surveillance system to monitor those who hadcomplained. Information illegally gathered from personal email accounts was used to harass thewhistleblowers. The FDA twice asked Health and Human Services to launch an investigation, accusingthe scientists of releasing confidential business information about devices they believed to be unsafe.Of the six scientists who have filed suit against the FDA, two were fired, two did not have their contractsrenewed, and two continue to suffer harassment and have been passed over for promotion.

Stephen Kohn, host of PRN’s Honesty Without Fear: The Whistleblower’s Radio Hour, is one of thelawyers representing the six FDA whistleblowers. Please take action by clicking on the following linkto let the FDA, the President, and your legislators know that the FDA must stop harassing doctors andscientists who are trying to protect Americans from defective and unsafe medical devices: http://www.whistleblowers.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1333.

Michael Hudson - Whistleblowers ignored, punished by lenders, dozens of former employees say

http://www.iwatchnews.org/2011/11/22/7461/whistleblowers-ignored-punished-lenders-dozens-former-employees-say

The Great Mortgage Cover-Up

Darcy Parmer ran into trouble soon after she started her job as a fraud analyst at Wells Fargo Bank. Her bosses, she later claimed, were upset that she was, well, finding fraud.

Company officials, she alleged in a lawsuit, berated her for reporting that sales staffers were pushing through mortgage deals based on made-up borrower incomes and other distortions, telling her that she didn’t “see the big picture” and that “it is not your job to fix Wells Fargo.” Management, she claimed, ordered her to stop contacting the company’s ethics hotline.

In the end, she said, Wells Fargo forced her out of her job.

Parmer isn’t alone in claiming she was punished for objecting to fraud in the midst of the nation’s home-loan boom. iWatch News has identified 63 former employees at 20 financial institutions who say they were fired or demoted for reporting fraud or refusing to commit fraud. Their stories were disclosed in whistleblower claims with the U.S. Department of Labor, court documents or interviews with iWatch News.

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