Temat: WHISTLEBLOWER NEWS 2014 – 01

WHISTLEBLOWER NEWS 2014 – 01

Below is a recap of the top whistleblower news in 2013.

January: Deutsche Bank Whistleblower Exposes Multi-Billion Dollar Violations

In December 2012, GAP client and financial whistleblower Dr. Eric Ben-Artzi chose to publicly come forward with his evidence of multi-billion dollar securities violations at Deutsche Bank, the world’s largest international investment firm. Articles have shown that the Bank hid up to $12 billion in losses and that independent university experts have backed Ben-Artzi’s allegations.

April: Deadly Dispersants in the Gulf
Findings indicate that a barrage of devastating illnesses and disturbing environmental travesties were the result of BP trying to cover up damage rather than solve the problem, and that the federal government allowed the company to do so.

The dispersant Corexit supposedly dissipates oil by spreading it out over huge expanses of sea, with BP often drawing an absurd comparison to “Dawn dishwashing soap.” It has since been revealed that the Corexit-oil mixture is actually 50 times more toxic than crude oil alone. GAP’s report, found many serious issues, including: misrepresentation of seafood safety results, alarming levels of Corexit exposure linked to kidney damage and other health issues, widespread damage to coral reefs, and retaliation against workers who insisted on wearing respirators during the cleanup.

April: Whistleblower's Case Demonstrates Utter Lack of UN Peacekeeping Accountability
In 2007, James Wasserstrom worked as a senior official for the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) when he alleged corruption by senior staff and was harshly retaliated against for doing so. In 2008, his attorney filed a case with the UN Dispute Tribunal (UNDT), and four years later the court sided with Wasserstrom, calling his treatment “appalling.” Unfortunately, earlier this year, through a UN Tribunal System damages ruling, Wasserstrom was left much worse off financially than if he had simply remained silent. His case is symbolic of the United Nations’ dismal track record of protecting whistleblowers.

June – Present: GAP Stands with Snowden
In June, citizens of the world bore witness to one of the most important whistleblowing disclosures since Daniel Ellsberg’s release of the Pentagon Papers: the NSA’s blanket dragnet surveillance on hundreds of millions of American citizens and foreigners through vast networks of secret data-mining programs. At the center of the debate, at least initially, was the government’s secret collection of citizens’ email and phone metadata, online user data and search records. Subjects of these wide-scale sweeps include regular Americans who are under no suspicion of any wrongdoing. The disclosures were a vindication of what NSA whistleblowers and GAP clients Thomas Drake, Bill Binney and J. Kirk Wiebe have said for years.

Edward Snowden – the whistleblower behind the disclosures – worked as an infrastructure analyst for NSA contractor Booz Allen Hamilton at the time he came forward. Regular eNewsletter readers are familiar with his amazing list of disclosures. In the days after he publicly identified himself as the source, GAP released a statement on Snowden detailing (among other points) that he is unquestionably a whistleblower, that pervasive surveillance does not meet the standard for classified information, and that the public has a constitutional right to know how the government is conducting domestic surveillance. Many of these sentiments are shared by the New York Times in a masthead editorial.

July: Successful Defeat of Ag Gag Bills in 2013

September – October: Third 'American Whistleblower Tour' Launched

December: Military Whistleblower Protection Act (MWPA) Overhaul Enacted
Last month, both the House and Senate passed the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014, which included a much-needed overhaul of the discredited Military Whistleblower Protection Act (MWPA) of 1988. The legislation reflects a bipartisan consensus between House and Senate negotiators, a rare mandate for reform in this Congress.

See: http://www.whistleblower.org/