WhistleblowerSupporter

Whistleblower Stories of Interest #2

Press Release For Immediate Release: Monday, December 5, 2005 Contact: Chas Offutt (202) 265-7337 WHISTLEBLOWERS GET NO HELP FROM BUSH ADMINISTRATION Record Numbers Are Blowing the Whistle but Fewer Cases Investigated Washington, DC — The U.S. Office of Special Counsel, the agency that is supposed to protect federal employees who blow the whistle on waste, fraud and abuse, is dismissing hundreds of cases while advancing almost none, according an analysis of the latest agency figures released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Despite record numbers of federal employees filing whistleblower disclosures and complaints of retaliation, there are fewer investigations and a much greater likelihood that those who blow the whistle will be silenced. Scott Bloch, the Bush appointed Special Counsel has been in office for nearly two years, during which time positive results for whistleblowers have plummeted. Even though the first quarter of FY 2006 is almost over, last week Bloch finally posted his annual report for FY 2004 on the OSC website, without any public announcement and nearly a year late. The overdue report’s contents explain its tardiness: • Less than 1.5% of whistleblower disclosures of problems were even referred for investigation while more than 1,000 employee reports of waste, fraud and abuse were closed by Bloch’s staff on the grounds that they were not worthy of further review; and • Only eight whistleblower disclosures were substantiated (none were found to be unsubstantiated) during Bloch’s first year but, according to the OSC report, the most significant cases involved theft of a desk and attendance violations. “With Scott Bloch at the helm, the Office of Special Counsel is acting as a Plumber’s Unit for the Bush administration, plugging leaks, blocking investigations and discrediting sources,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. “Under Bloch, political appointees, not civil servants, decide which cases go forward and which cases are round filed.” Those whistleblowers who claimed to suffer retaliation for making reports fared even worse: • Favorable outcomes declined sharply (24%) under Bloch even though there were more cases; • The only favorable outcomes were in cases where the offending agency agreed to make changes. In no case did Bloch litigate directly on behalf of a whistleblower; and • More than nine out of ten surveyed employees were dissatisfied with the effectiveness of OSC, with more than three in four classifying themselves as “very dissatisfied.” “If the Special Counsel were a private business it would have to close its doors,” Ruch added, noting that pending reform legislation allows whistleblowers greater freedom to directly advocate their cases. “Bloch’s abysmal performance raises serious questions about whether the Office of Special Counsel should be abolished altogether.” ### See the belated OSC FY 2004 Report to Congress Review the poor track record of Scott Bloch

Ph: (202) 265-7337 • Fax: (202) 265-4192 • email: info@peer.org all content © peer.org 2005

Hundreds of Whistleblower Cases Dismissed Improperly, Group Charges

by Brendan Coyne

Dec. 6, 2005 – Amid growing charges that various federal agencies are acting illegally, the office responsible for investigating many such allegations made by government employees released its 2004 report a year late and with no public announcement.

According to the 2004 report of the United States Office of Special Counsel, only a handful of the nearly 1,200 employee reports of waste, fraud and abuse on the Office?s schedule at the start of 2004 were deemed worthy of further investigation. Of those investigated, the office found only eight to have merit.

The Office received almost 2,000 new complaints during 2004 and referred 244 for investigation, closing 1,799 within 240 days of receiving them, the report noted. There were 653 complaints carried over from 2003.

In a statement released yesterday, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) alleged that Scott Bloch, the office?s head and a political appointee of the Bush administration, has been sweeping serious complaints under the rug at the behest of White House officials. For more than a year, PEER has been attacking Bloch over similar concerns, including charges that he conducted a purge of Special Counsel workers for whistle-blowing activities of their own.

"With Scott Bloch at the helm, the Office of Special Counsel is acting as a plumber?s unit for the Bush administration, plugging leaks, blocking investigations and discrediting sources," PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch said in the statement. "Under Bloch, political appointees, not civil servants, decide which cases go forward and which cases are round filed."

The OSC report begins with two pages of Bloch?s biography and a laundry list of his accomplishments at the helm of the Office.

It does not include information about the controversy surrounding his management of the office. As reported by The NewStandard in April 2004, Bloch first made waves when he decreed that sexual orientation would no longer be considered "protected conduct" for government employees. The move was condemned by lawmakers and, eventually, President Bush. A year later, critics charge, Bloch attempted to orchestrate a virtual purge of the Washington, DC office by forcing senior staffers to transfer to regional branches purportedly created for just that purpose. That move is now under investigation by a separate agency, the Office of Personnel Management.

