Editorial: Whistleblowers not protected

Monday, Dec. 5, 2005 | 8:27 a.m.

Federal workers who after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks were charged with preventing future terrorist strikes have little or no protection against being demoted or losing their jobs when they reveal inadequacies within their own security agencies, according to Cox News Service.

These are workers who, for example, revealed the government's failure to adequately track the suicide hijackers responsible for the Sept. 11 attack. According to Cox News Service, the laws that protect the livelihoods of those who report government wrongdoing have been neglected or ignored, leaving employees who expose internal waste and fraud to be fired or warehoused in meaningless jobs.

In one example, Cox News Service cites a former leader of the Federal Aviation Administration's security test team, who before the Sept. 11 attacks had warned that his workers successfully penetrated security at 90 percent of the nation's airports and that a hijacking was inevitable.

After the 2001 attacks, he filed a complaint with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, which is charged with investigating claims and providing legal support for whistleblowers. The investigation supported his claim.

But the employee was stripped of his seniority and ended up answering phones on the graveyard shift and updating a phone book for the Department of Homeland Security.

People who reveal government shortcomings while working for federal intelligence agencies reported losing vital security clearances and job responsibilities and said they often end up parking cars or working in some baesement filing room until they are let go.

In October a Bush administration lawyer asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a California ruling that favored a Los Angeles County prosecutor who was demoted after revealing a sheriff's deputy lied in an affidavit. The government lawyer maintained that public workers don't have free-speech rights when speaking up in the framework of their jobs.

It's bad enough when the federal government misleads the public on its reasons for going to war with Iraq, covers up the torture and abuse of its prisoners and leaks the identity of a covert CIA operative in revenge. To then strip protection from and punish those who speak up when they see such misdeeds is a disgrace.