More Than a Thousand Whistleblower Cases Dumped

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The game is rigged boys and girls.

 

 

 

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/E022305Y.shtml

 

More Than a Thousand Whistleblower Cases Dumped

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility

 

Wednesday 23 February 2005

 

Special Counsel dismisses hundreds of disclosures and complaints

in past year.

 

Washington, DC - The U.S. Special Counsel has dismissed more than

1,000 whistleblower cases in the past year, according to a letter from

the Bush-appointed Special Counsel released today by Public Employees

for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The Special Counsel appears

to have taken action in very few, if any, of these cases and has yet

to represent a single whistleblower in an employment case.

 

In a letter dated February 14, 2005 and addressed to U.S.

Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA), Special Counsel Scott Bloch

defends his stormy 13 months in office by pointing to a sharp drop in

backlogged whistleblower cases.

 

" Everyone agrees that backlogs and delays are bad but they are not

as bad as simply dumping the cases altogether, " stated PEER Executive Jeff Ruch, noting that this letter is the first account that

Bloch has released of his tenure and that his office's report for FY

2004, which ended in October, is overdue. " If the Office of Special

Counsel under Scott Bloch is not helping whistleblowers then there is

no reason for the office to continue to exist. "

 

According to the figures released by Bloch, in the past year the

Office of Special Counsel:

 

* Dismissed or otherwise disposed of 600 whistleblower disclosures

where civil servants have reported waste, fraud, threats to public

safety and violations of law. Bloch has yet to announce a single case

where he has ordered an investigation into the employee's charges.

Bloch says that 100 disclosures are still pending; and

 

* Made 470 claims of retaliation disappear. In not one of these

cases did Bloch's office affirmatively represent a whistleblower to

obtain relief before the civil service court system, called the Merit

Systems Protection Board. Bloch says that another 30 retaliation cases

remain in the backlog.

 

In order to speed dismissals, Bloch instituted a rule forbidding

his staff from contacting a whistleblower if their disclosure was

deemed incomplete or ambiguous. Instead, OSC would simply dismiss the

matter. As a result, hundreds of whistleblowers never had a chance to

justify why their cases had merit.

 

" According to Scott Bloch there is no waste, fraud or abuse in the

federal government that deserves investigation, " stated Ruch, noting

that there may be even more dismissals than Bloch reported because the

numbers cited above are limited to what was defined as a backlog and

do not include new cases.

 

Rep. Waxman and Rep. Danny Davis (D-IL), the ranking minority

party members of the House Government Reform Committee and its Civil

Service Subcommittee, respectively, had originally written to ask for

an investigation by the Government Accountability Office into Bloch's

forced removal of OSC staff, hiring of cronies and failure to answer

Freedom of Information Act requests.

 

Read the letter from Scott Bloch to Rep. Henry Waxman.

 

See the original letter from Rep. Waxman and Rep. Davis.

 

Look at the last full status report on OSC's backlog.

 

Find out more about Scott Bloch's tenure at OSC.

 

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