The Conservative Cave
Current Events => Politics => Topic started by: txradioguy on August 21, 2013, 09:06:35 AM
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President Obama, in his news conference this month, said that Edward Snowden was wrong to go public with revelations about secret surveillance programs because “there were other avenues available for somebody whose conscience was stirred and thought that they needed to question government actions.â€
This is a common refrain among administration officials and some lawmakers: If only Snowden had made his concerns known through the proper internal channels, everything would have turned out well. The notion sounds reasonable, as do the memorandums Obama signed supposedly protecting whistleblowers.
But it’s a load of nonsense. Ask Gina Gray.
Gray is the Defense Department whistleblower whose case I have been following for five years. She was the Army civilian worker who, before and after her employment, exposed much of the wrongdoing at Arlington National Cemetery — misplaced graves, mishandled remains and financial mismanagement — and she attempted to do it through the proper internal channels. Pentagon sources have confirmed to me her crucial role in bringing the scandal to light.
For her troubles, Gray was fired. The Pentagon’s inspector general recommended corrective action to compensate Gray.
According to documents just obtained by Gray’s lawyer, Mark Zaid, Army Secretary John McHugh rejected the inspector general’s suggestion. McHugh wouldn’t offer Gray anything because she was on “probationary status at the time of her termination.â€
Gray, who worked in Iraq as an Army contractor and Army public affairs specialist, is now unemployed and living in North Carolina.
“I went all the way up the channels,†Gray told me on Tuesday. “This is what happens when you do that.â€
In response to my inquiries to the Pentagon, an Army spokesman, Col. David H. Patterson Jr., issued a statement saying that Gray’s status as a whistleblower was limited and that her firing was unrelated. “We consider the matter closed,†he said, calling the Army’s position “validated†by a federal court’s “dismissal of Ms. Gray’s lawsuit — with prejudice.â€
The lawsuit was dismissed this week — because Gray dropped it. She could no longer afford the legal fees.
Sadly, Gray’s case is emblematic of the way this administration has handled whistleblowers. Obama came into office pledging transparency and professing admiration for government workers who expose abuses. But his administration has pursued more cases under the 1917 Espionage Act than all previous administrations combined (including the prosecution of National Security Agency workers who tried to register their objections through “proper†channels). And the alleged intimidation of would-be whistleblowers goes beyond those involved in sensitive intelligence. For example, diplomat Gregory Hicks told a House committee that he was demoted because he gave congressional investigators a description of the attack on Americans in Benghazi, Libya, that was at odds with the official version of events.
Gray’s ordeal began in April 2008 after I covered the Arlington funeral of an officer killed in the Iraq war. While there, I observed a dispute between Gray and deputy superintendent Thurman Higginbotham, the man later at the center of the Arlington scandals. Higginbotham was trying to prevent reporters from observing the burial, in violation of the family’s wishes and Arlington’s regulations — and Gray, though new on the job, told him he was wrong.
Gray registered her objections internally — but loudly. She refused to sign off on a report to the Army secretary’s office that was a whitewash of the way burials were handled at Arlington because, she said, her higher-ups were violating Defense Department regulations. She began to learn of other misdeeds by Arlington management and attempted to let military officials know; in June 2008, according to one of Gray’s legal filings, she told the commanding general of the Military District of Washington about “major problems†at the cemetery, involving fraud, mismanagement and broken regulations.
Two days later, she was fired.
A 2010 report by the Pentagon’s inspector general designated Gray as a whistleblower and concluded that, contrary to regulations, Arlington management “elected to terminate her, rather than make a reasonable effort to address public affairs policy issues that she raised†or to “document performance deficiencies that ANC management later claimed formed the basis for Ms. Gray’s termination.â€
After her firing, Gray passed along information about mismanagement at Arlington to three congressional offices, all of which received false assurances from the Army that everything was under control. Gray eventually provided her findings to reporters and to the inspector general, leading to the ouster of the Arlington management.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-the-price-gina-gray-paid-for-whistleblowing/2013/08/20/9fe80c98-09cb-11e3-8974-f97ab3b3c677_story.html
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Jen Gray is a friend of mine and a former PAO NCO like myself. IMHO what she did in exposing what was going on at ANC was a great service to the country and to those that have the task every day at The Old Guard and especially at the Tomb of the Unknowns of honoring our nations fallen. In my personal opinion what's been done to her since then is almost criminal and it sends a chilling message to those in the future that want to do the right thing.
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Is there any "right thing" any more? The gubmint will find fault with anything you say and punish you for it.
