The Obama Administration’s Whistleblower Problem
June 30th, 2011Via: The Atlantic:
Somewhere in the federal bureaucracy, there is a middle-aged woman sitting in a cubicle wearing business casual clothing, eating a turkey sandwich from a brown paper bag, and trying to decide whether the government misconduct she’s privy to should be exposed. Perhaps her agency is infringing on the constitutional rights of American citizens, or violating statutory law, or merely wasting millions of taxpayer dollars. Or it could be that the particular failure threatens national security, or public health, or the robustness of the international or national economy.
Our dutiful bureaucrat doesn’t have to ponder the matter for long. She knows what she ought to do: inhale, put cool steel to pursed lips, and blow the whistle. Inside the bathroom stall at work, in her Hyundai sedan during the evening commute, and worst of all in bed at night, she weighs her duty to the American public against the consequences that will befall her husband, kids, and shelter-adopted mutt if her superiors fire her for making them look bad. Somewhere in the federal bureaucracy, this woman or someone like her hasn’t decided what she’ll do — and she is less likely to come forward now than she was when the Obama Administration took office because, for reasons big and small, fair and possibly unfair, it has acquired a reputation for retaliating against whistleblowers.
The most recent example is practically breaking news. In A Fox News interview, a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent claimed Tuesday that he was fired for helping to expose the now infamous “Fast and Furious” operation. That was the code name given when ATF agents permitted criminals to illegally smuggle guns into Mexico in hopes of tracing them to big time drug traffickers. As the Houston Chronicle reports: “The weapons purchased in gun stores in and around Phoenix, as many as 2,500, got away from ATF surveillance and eventually reached the cartels in Mexico.”