Of most concern to PEER and the whistleblowers whose complaints went uninvestigated is the fact that Bloch cleared out a huge backlog of complaints, mostly by dismissing investigations without seeking further information from the whistleblower who filed the claim in question, a fact he cited as evidence of the good work the Office of Special Counsel was doing under his command in a letter to Representative Henry Waxman (D-California) earlier this year. PEER obtained and released the letter in February.

© 2005 The NewStandard. All rights reserved. The NewStandard is a non-profit publisher that encourages noncommercial reproduction of its content. Reprints must prominently attribute the author and The NewStandard, hyperlink to http://newstandardnews.net (online) or display newstandardnews.net (print), and carry this notice. For more information or commercial reprint rights, please see the TNS reprint policy.

The NewStandard ceased publishing on April 27, 2007.

OSC Chief Scott Bloch: Coercion of Subordinates

OSC Chief Scott Bloch

Made Subordinates Post

Online Rebuttals to News Stories

[ who impersonated military combat veterans ]

By Dan Friedman

June 13, 2008

Scott Bloch, the embattled head of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, whose office and home federal agents raided last month, has faced a lot of bad publicity. And he evidently doesn't like it.

On many occasions since 2006, Bloch ordered a subordinate to post comments on blogs and in the "comment" sections of online news stories using a pseudonym, current and former OSC employees told CongressDaily.

The postings have defended Bloch against online articles and comments by readers that he has perceived as negative, the sources said.

"That did go on," said a former employee who has been involved in the activity. "Bloch would suggest posting things in the comments section. ... There'd be a negative article about Scott's involvement on something ... and [the] comment would be something like 'This Bloch guy is doing a good job."

Two former OSC employees have gone so far as to describe Bloch as thin-skinned and "obsessed" with his press coverage.

A federal grand jury is investigating whether Bloch obstructed justice by destroying files sought by the Office of Personnel Management's inspector general, who was looking into allegations that Bloch improperly retaliated against OSC employees for opposing his policies.

The former OSC employee familiar with the anonymous postings on Bloch's behalf was recently interviewed by FBI agents gathering evidence for the grand jury probe, but said the agents did not ask about the issue.

Roscoe Howard, an attorney representing Bloch, said Bloch would not comment due to the continuing criminal probe. An OSC spokesman said Bloch was unavailable Thursday.

The former OSC employee, who described the Web posting operation in exchange for anonymity, said such instances might have numbered in "the double digits." Bloch "would be involved in the discussion of what should be said," the employee said.

The employee suggested at least one OSC worker posted comments on the Web sites of such publications as the Washington Post, Topeka Capital-Journal, and the Lawrence Journal World. The two Kansas-based publications have written about Bloch because he is from the state.

In another instance confirmed by CongressDaily, an OSC employee who has not served in the military identified himself as "A Combat Vet" in an online response to a July 13, 2007, article on GovernmentExecutive.com. In the article, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Republicans faulted Bloch for his use of personal e-mail to discuss agency business.

The anonymous posting said news organizations were devoting too little coverage to OSC's enforcement of the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, which bars discrimination against people based on service in the armed services.

"Where is the coverage of USERRA?" the posting asked. "OSC helped my buddy out when he couldn't get his job back, and it doesn't seem like anybody is checking into how it helps veterans. ... Who the hell cares if Bloch sent an email about congresscritters goofing off and playing pattycake. This USERRA issue is a huge deal for us who served. Does anyone give a crap?"

At the time, public affairs officials at OSC, which enforces federal workplace rights, were urging reporters to cover USERRA enforcement cases.

During the hearing described in the article, House Oversight and Government Reform ranking member Tom Davis, citing an e-mail Bloch had sent, accused him of acting inappropriately in distributing to several people news articles about OSC investigations of federal officials.

Davis offered similar criticism Thursday.

"A public official should be accountable to the public." Davis said in a statement. "To secretly use the resources and personnel of his office -- on government time -- to comment on negative press reports is improper and deprives the public of accountability.

"If true, this could constitute an unlawful use of appropriated funds to publish covert propaganda," Davis said. "This is further evidence that Scott Bloch is unfit for his office and should resign, be fired or at least be placed on administrative leave."

Davis added that he would ask House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Henry Waxman "to initiate an investigation into this activity."

http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0608/061308cdam1.htm

Senator John Warner on Whistleblower Protection

This was sent to me recently by someone who had written Senator Warner, very concerned about the lack of functional protections and support for whistleblowers in government and industry.  This person's view is that the current laws are not functioning, particularly in light of the dissembling and disassembling of the Justice Department we have witnessed recently. 