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Is there any "right thing" any more? The gubmint will find fault with anything you say and punish you for it.
They'll protect you if it benefits them politically...see Benghazi and the IRS. But if it makes them look bad...well you can see what happens.
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They'll protect you if it benefits them politically...see Benghazi and the IRS. But if it makes them look bad...well you can see what happens.
I erred. I should have also included saying what is right and saying what is truthful.
That would do it.
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She's a very gutsy lady and I admire her for her courage. Fighting "city hall" is never easy, especially when "city hall" is the highest levels of the f'n federal government.
I hope she can somehow gin up the money to continue her lawsuit. I'd kick in a few bucks for that. And then, maybe, she can get her job back or, better yet, run ANC itself. It sounds like she's the only one with balls enough to do what has to be done.
Higginbotham was placed on admin leave, and later retired with full bennies. The superintendent was allowed to retire as well. ****ing thieves.
I had thought that the Sec of the Army was shitcanned, but that does not appear to be the case.
Arlington is to be my final resting place. I damn sure don't want the kind of mismanagement and outright fraud to occur when they're handling my remains. I don't worry about the Soldiers -- they will serve in an exemplary manner. But I'm not so sure about the civilians that are employed by a ****ing government that protects them at ALL costs.
Whistleblowers need to understand. You go up against the big boys, you wind up getting the shit end of the stick.
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Seems that there would be Good American lawyers that would take her case on for free.
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Seems that there would be Good American lawyers that would take her case on for free.
Mark Levin comes to mind. He's well sought after, but maybe he could get her a referral.
She should form a group of whistleblowers, and get a website. I bet they would get even more whistleblowers to spill the beans if they are afraid to publically come out.
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Mark Levin comes to mind. He's well sought after, but maybe he could get her a referral.
She should form a group of whistleblowers, and get a website. I bet they would get even more whistleblowers to spill the beans if they are afraid to publically come out.
And here we all court marshal, imprison other whistleblowers and call them traitors to our country.
I would like to know how this works. Anyone that works for the government and finds theft or fraud and sends it up the line and is ignored, decides to make it known to the public is now a Traitor to our country ? Demoted and released from the Government job with a warning to keep quiet.
Someone non government kid hacks into unprotected files and finds things that are American and down right dangerous, he alerts the press and God knows what next, swat teams at his door, parents held for months, WtF
This woman who found and fought for the rights of those in Arlington Cemetery and those to come there I remember reading about the scandal, one whole acre had bones and broken tome stones that there was no record of. Hundreds of grave sites not on record, looking for family members going back to 1912 left at a loss, a dilemma, they had official government records showing the Burial of a family member but when they went looking there was no record of it.
This is more then indecency , this is more then Carear Officers disregarding their duty's, this is an offence against the intire country
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And the DUmmies wonder why we call this administration a bunch of communists.
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And the DUmmies wonder why we call this administration a bunch of communists.
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Problem is, she was fired in 2008. Different president.
That being said, it's as I've said many times before and will say many times again:
Administrations come and go, but the bureaucracy is FOREVER.
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Problem is, she was fired in 2008. Different president.
That being said, it's as I've said many times before and will say many times again:
Administrations come and go, but the bureaucracy is FOREVER.
GWB was retired on active duty in 2008. I'm sure he suited up and came downstairs to the Oval Office and he did a few of his gotta-do's, but apart from that, even the press left him alone. That's how far off the radar screen he'd fallen.
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From a post on Gina's FB page from her attorney Mark Zaid:
I should add some facts into the mix. Gina's lawsuit was an EEO case, not one of whistleblowing. There were substantive evidentiary problems, particularly because of how the EEOC case went, as well as costs involved that made it difficult to continue.
The message we were trying to spread is that the Govt is creating unlawful whistleblowers like Manning and Snowden by mistreating those who follow the system, like Gina. And like Robert MacLean.
In fact, just today I had a new whistleblower client read the Washington Post article and decide not to blow the whistle because of what might happen. That is the sad part of this story, which for Gina was actually more successful than most because she brought down the leadership of the Cemetery and changed policy. But now others won't come forward because the system does not work properly most of the time.
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just today I had a new whistleblower client read the Washington Post article and decide not to blow the whistle because of what might happen. That is the sad part
Didn't a lot of this happen in F&F? Agencies don't like "snitches".
Even congress warned the DOJ about intimidation, but it didn't help.
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Didn't a lot of this happen in F&F? Agencies don't like "snitches".
Even congress warned the DOJ about intimidation, but it didn't help.
But that's different.....these people are now blowing Obama..........................'s whistle.