ACLU - Suppressing Government Whistleblowers lyrics

B. Suppressing Government Whistleblowers The FBI has a notorious record of retaliating against FBI employees who report misconduct or abuse in the FBI and has used aggressive leak investigations to suppress other government whistleblowers. Congress exempted the FBI from the requirements of the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989 and instead required the Justice Department to establish an internal system to protect FBI employees who report waste, fraud, abuse, and illegality. Still, FBI Director Robert Mueller repeatedly vowed to protect Bureau whistleblowers: I issued a memorandum on November 7th [2001] reaffirming the protections that are afforded to whistleblowers in which I indicated I will not tolerate reprisals or intimidation by any Bureau employee against those who make protected disclosures, nor will I tolerate attempts to prevent employees from making such disclosures.180 Yet court cases and investigations by the Justice Department Office of Professional Responsibility and Inspector General have repeatedly found that FBI officials continue to retaliate against FBI employees who publicly report internal misconduct, including Michael German, 181 Sibel Edmonds,182 Jane Turner,183Robert Wright,184 John Roberts,185 and Ba**em Youssef.186 Other FBI whistleblowers choose to suffer retaliation in silence. Special Agent Chad Joy courageously blew the whistle on a senior FBI agent's serious misconduct during the investigation and prosecution of Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, which resulted in the trial judge overturning the conviction against him, but only after the senator had lost re-election. 187 Special Agent Joy was publicly criticized by his then-retired supervisor, subjected to a retaliatory investigation, and then taken off criminal cases.188 Joy resigned and no longer works at the FBI, while the FBI agent responsible for the misconduct in the Stevens' case continues to be a**igned high-profile investigations—a clear sign that the FBI culture continues to protect agents involved in misconduct more than those who report it.189 These high-profile cases of whistleblower retaliation discourage other FBI personnel from coming forward. A 2009 Inspector General report found that 28 percent of non-supervisory FBI employees and 22 percent of FBI supervisors at the GS-14 and GS-15 levels “never” report misconduct they see or hear about on the job.190 That such a high percentage of officials in the government's premiere law enforcement agency refuse to report internal misconduct is shocking and dangerous and perpetuates the risk that Americans like Sen. Stevens will continue to be victimized by overzealous investigations and prosecutions. The FBI has also been involved in suppressing other government whistleblowers through inappropriately aggressive leak investigations. For example, when the U.S. media reported in 2005 that the National Security Agency (NSA) was spying on Americans' communications without warrants in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the FBI didn't launch an investigation to enforce the law's criminal provisions. It instead went after the whistleblowers, treating leaks to the American public about government malfeasance as espionage.191 After more than a year of aggressive investigation and interviews, armed FBI agents conducted coordinated raids on the homes of four former NSA and Justice Department officials and a House Intelligence Committee staffer, treating them as if they were dangerous Mafiosi instead of dedicated federal employees who held the government's highestsecurity clearances. William Binney, who served more than 30 years in the NSA, described an FBI agent pointing a gun at his head as he stepped naked from the shower.192 The only prosecution, alleging Espionage Act violations against the NSA's Thomas Drake, collapsed at trial in 2011, and the government's methods earned a stern rebuke from Judge Richard D. Bennett: I don't think that deterrence should include an American citizen waiting two and a half years after their home is searched to find out if they're going to be indicted or not. I find that unconscionable...It was one of the most fundamental things in the Bill of Rights that this country was not to be exposed to people knocking on the door with government authority and coming into their homes. And when it happens, it should be resolved pretty quickly, and it sure as heck shouldn't take two and a half years before someone's charged after that event.193 The deterrence effect from such enforcement activity isn't felt just by the person ultimately charged, however, or even those searched but never charged. The FBI's aggressive investigations of whistleblowers send a clear message to other federal employees that reporting government wrongdoing will risk your career, your financial future, and possibly your freedom. And more FBI leak investigations are resulting in criminal prosecutions than ever before. The Obama administration has prosecuted more government employees for leaking information to media organizations than all other previous administrations combined, often charging them with Espionage Act violations and exposing them to draconian penalties.194 Though leaks of cla**ified information are a common occurrence in Washington, almost invariably these leak prosecutions have targeted federal employees who exposed government wrongdoing or criticized government policy.