The House Government Reform Committee held an extraordinary hearing yesterday on the vulnerabilities of national security whistleblowers who challenge what they see as agency misconduct.
“Breaking bureaucratic ranks to speak unpleasant and unwelcome truths takes courage and risks invoking the wrath of those with the power and motive to shoot the messenger,” said Rep. Christopher Shays (R-CT), who chaired the hearing.
In an unusual move, Chairman Shays gave pride of place to several whistleblowers who testified in the first panel of the hearing, while agency representatives waited to testify in the third panel.
All of the prepared testimony may be found here.
Today, “there are no meaningful protections for [national security] whistleblowers,” wrote former FBI linguist Sibel Edmonds in response to a New York Times op-ed last week by DCIA Porter Goss.
See “Porter Goss’ Op-ed: ‘Ignotum per Ignotius’!” by Sibel Edmonds, February 11.
“Ignotum per ignotius” is a Latin expression referring to an explanation which is harder to understand than that which it is meant to explain.
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The human cost is measured in deaths. The financial cost is measured in the $52 billion taxpayers pay annually end stage renal disease – double NASA’s budget.
Gilman Louie, Longest Serving Board Chair of the Federation of American Scientists, Named Chair Emeritus
The proposed Office will resurrect the long-closed Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), the archive of which has been maintained by FAS for decades at https://ota.fas.org/.