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Out of Control Fraud
The Bush Family Business
For four generations now, the Bush family has been involved in supporting the country's enemies (most notably the Nazi Party in Germany) and robbing the country blind.
The family was directly involved and profited from the Savings and Loan scandal of the 1980s and has participated in security fraud as well.
With this understanding as a background, the Iraq War can be viewed as their "masterpiece."
The Bush family and its associates have stolen countless billions of dollars in the course of the war. In fact, one of their motivations for pushing the war in the first place was the opportunity for theft.
Chances are the destruction of World Trade Tower Seven, the home of crucial and now lost forever SEC and other federal law enforcement evidence and case files was carried out to cover their tracks. The Bush Family Business ... more -
The spy who tried to stop a war
Spy Symposium, American University, Washington DC, September 24, 2008
PoliPointPress present Katharine Gun and the Secret Plot to Sanction the Iraq Invasion. Gun will be appearing at the Spy Symposium tonight alongside Vietnam-era whistle-blower icon, Daniel Ellsberg; veteran CIA analyst, Ray McGovern; Boston University professor and former CIA officer Arthur Hulnick; clinical psychologist and author Dr. Peter Whitmer; and International Spy Museum executive director Peter Earnest. Martin Bright, the London Observer editor who risked prison to publish the leak, will be a special guest.
This high-profile symposium at the American University will focus on controversial global ethics issues versus "national security."
Host: Peter Kuznick, Associate Professor- American Unversity
Time: Speakers:
10.40 Marsha Mitchell, Journalist and Associate Director at Film Institute
16.40 Katherine Gun, GCHQ whistle-blower
29.02 Martin Bright, Journalist and Political Editor for NewStatesman
48.45 Daniel Ellsberg, Veteran CIA analyst
01.11.00 Peter Earnest, Executive Director-International Spy Museum
01.25.00 Ray McGovern, Former CIA officer
01.44.00 Norman Solomon, Journalist and Media Critic Spy Symposium, American University, Washington DC, September 24, 2008 ... more -
Most historic day for whistleblowers: 112 public groups unite!
In unity of public interest groups, 112 organizations united today to ask Congress to finally enact into law the most comprehensive Whistleblower Act in U.S. history.
Washington D. C. June 5, 2008- In a letter unveiled today by the Government Accountability Project (GAP) legal director, Mr. Tom Devine Esq., huge numbers of public interest groups from every sector of American society, from every part of the country, united with National Public Interest groups from Washington in the completely unanimous request.
“Millions of Americans have spoken, in a mind-boggling show of unity” stated Mr. Mike McCray, Esq., co-leader of the Intenational Association of Whistleblowers (IAW): “Citizen groups on both the right and the left have united. Whistleblowers protect the health, safety, environment, civil rights and the rule of law in our society. By protecting whistleblowers, we protect our citizens and our society.”
“We still have a long way to go,” stated IAW co-chair Dr. James Murtagh. “But this is an essential first step to restore essential American security and values. We greatly hope that all presidential candidates will embrace the values of this bipartisan legislation.”
The 112 groups believe that every truth-teller acting in the public interest must be protected by law. “The current WPA is imperfect,” continued Murtagh, “But it is an absolutely essential first step.”
The Whistleblower legislation is universally endorsed by good government groups, from Public Citizen to the ACLU to the Make It Safe Coalition (MISC), the Liberty Coalition (LC), the International Association of Whistleblowers (IAW) and Doctors coalitions led by the Semmelweis Society International (SSI), and many other non-alligned public interest groups, representing millions of Americans.
This letter, addressed to Sen. Joseph Lieberman; Sen. Susan Collins; Sen. Daniel Akaka; Sen. George Voinovich; Rep. Henry Waxman; Rep. Tom Davis; Rep. Todd Platts; Rep. Chris Van Hollen asked for rapid enactment of the Whistleblower Protection Act, a landmark, eight-year legislative effort to restore a credible Whistleblower Protection.
The 112 united groups ask Congressional support to “expeditiously conclude the process of reconciling House nd Senate passed versions of this vital good government legislation, H.R. 985 and S. 274. “
Essential provisions of this bill would:
o Grant employees the right to a jury trial in federal court;
o Specifically protect federal scientists who report efforts to alter, misrepresent, or suppress federal research;
o Extend meaningful protections to FBI and intelligence agency whistleblowers;
o Strengthen protections for federal contractors, as strong as those provided to DoD contractors and grantees in last year's defense authorization legislation;
o Extend meaningful protections to Transportation Security Officers (screeners);
o Neutralize the government's use of the “state secrets” privilege;
o Bar the MSPB from ruling for an agency before whistleblowers have the opportunity to present evidence of retaliation;
o Provide whistleblowers the right to be made whole, including compensatory damages;
o Grant comparable due process rights to employees who blow the whistle in the course of a government investigation or who refuse to violate the law; and
o Remove the Federal Circuit's monopoly on precedent-setting cases.