Senator Warner's response sounds good and in fact if I didn't know what I know about how many people have been torpedoed by the system, I might believe it.  But, I am only too aware of what is really happening to whistleblowers who dare to stand up.

Anybody care to write Senator Warner with their own story and experience?  It sounds like he would benefit from the experience.

GFS

*********************************************************************

June 17, 2008

Dear _______________:

            Thank you for contacting me regarding the importance of whistleblower protection for federal employees. I appreciate your thoughtful inquiry.

            As you are aware, federal employees are critical to detecting and preventing fraud, waste, and abuse in the federal government. Whether they work for the federal government or a private corporation, employees must trust that they will be protected from reprisals and that their reports will be considered diligently and acted upon in order for them to be comfortable in their responsibility to report wrongdoing.

            Congress recognized the importance of protecting federal employees against whistleblower retaliation in the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978. The legislation established a merit system for fair and nondiscriminatory treatment of the federal workforce and defined prohibited personnel practices, which included reprisal for whistleblowing.

            For federal employees who believe that they have been subject to whistleblower reprisal, the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) will investigate their complaints and seek corrective action where appropriate. If the federal agency fails to take the necessary corrective action, OSC or the employee may appeal the case to the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) for resolution. Alternatively, federal employees also may file a reprisal complaint directly with MSPB. If a federal employee is dissatisfied with the resolution of a whistleblower reprisal complaint, the employee can file an appeal for review by a federal appeals court.

            In response to the growing problem of discrimination and retaliation against federal employees, I introduced S. 201, the Federal Employee Protection Act of 2001, to make federal agencies more accountable for prohibited personnel practices. On May 15, 2005, the President signed into law the House version of the bill, H.R. 169, the Notification and Federal Employee Antidiscrimination and Retaliation Act of 2002 (PL 107-143).

            The Act required any future settlements or judgments in federal employee discrimination and whistleblower actions must be paid directly from the employing agency's budget. Previously, the associated costs were disbursed from the Judgment Fund, a permanent and indefinite appropriation to pay settlements and judgments against the federal government. Congress established the Fund to prevent the necessity for specific appropriations to cover government legal costs and, in principle, to allow for prompter payment. However, the Judgment Fund discouraged accountability by permitting an agency to shift the cost of resolution from its budget to the Fund and thus escaped the scrutiny associated with a request for a supplemental appropriation.

            To provide additional accountability, the legislation required federal agencies to file an annual report detailing the discrimination and whistleblower cases filed. Specifically, each federal agency is required to file the following information: number of cases filed against them, how the cases were resolved, the amount of any settlements, and the number of agency employee disciplines for discrimination or harassment.

            In the 110th Congress, Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA) introduced H.R. 985, the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2007, to modernize, clarify, and expand the federal employee whistleblower protection laws. In particular, the bill would expand coverage of whistleblower protection to federal employees who specialize in national security issues. On March 14, 2007, the House passed the legislation by a vote of 331 to 94. The bill has been referred to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee for initial consideration in the Senate.

            Please be assured that I will certainly keep your comments as the Senate considers legislation related to whistleblower protection.

            Again, thank you for sharing your views with me.

            With kind regards, I am

                                                            Sincerely,

                                                            John Warner
                                                            United States Senator

JW/hb

Please note this email address does not accept incoming email. Should you wish to share additional views with me, please do not hesitate to visit my website at http://warner.senate.gov/contact/offices.htm; call my office at 202-224-2023; or write to me at United States Senate, Washington, D.C. 20510

Joint GAP?OSC Watch Forum 5-13-08

Government Accountability Project

National Office

1612 K Street, NW Suite #1100 • Washington, D.C. 20006

202.408.0034 • www.whistleblower.org

OSC Watch

11130 Kingston Pike

Suite 1-125

Knoxville, TN 37934

www.oscwatch.org

Joint GAP/OSC Watch Forum at the

International Assembly of Whistleblowers

on Tuesday, May 13, 2008

May 8, 2008

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE            

Contact: Sarah Goldmann, Nat. Campaign Coordinator for Whistleblower Rights

Phone :    202.408.0034 ext 141

Email :     sarahg@whistleblower.org

Contact: Tom Devine, Legal Director

Phone :    202.408.0034 ext 124, 202.888.4080 (cell)

Email :     whistle47@aol.com

Contact: Joe Carson, Chair, OSC Watch Steering Committee

Phone:  865-300-5831

Email:  Joe.Carson@oscwatch.org

(Washington, D.C.) – May 11-16 marks the second year of annual events and conferences aimed at raising awareness of whistleblower issues in Washington, D.C.   < www.internationalassociationofwhistleblowers.org> has  information about the entire Assembly. 

