Rob: It's an actual law that
was passed, right?-
Tom: Yes, Congress unanimously
passed this law in 1989.-
Rob: So how could these Bush
holdovers invalidate it?-
Tom: They have the power to
make a decisions, and they have basically ruled that if they want day
to be night, it can be so. For the time being, Mr. Maclean does not
have the benefit of the WPA.-
Rob: Was this the intention
of the law when Congress passed it?-
Tom: In fact, it was the exact
opposite.-
Rob: What's the history of
this law?-
Tom: It began as a law in the
post-Watergate Civil Service Reform Act. Sen. Leahy was one of the pioneers,
as was Morris Udall in the House. The WPA was passed to strengthen that
law and give it a real mandate in 1989. The champions for that were
Pat Schroeder in the House and Carl Levin from Michigan and Sen. Charles
Grassley from Iowa in the Senate.-
Rob: Grassley has long been
an advocate for whistleblowers, right?-
Tom: Grassley and Levin have
labored over the last ten years for the WPA to be overhauled. Its free
speech rights are beautiful on paper, but the Achilles Heel of this
law has always been minor-league due process""you don't have normal
access to court. There's this one bureaucratic board that's kind
of a consolation prize for presidential appointments. It's not a prestigious
government job""it's either a stepping stone or consolation prize.
And the appointees know better than to threaten the power structure
and the powers that be. In 1989, the WPA was passed b/c the same board
that was formed by the Civil Service Reform Act had only ruled for whistleblowers
four times. So Congress realized they had to change something, but they
decided not to scrap the board but instead simply give it more guidance.
They did this same thing again with amendments in 1994. Well, what's
happened since 2000""the board's only ruled three times for whistleblowers.
Under McFee, the Bush chairman, whistleblower's record is 1-44. You
don't stand a chance. The WPA has become probably the primary reason
why wb's remain silent observers instead of sticking their necks out.-
Rob: Tom, we went to meet with
Rep. Conyers of the House Judiciary Committee. Do you recall that?-
Tom: Yes, Robert Maclean, the fired air marshal, came to DC to fight for the WPA. He's selflessly lobbying Congress for a new law even though new rights won't apply to him.
Rob: So we went to the Hill
in March and met with Chairman Conyers and had a fairly lengthy meeting.
Did anything ever come of that?-
Tom: We didn't get direct
results from that meeting, but we have gotten the ear of the Justice
Dept. Obama has assigned its White House Counsel and many of the top
lawyers from his admin to work with the "good government" community
trying to get a consensus. Frankly, I think the Obama folks are a little
idealistic""there's never going to be consensus with the dark side
of the bureaucracy on freedom of speech, but they're giving it the
old college try.-
Rob: Well I've been very
involved with health care reform. Last week I had on the show Wendell
Potter, who was a former insurance company executive, who basically
said that Obama, in attempting to be fair and balanced and cover both
sides is exposing himself to people who act in bad faith.-
Tom: Well this is happening
all throughout the government currently. Rather than saying, like Bush
did, hey I won, we're doing things my way now, Obama is saying that
since he won, we're going to seek a consensus to all society that
gets as close as possible to the things he campaigned for. The White
House has been our advocate for whistleblower rights, but they won't
push it with agencies in the Executive Branch. At a certain point, the
prez is going to have to lead re: whistleblower rights because the current
law is a fraud that makes a trap out of all his promises to fight abuses
of secrecy. If he waits for the dark side of the bureaucracy to agree
that secrecy is a betrayal of the public trust, well we'll be waiting
for Godot.-
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