As noted by the unity letter: “Once the reconciled version becomes law, the real winners will be the public! “
112 public interest groups urge all Americans to write their Congresspersons and demand enactment of the WPA. Public safety depends on swift action.
by James Murtagh In unity of public interest groups, 112 organizations united today to ask Congress to finally enact into law the most comprehensive W... more -
US confirms KBR Nigeria bribes
It's time for mainstream media to report these types of facts. If bribery is exposed and accountability brought back to the forefront in America, maybe others would be afraid to do it for fear of being prosecuted and shamed out of business. KBR is a former subsidiary of Halliburton because Halliburton doesn't want their name tainted. But, if the bribes happened while they were part of Halliburton, Halliburton should be held accountable for letting it happen.
US authorities say they have evidence that an agent used by Halliburton’s former subsidiary KBR did issue bribes to Nigerian officials in connection with a Shell project in that country, according to a filing made by Halliburton to the US Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) at the end of last month.
The SEC launched a formal investigation into the matter, which dates back to the 1980s, last year after a March 2007 Halliburton government filing disclosed it.
The more recent filing stated that Halliburton and KBR suspended their agent in Nigeria and another agent who had worked for KBR on “several current projects and on numerous older projects going back to the early 1980s”.
KBR has since spun off from Halliburton, but the investigations cover a period when KBR was still a Halliburton subsidiary, and Dick Cheney – now US Vice President – was at the helm.
The US investigation relating to the Shell project – the EA field – is part of a larger probe into the “TSKJ” consortium, consisting of KBR and its partners.
The investigation alleges the partners agreed to pay more than $170 million in bribes to win billions of dollars of construction work on a giant Nigerian gas liquefaction plant also operated by Shell, according to the Financial Times.
The latest Halliburton filing says investigators have confirmed they have evidence that TSKJ agents also bribed Nigerian officials. It's time for mainstream media to report these types of facts. If bribery is exposed and accountability brought back to the fore... more -
Whistleblowers: The Canaries in the Coal Mines - CommonDreams.org
by Sean Gonsalves
The canaries are calling.
Irony Man. News junkies know him as Scott Bloch, after it was reported last week that the FBI had raided the office of Special Counsel. In the wake of the raid, the National Whistleblower Center issued this statement, hinting at Bloch’s Irony Man identity:
“In a notably ironic turn of events …Bloch — who is charged with protecting federal whistleblowers — has been under investigation for, among other things, whistleblower retaliation within his own agency. Most of the whistleblower community has been disappointed with Bloch’s tenure in office. He had no actual expertise in the field and was viewed as a patronage appointment.”
I couldn’t get in touch with Bloch, but I think he would agree with my assessment that the FBI’s timing couldn’t be better — at least for the folks organizing “Whistleblower Week” in the nation’s capital, which happens to be this week!
But I was able to catch up with the president of No Fear Institute, Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo. NFI is organizing the Whistleblower Week conference.
When Coleman-Adebayo found that lack of environmental regulations and labor laws in South Africa were literally killing poor miners and their families, Coleman-Adebayo tried to call attention to the silent killer. Her superiors told her to forget about it, but her refusal to forget about it led to her increasingly hostile ouster.
In August of 2000, a federal jury found the EPA guilty of violating her civil rights. Coleman-Adebayo became an activist and organized a grass-roots campaign that eventually led to the passage of the Notification of Federal Employees Anti-discrimination and Retaliation Act (the No FEAR Act), which was signed into law by President Bush in 2002.
A year later, Congress began to gut the law. Since then, Coleman-Adebayo and the rest of the whistleblower community has been working with congressional allies on new legislation. “One of the goals of Whistleblower week is to push for new legislation,” she told me on Mother’s Day.
One is called the Congressional Disclosure Protection Act, which is designed to protect workers against whistleblower retaliation if they should testify before Congress.
“Almost always, when you testify (as a whistleblower) before Congress, you are immediately retaliated against, usually fired. This Act will provide some protection when workers exercise their constitutional right to talk to Congress.”
“People don’t know it but they’ve gutted the 1964 Civil Rights Act through taxation. There are people who have gone into bankruptcy trying to get their day in court under a law that Dr. King died for.”
Then there’s No Fear Act II, designed to make No Fear I gut-proof by defining what disciplinary action must be taken by employers who violate workers civil rights in retaliation for whistle blowing, left undefined in No Fear I.
“I think it will go down as one of the most important pieces of civil rights legislation in history,” Coleman-Adebayo said.
“We are hoping Senator Obama, Clinton or McCain will take up the mantle to clean up the corruption. Until the corruption is cleaned up, nothing the government does will work for the people. Whistleblowers are simply the canaries in the mine. We die off first — but not long after, the carbon dioxide comes out of the mines.”
“The whistleblower community is one of the most courageous communities I’ve been involved with. Through loss of jobs, families, even death, in some cases, they’ve made the decision to stand and fight. That’s what the week is all about — a community of people willing to stand up and fight for their country.”
The canaries are calling. Will you listen? by Sean Gonsalves The canaries are calling. ... more -
Those who blow whistle on contractor fraud in Iraq face penalties
One after another, the men and women who have stepped forward to report corruption in the massive effort to rebuild Iraq have been vilified, fired and demoted. Or worse. This is so sad and scary. One after another, the men and women who have stepped forward to report corruption in the massive effort to rebuild Iraq have been vil... more
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Whistleblowers
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Whistleblowers