The following event will be available, via a conference call-in line, to a nationwide audience.  The conference call-in number is 218-936-7999 and the participant access code is  495508#.

There may be an additional panelist to discuss the recent FBI raid on OSC officers and the home of Special Counsel Scott Bloch.

Forum on the Office of Special Counsel

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

9:00 a.m. – 9:50 a.m.,

Washington Court Hotel,

525 New Jersey Ave, N.W.

Washington, DC

This forum will focus on the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC), its nondiscretionary duties as an investigatory agency for the laws under its jurisdiction (particularly to protect federal employees from whistleblower reprisal), efforts to spur Congress to perform necessary oversight, and what the recent federal raid on the office means for its future.

Panelists include:

o         Joe Carson, P.E., Nuclear Safety Engineer - DOE.

o         David Nolan, Legal Advisor to OSC Watch Steering Committee.

o         Carol Czarkowski, Former Contracting Officer - Department of Navy

o         Sandalio “Sandy” Gonzalez, Retired Special Agent-in-Charge - DEA. 

Internal OSC Document Shows Bloch Misused Own Task Force

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:  Danielle Brian or Beverley Lumpkin, 202-347-1122

POGO REVEALS INTERNAL OSC DOCUMENT

SHOWS BLOCH MISUSED OWN TASK FORCE

Washington, D.C. - An extraordinary document obtained by the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) from inside the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) reveals that Special  Counsel Scott Bloch created a special task force to investigate sensitive and high-profile matters and then ignored virtually every recommendation made by it.  The document lends support to POGO’s theory that Bloch used the task force to launch an investigation of the White House, issuing demands for documents termed by his own task force as “overly broad,” to create the appearance of a conflict of interest with an ongoing investigation into allegations that Bloch himself had engaged in misconduct.

“With this deeply troubling new evidence of Bloch’s misuse of his office POGO now believes the President has more than ample cause to fire Bloch immediately, said Danielle Brian ,” Executive Director, POGO.

The 13-page memo from the task force, dated January 18, 2008, is entitled “Summary of Task Force Activities and Recommendations.” (http://pogoarchives.org/m/wi/osc-tf-summary-20080118.pdf)  It reveals that Bloch countermanded virtually every recommendation made by his own team; if they recommended pursuing a matter, he ordered them to stop, and if they advised that they lacked either jurisdiction or evidence to proceed, he ordered them to go forward.

Here are some examples gleaned from the memo:

·        Regarding the White House Office of Political Affairs (OPA), the task force examined allegations that 25 federal agencies had received political briefings that might have violated the Hatch Act, which bans the use of government resources to promote or oppose a political party or candidate.  But as the investigators proceeded, sending requests for documents to the agencies and the White House, they received a stream of new directions from Bloch that kept expanding the focus of the inquiry.  In the memo, the task force finally exclaimed:  “{TF expressed concerns that this request is too broad and may exceed OSC’s jurisdiction} (Emphasis in original.)  When the task force recommended ways to narrow the scope of the investigation, they were denied.  When they drafted a subpoena to the Republican National Committee, Bloch ordered it be expanded to include ten new topics.

·        At the time of the firings of U.S. Attorneys by the Justice Department, former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias filed a complaint with OSC charging a Hatch Act violation.  Bloch ordered the task force to broaden their probe to include all nine of the fired U.S. Attorneys.  Amid Justice Department requests that OSC suspend its inquiry, and task force protestations that there was no evidence to support the theory of a Hatch Act violation – which only applies to Executive branch influence, and Iglesias had complained of interference from Members of Congress – Bloch refused to suspend his inquiry.

·        After Justice Department officials testified before Congress about having considered job applicants’ political affiliations in hiring and promotion decisions, the task force recommended that “this case be opened immediately and that the [task force] investigate whether individuals at DOJ committeed any PPPs [prohibited personnel practices] when they took political affiliation into consideration when hiring and making other personnel decisions.”  Prohibited personnel practices are within the clear jurisdiction of the OSC; nevertheless, Bloch nine days later directed the task force “not to open or investigate allegations concerning DOJ political hiring practices.”  Four months later, the task force was permitted to open a file, but “no other activity or devotion of resources authorized at this time.”

