Whistling in the Dark

I am shocked to find that the biggest news story of this week has barely been mentioned. Actually, I'm not shocked about it considering the Cheney shooting, but I'm having a hard time finding detailed info on the internet that is more than a summary.

On Tuesday several military and intelligence personnel testified under oath before the House Government Reform Subcommittee about the retaliation they had suffered for alerting superiors to waste, corruption and security concerns - Whistleblowing. Since I was too busy to take notes, and no news organization covered it thoroughly, I'm going to have to go on memory which means technical details may be fuzzy or phrased improperly.

Spc. Samuel Provance witnessed widespread abuses at Abu Ghraib and saw young soldiers misrepresented and held responsible while their superiors claimed ignorance. When Abu Ghraib was being formally investigated, he was asked to report only what he had seen, not what he had heard others confess to. When he tried to tell the investigator of other things he knew about, the investigator was not interested. He reported that the U.S. military had captured a young son of an Iraqi general and stripped him naked in front of his father in order to break his father. His security clearance was revoked and his case is still in limbo.

Russell Tice, a former NSA analyst, noticed a co-worker spending late hours on high clearance computers, making frequent trips to Europe and living well beyond her pay grade. He reported his concerns to a superior. The woman's mother turned out to be an even higher level Pentagon employee. She mysteriously came to visit her daughter one day about two weeks later. He was told by the superior he had confided in that it was just a coincidence. Soon after he discovered that he was being followed by the FBI when he doubled back on one of them and confronted them. He was ordered to undergo a psychological evaluation and found to be "mentally ill and paranoid" and was eventually "released from duty".

He also made clear that he was aware of other NSA wiretapping activities that "could" affect millions of people that he "wanted to discuss" with members of the committee in closed session because they appeared to him to be illegal and unconstitutional.

Richard Levernier, who worked for the Energy Dept., tried to tell superiors about an inspection he had tried to conduct at a nuclear facility. He was not allowed to conduct his inspection in the way he wanted to, by climbing fences and testing safeguards to perimeter security; he was led through the front door and escorted to the areas he wanted to check. He also tried to report that security was so far away from dangerous areas, that even if alarms were tripped, terrorists could finish their job and escape before security arrived at the scene.

He also testified that there were plans for capturing and detaining an intruder, but none for dealing with a situation where someone enters the facility, locks himself in and blows the place up committing suicide, which is what most terrorists prefer to do.

Once he could get no one to listen to his complaints, he gave an interview to an outside agency. His security clearance was revoked and he eventually resigned.

Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer worked for a secret military unit called Able Danger that identified Mohamed Atta and 3 other 9/11 hijackers before 9/11. Shaffer and several other intel officers were prevented from giving this information to the FBI. Once the 9/11 commission began it's investigation, Shaffer spoke personally with the executive director in October 2003, who denies meeting him.

Soon after, DIA accused him of filing false expense reports totaling $247, accused him of having an affair with one of his aides, and suspended his security clearance in March of '04. Then in September, just 48 hours before he was to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, his clearance was revoked completely.

Good luck finding out anything more about this on the net. Maybe on a blog or two. There's not much at the National Security Whistleblower Coalition, and even less at C-SPAN's site. If anyone can find a transcript or at least a good detailed accounting, let me know so I can link it in this article.