History shows that federal agencies are prone to be dismissive of whistleblower complaints. Nevertheless, it’s shocking to read that the Comptroller of the Currency, the federal banking regulator, failed to investigate 700 whistleblower complaints about fraudulent Wells Fargo practices, an…
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Our Hero in Flint
Story by Tom Nugent and Laura Silverman Published in the September 2016 issue of At Buffalo (SUNY at Buffalo). Re-published with permission When civil engineer Marc Edwards (BS ’86) warned Michigan state officials and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that lead-contaminated drinking water…
Oliver Stone’s “Snowden,” a bridge for the national divide
With the political campaign season over, now is a good time to see (or see again) “Snowden,” Oliver Stone’s powerful film about a whistleblower disclosure that rocked the world. Information provided in the film is essential to understanding issues likely…
Congress awaits TSA explanation for whistleblower’s treatment
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform wants an explanation from the Transportation Security Agency for its treatment of Robert MacLean, whose disclosure foiled TSA plans to pull air marshals off long distance commercial flights after the 9/11…
Julian Assange “arbitrarily detained” by UK and Sweden a UN panel concludes
The United Nations’ Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) today released an opinion that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange “was arbitrarily detained by the Governments of Sweden and the United Kingdom” and is therefore”entitled to his freedom of movement and to…
North Carolinians welcome truth-tellers
North Carolinians gave truth-tellers a good reception last week in Asheville, Raleigh, Fayetteville, Chapel Hill, Greensboro and Durham. John Kiriakou, the former CIA operative who exposed torture of terrorism suspects at Guantanamo prison, spoke to a standing-room-only crowd at North Carolina…
OSHA fires investigator who stood up for whistleblowers
In February, an investigator with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s Whistleblower Protection Program publicly disclosed through NBC Bay Area News that managers were pressuring investigators to dismiss whistleblower complaints without adequate review. The investigator, Darrell Whitman, took his concerns to senior agency…
“Ag-gag” law violates free speech rights of whistle-blowers, rules federal judge
A federal judge declared unconstitutional Monday an anti-whistleblower law in Idaho that criminalized audiovisual recordings of agricultural production facilities. In the decision, Chief District Judge B. Lynn Winmill wrote that Idaho Code § 18-7042 “not only restricts more speech than necessary, it…
The law NSA used to justify bulk collection of phone records has expired; now what?
Glenn Greenwald: As Bulk NSA Spying Expires, Scare Tactics Can’t Stop “Sea Change” on Surveillance Published by Democracy Now!, Republished under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Too connected to jail? David Petraeus gets probation and fine for leak
Last week’s sentencing of former Central Intelligence Agency Director and retired four-star general David Petraeus demonstrated a glaring disparity in federal leak prosecutions.