In additional cases involving the possibility of politically-tainted prosecutions, a voter fraud case, and the concoction of a new case against former GSA Administrator Lurita Doan, and others, Bloch mostly contradicts the advice of his hand-picked task force.

POGO, along with the Government Accountability Project and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, has been calling for Bloch’s removal from office for more than three years. (http://www.pogo.org/p/government/OSCcompendium.html)  In fact, the current federal investigation of Bloch’s alleged misconduct, which reached a significant new phase yesterday with the execution of search warrants at both his home and office, was launched in response to POGO’s and the other groups’ complaint. 

###

Founded in 1981, the Project On Government Oversight is an independent nonprofit which investigates and exposes corruption and other misconduct in order to achieve a more accountable federal government.

Joe Carson's OSC Watch 4-19-08 Update

OSC Watch <www.oscwatch. org> is focused on
exposing and stopping systemic and persistent
lawbreaking in US Office of Special Counsel
(OSC). OSC Watch contends that OSC, since at
least 1989, has fundamentally failed to comply
with its most important nondiscretionary duty to
enforce the civil service laws, rules, and
regulations under its (frequently sole)
jurisdiction. OSC Watch contends that OSC, in
investigating about 30,000 complaints since 1989
of violations of law, rule, or regulation under
its jurisdiction, has failed to investigate the
complaint, determine whether there is reasonable
cause to believe violations occurred, and, if so,
to report them to the involved agency head, per 5
U.S.C. 1214(e), and create a permanent, public
record of its report and the agency response, per 5 U.S.C. 1219.

OSC, contrary to the clear wording of the law,
its legislative history, and a final decision of
a federal court - all of which state that 5
U.S.C. 1214(e) applies to ANY law, rule, or
regulations, including those within OSC's
jurisdiction, still openly holds to its
self-nullifying interpretation of the law it is
charged to implement, that it does not apply to
laws, rules, or regulations under its jurisdiction.

OSC is the "immune system" of the Executive
Branch agencies - it has jurisdiction for the
laws, rules, and regulations that uphold the
merit principles of the federal civil service,
particularly to prevent agency retribution
against concerned federal employees. Because it
has nullified the law - 5. U.S.C. 1214(e) - that
is the heart of its obligations to do so, by its
untenable claim that it does not apply to the
laws, rules, and regulations under its
jurisdiction, OSC is a broken "immune
system." As a result, the merit principles of
the federal civil service are battered, much
corruption and dysfunction in many federal
workplaces has taken root and flourished, leading
to violations of laws, rules, and regulations not
under OSC's jurisdiction in those agencies, such
as the possible politically motivated prosecutions at Department of Justice.

OSC Watch has been in contact with Alabama Gov.
Siegelman, "Exhibit A" of possibly politically
motivated prosecutions by the Department of
Justice, and the House Judiciary Committee about
its concerns that OSC's lawbreaking, resulting
from its interpretation of 5 U.S.C. 1214(e), is a
significant part of the context in which the
abuses in the Department of Justice occurred.

The following recent press release of the House
Judiciary Committee is relevant to OSC Watch's
concerns that OSC's fundamental failure to
implement the law to enforce the laws under its
jurisdiction has contributed to corruption in the Department of Justice.

************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* *******

U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary

For Immediate Release
Contact: Jonathan Godfrey
http://judiciary. house.gov/ newscenter. aspx?A=955

April 17, 2008
Melanie Roussell

(Washington, DC)- Today, House Judiciary
Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) and
Committee Members Linda Sánchez (D-CA), Artur
Davis (D-AL), and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) announced
three critical actions in the Committee's
investigation into allegations of selective or
poltiically- motivated prosecution in the Justice
Department. The Members today invited Karl Rove
to testify before the committee; urged the
Justice Department's Office of the Inspector
General and Office of Professional Responsibility
to investigate those allegations; and demanded
that Attorney General Michael Mukasey provide
additional documents on this subject.

Today's actions result from the Committee's
majority staff report, also released today, which
details the cases, interviews and documents they
have reviewed since the Committee began its investigation last year.

"There continue to be numerous complaints of
selective or politically motivated prosecution
since our investigation began last year," Conyers
said. "The actions we are taking today, including
calling Karl Rove to testify, are an effort to
get to the bottom of this matter."

