U.S. Office of Special Counsel rules in favor of TSA air marshal whistleblower
Quote:
"Whistleblowers should not have to guess whether information that they reasonably believe evidences waste, fraud, abuse, illegalities or public dangers might be later designated as SSI [sensitive security information] and therefore should not be disclosed," Special Counsel Carolyn Lerner wrote in an amicus curiae brief to MSPB supporting former air marshal Robert MacLean. "Rather than making the wrong guess, a would-be whistleblower will likely choose to remain silent to avoid risking the individual's employment."
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Quote:
Originally Posted by willpolice4food
Quote:
"Whistleblowers should not have to guess whether information that they reasonably believe evidences waste, fraud, abuse, illegalities or public dangers might be later designated as SSI [sensitive security information] and therefore should not be disclosed," Special Counsel Carolyn Lerner wrote in an amicus curiae brief to MSPB supporting former air marshal Robert MacLean. "Rather than making the wrong guess, a would-be whistleblower will likely choose to remain silent to avoid risking the individual's employment."
Bolding mine: And this is the key as in any whistle-blower case, the entity being accused cannot change the rules of the game after the fact. Not saying the whistle-blower FAM is right or wrong but rather that you can't change the rules of the game after the fact and expect to get away with it.
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No specific statute exists that would allow the TSA to negate [Civil Service Reform Act (CSRA)] whistleblower protections. The statute that the TSA relied upon to retroactively designate MacLean's protected disclosure as SSl does not establish particular criteria for withholding and does not refer types of matters to be withheld.
. . .
The Board's expansion of the exception to CSRA protected whistleblowing is contrary to the plain meaning and intent of the statute and significantly expands what Congress intended to be a very narrow exception to CSRA protected whistleblowing, thereby chilling would-be whistleblowers.
A short quote, to explain the background of the case:
In 2003, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) attempted to remove air marshals from "high-risk" flights when there was a heightened intelligence warning of hijackings. MacLean, an air marshal himself, disclosed this dangerous cost-cutting plan. As a result, he was fired.
Now, MacLean only has one more chance to appeal [emphasis added] the ruling made by the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), which wrongly decided in July that his case did not constitute retaliation.
Again for emphasis: MacLean is down to his LAST chance to appeal his firing!
POGO is asking us to get in contact with our members of Congress over his situation; details on how to do that and what to say are in the article linked above.
Again for emphasis: MacLean is down to his LAST chance to appeal his firing!
POGO is asking us to get in contact with our members of Congress over his situation; details on how to do that and what to say are in the article linked above.
This secure (note the "https" prefix) online form sends emails to your two senators and member of the House:
One of the government’s longest-running whistleblower controversies recently took a new twist when three House Democrats successfully filed a friend of the court brief with the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals challenging the 2003 firing of an air marshal who gave a television news reporter what his agency said was “sensitive security information.”
Robert MacLean was a civil aviation security specialist working for the Transportation Security Administration in 2003 when he was briefed about possible new terrorist threats from al Qaeda. Soon after, he and fellow air marshals were informed via unencrypted messages on their cellphones that their cross-country and international overnight missions on the at-risk flights were being canceled.
and
Tom Devine, legal director for the Government Accountability Project, which filed MacLean’s appeal, told Government Executive his team went to court over “one of whistleblowers’ core principles, that statutory rights prevail over agency rules.”
During the first 30 years of statutory whistleblower rights, MacLean’s “termination would have been crudely illegal,” Devine wrote in a recent blog post. “Federal workers have the right to directly warn the public about government actions threatening public health and safety, unless the information is classified or its release specifically prohibited by congressional statute.” In MacLean’s case, he wrote, MSPB “erased that basic premise and now an agency can cancel WPA free speech rights by banning public disclosures about its own misconduct.”
Devine said the stakes in the case are “unsurpassed by any whistleblower dispute of recent years -- not just for whistleblower decisions, but for public safety as well.”
POGO: Whistleblower Robert MacLean is down to his LAST CHANGE to Appeal his Firing!