Today's announcement stems from the Committee's
2007 oversight hearing on selective prosecution,
during which testimony was heard and documents
were entered into the record regarding cases from
Alabama, Mississippi, Wisconsin, Georgia, and
Pennsylvania. Since the hearing, majority
committee staff has continued its investigation
with interviews and document collection about
additional cases across the country.

"While this report is extensive and significant
progress has been made in our investigation, many
facts remain unknown," Conyers said. "The Justice
Department has simply not been forthcoming and I
feel the only way to move this investigation
forward is to seek further independent
investigation and testimony from Karl Rove, who
appears to be the missing link in a chain from
the White House to the Justice Department."

The letters and the majority staff report are
available at <http://judiciary. house.gov/ Printshop. aspx?Section= 833>.

##110-JUD-041708# #

OSC Watch Petition to Congress

"Joe Carson" <jpcarson@tds.net>  Add Mobile Alert
Subject:	OSC Watch Petition to Congress

Subject:  Office of Special Counsel (OSC) Watch Petition to Congress

Sir,

Enclosed please find The OSC Watch < www.oscwatch.org > petition to Congress to conduct oversight of the Office of Special Counsel.  Its goals are supported by the Government Accountability Project (GAP), the nation's leading whistleblower advocacy organization, GAP's home page mentions it prominently < www.whistleblower.org>.

The Petition is about questions of law, not contested facts.  OSC Watch believes the most relevant subsection of law, 5 U.S.C. 1214(e), is explicitly clear and that the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) has been in egregious violation of it since becoming an independent agency 1989.   5 U.S.C. 1214(e) is the heart of OSC's statutory obligation to protect the federal employees who seek its protection from agency prohibited personnel practices (PPP's), particularly whistleblower reprisal, or from other violations of law, rule, or regulation under its jurisdiction.  §1214(e) requires OSC to publicly and permanently (see §1219) report its determinations of violations of law, rule or regulation under its jurisdiction to the involved agency head.

OSC openly contends - to Congress and the Courts - that 1214(e) does not apply to the laws, rules, and regulations under its jurisdiction.  However, the wording of this subsection of law, how it was modified in 1989, its legislative history, and a final decision of a Federal Court (see Carson v. Office of Special Counsel, 05-537, 2006 WL 5085253 (D.D.C. October 30, 2006)) all demonstrate that 1214(e)  creates the universal requirement for OSC to report formally its determinations of violations of "any law, rule, or regulation" - including those under its jurisdiction - to the involved agency head.   The alternatives to reporting by §1214(e) are described in §1214(e) - when OSC formally reports its determinations of violations of criminal law to the Attorney General (and involved agency head) by §1214(d), or when OSC, as part of establishing jurisdiction to seek corrective action for a PPP at the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), formally reports its determination to MSPB, the involved agency, and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) by §1214(b)(2)(B). 

the indisputable result of OSC's perverse interpretation of §1214(e) is that it has not made a single §1214(e) report since 1989  - not in 30,000 investigations it has conducted - and does not formally reports its determinations of violation of law, rule, or regulation within its jurisdiction, except in the very rare instances when it makes the discretionary decision to formally seek corrective or disciplinary action at the Merit Systems Protection Board, something it has only done about 200 times since 1989. 

OSC is an essential part of the "immune system" for federal agencies in preventing, exposing, and correcting corruption and dysfunction.  Because OSC has failed to comply with its most important statutory duty as an investigatory agency - to report its determinations of violations of law, rule, or regulation under its jurisdiction, to the involved agency, the Congress, and the public - it has enabled significant corruption and dysfunction to take root and flourish in many federal workplaces since 1989.  This has contributed to widespread violation of law, rule, or regulation not under OSC's jurisdiction in those agencies and great harm to the American public and its health, safety and welfare.

OSC's failure to comply with its most fundamental duty has been enabled by the failure of the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) to comply with one of its primary functions - to conduct reviews of OSC and other agencies necessary to report to Congress and the President, per §1204(a)(3), "whether the public interest in a civil service free of prohibited personnel practices is being adequately protected."  MSPB simply cannot or will not state its judgement on this, something Congress can readily ascertain by asking.

At great personal and professional cost, the loyal, patriotic, public servants whose names appear on this petition have directly borne the costs of OSC and MSPB lawbreaking.  However, every American, indirectly at least, has borne them too.  On behalf of OSC Watch and "the public interest in a civil service free of prohibited personnel practices," I respectfully submit the OSC Watch Petition to Congress and pray Congress fulfills its Constitutional mandate to conduct the oversight necessary to expose and stop this OSC lawbreaking. 

Respectfully,


Joe Carson, PE

OSC Problems Roll On

OSC's lawbreaking failure to protect federal employees from  PPP's, which is a result of significant deficiencies in the scope and implementation of legal ethics, enabled the politicalization of the Department of Justice on the Bush administration, which also illustrates significant deficiencies in the scope and implementation of legal ethics.  The legal profession is the most self-regulating profession in America - a key reason OSC's lawbreaking has gone on for so long, is because "attorneys don't blow whistles on other attorneys, even when `the attorney' is a federal judge."

What we are doing with OSC Watch should result in a critical examination of how the legal profession, including judges, self-regulate - not dissimilar to what the Catholic Church has experienced in recent years due to the pediophile priest scandal. 

Joe Carson

************ ********* ********* ********* ********* *********

NY TIMES

February 26, 2008
Editorial

A Little Help for His Friends

Congress is looking into the decision by the United States attorney for New Jersey, Christopher Christie, to hand former Attorney General John Ashcroft a hugely lucrative job monitoring a wayward company.

The issue, however, is larger than any one appointment. Congress should conduct a broader inquiry into prosecutors’ selection of richly rewarded monitors and require that appointments are made based on merit.

United States attorneys are supposed to be nonpartisan and beyond favoritism. But we have already seen how federal prosecutors appointed by the Bush administration used their offices to help Republicans win elections. Congress needs to ensure that they are not using their positions to throw patronage to friends and political allies.

The Ashcroft appointment came in a “deferred prosecution agreement,” a fast-growing arrangement ripe for abuse. Rather than file criminal charges against corporations, federal prosecutors ­ looking to dispose of cases efficiently and to avoid damaging companies needlessly ­ increasingly are striking deals. These agreements are done without court supervision and sometimes in secret.

In this particular case, Mr. Christie arranged for a medical supply company accused of fraud to hire his former boss to monitor its activities for a payment between $28 million and $52 million. There was no competitive bidding. If Mr. Christie runs for elected office in the future, Mr. Ashcroft could be an important supporter and fund-raiser. This isn’t the only time Mr. Christie’s appointment of a monitor has raised questions.

When he struck a deal in a 2005 case involving Bristol-Myers Squibb, the company was required to make a donation to Seton Hall University’s law school, Mr. Christie’s alma mater. In another case, Mr. Christie reached across the country to bestow a high-paid monitoring deal on Debra Wong Yang, a former federal prosecutor from Los Angeles who had close ties to former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Mr. Ashcroft has reportedly agreed to testify before the House Judiciary Committee about the monitoring appointment. The committee should insist on hearing from both him and Mr. Christie, and it should inquire into other lucrative appointments made to former Justice Department insiders.

Congress also needs to reform the system. Representative Frank Pallone Jr., Democrat of New Jersey, has introduced a bill that would require that federal judges or magistrates choose monitors for deferred prosecution agreements from a pool of qualified firms. It would also require that monitors be paid according to a predetermined fee schedule set by the court.

United States attorneys have traditionally played an important role in rooting out patronage and corruption. Congress has to ensure that the prosecutors charged with stamping out these practices do not engage in them.

Whistleblowers Continue to Need Your Support

Hi Everyone,

I hope this blog is helpful to you.  There is a dramatic increase in published articles regarding Whistleblowers and their situations.   I am researching, posting and doing a bit of writing myself, but primarily my goal on this blog is to facilitate others, (whistleblowers and others who have interest in their situations), being able to read and update more quickly and easily, the increasing reporting being done on this topic by others.  (I understand that many people involved in Whistleblower situations have even less time and energy than I do to research and read and it is important that they continue to do so.)

 

There are a growing number of sincere and persistent federal and industry employees out there who are totally fed up with the corruption in their workplaces which makes is very difficult for them to ethically do the jobs they were trained and hired to do.  The Whistleblower Protection Act passed by the Senate and House recently that still awaits the promised Presidential Veto, President Bush threatened he would render should Congress pass this legislation which would offer further protection of Federal and Defense Whistleblowers.  The protection we're talking about is protection from Prohibited Personnel Practices, harassment, discrimination, persecution, and a host of other despicable activities undertaken by wrongdoers who may be outed by honest employees doing their oversight jobs and pointing out the problems.

I pass along a site that is keeping track of the Office of Special Counsel, the government office that is supposed to be watchdogging and protecting federal employees who may be making complaints or noting corruption within our government.  These observations and disclosures are usually a result of the employee becoming clearly aware of a problem in the course of doing their job as assigned.  Unfortunately, particularly in the atmosphere we have at this time in government work, many of these employees are treated very badly and in punitive fashion.  Many are afraid to complain.  Those that do, typically go to the Office of Special Counsel, who is supposed to uphold PPP law, and stop  the illegal actions of the corrupt coworkers and supervisors committing violations of Prohibited Personnel Practices policies/laws.  Tragically, this office has notably not done its job and in fact has a track record under the current Chief of committing violations itself against its own employees.

 

To read more about this, please visit:  http://whsknox.blogs.com/osc_watch/

   

For those of you who write or would like to write, I recommend:  www.Writing.Com and www.helium.com.  You may post your own original writings; enter contests and much more at both of these sites.

Take care of yourselves!  (It appears we cannot count on the government doing so lately!)

GFS

Joe Carson's comments regarding Scott Block WSJ Article

Date:	Wed, 28 Nov 2007 18:52:00 -0500
To:	jpcarson@tds.net
From:	"Joe Carson" <jpcarson@tds.net>
Subject:	Wall St. Journal story on OSC Special Counsel Bloch

The drama of of Scott Bloch's tenure at OSC, somewhat described in the following Wall St. Journal story, occurs in a context of OSC's failure, since it was created as an independent agency in 1989, to comply with its fundamental duty as an investigatory agency - 1) to investigate allegations of violations of laws under its jurisdiction, including Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), Hatch Act, and federal agency engaging in prohibited personnel practices (PPP's), particularly whistleblower reprisal, against federal employees, 2) to determine "whether there is reasonable grounds (or cause) to believe" violations of these laws occurred, and 3) if so, report its positive determinations to the involved agency head, obtain an agency-head certified response, and make its report and the agency's response publicly available. 

OSC, since 1989, has conducted about 8000 field investigations and has not, contrary to law, created public records when its investigations result in determinations of "reasonable grounds (cause) to believe" there were violations of the laws authorizing its investigation.  That is the context in which Scott Bloch apparently perceives he does not have to provide information about OSC operations to anyone else.

OSC Watch   < http://whsknox.blogs.com/osc_watch> < http://www.oscwatch.org> consists of victims of OSC's failure to comply with its statutory duty to protect federal employees from agency PPP's and their advocates.  Its three objective are: 1) expose OSC's lawbreaking, 2) stop OSC's lawbreaking, and 3) obtain some measure of justice for the 10,000 or more direct victims of OSC's lawbreaking since 1989.  OSC Watch was co-founded by Joe Carson, PE, the current "dean" of federal whistleblowers, who has prevailed in numerous whistleblower related litigation as a nuclear safety engineer at Dept. of Energy  (DOE) < www.carsonversusdoe.com>. Several years ago, he realized that the reason DOE could slap him around, with apparent impunity, for doing his duty to protect public health and safety, was the same reason other federal agencies can slap around their concerned employees - OSC fails to comply with its fundamental obligation to concerned federal employees who seeks its protection by failing to make and appropriately report its determinations of "reasonable grounds to believe" agency PPP's have occurred, leaving everyone in the dark, enabling agency lawbreaking against their concerned employees. 

He thinks OSC's failure to comply with its duties to protect concerned federal employees contributed at least, to 9/11, loss of space shuttle Columbia, failure of levees in New Orleans, inept FEMA response to Katrina, and countless other instances of federal incompetence or malfeasance since 1989.  He fears it could contribute to a nuclear 9/11 if not exposed and stopped. 

As the following story implies, there is no Inspector General with jurisdiction over OSC.  It is a mole-like, small (110 employee), agency that has created bizarre interpretations of the law it is charged to implement.  Mole-like, it has issued no regulations describing its implementation of those laws  and why it does not have to report its determination of their violation.  This has remained "under the radar" from 1989 to now. 

The attached files show some of the bases of his claims and that his claims have the support of the leading whistleblower protection advocacy group in the Country, the Government Accountability Project (GAP).   In a FOIA response about its investigations of possible Hatch Act violations since 1989, OSC admits it made 1181 determinations of Hatch Act violations without once issuing the required report to the involved agency head.  In a recent ruling a Federal Judge found OSC failed to provide statutory required information about its investigation and determinations of a PPP complaint to the federal employee who sought its protection. 

For OSC Watch

Joe Carson, PE
jpcarson@tds.net
865-300-5831

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