Social Education 69(6), pg 313–317 ©2005 National Council for the Social Studies Protecting the Rights of Whistleblowers Lauren Robinson Coleen Rowley became one of the most famous whistle- blowers in the United States in recent times when she blew the whistle on intelligence blunders at the FBI. The special agent’s fiery 13-page letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller in 2002 detailed the FBI’s failure to investigate Zacarias Moussaoui, a French national of Moroccan descent known as the “20th hijacker,” in connection with the September 11 attacks. Rowley was named Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” in 2002 along with two other whistleblowers. Rowley’s team, based out of the FBI’s Minneapolis office, arrested Moussaoui just weeks before the 9/11 attacks. Moussaoui had attended terrorist training camps in the Middle East and spent $8,000 on flight training for a Boeing 747. Rowley and her team requested a warrant to search his com- puter, but her supervisors denied the request. Moussaoui later pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit the atrocities, although he originally denied ties to 9/11, saying he had plans for a separate attack of his own. In her memo to Mueller, Rowley criticized the FBI’s failure to act: Hopefully, with our nation’s security on the line, you and our nation’s other elected and appointed officials can rise above the petty politics that often plague other discus- sions and do the right thing. You do have some good ideas for change in the FBI but I think you have also not been completely honest about some of the true reasons for the FBI’s pre-September 11th failures. Until we come clean and deal with the root causes, the Department of Justice will continue to experience problems fighting terrorism and fighting crime in general.1 Rowley’s concerns were met with a great deal of high-pow- ered support, attracting media attention, and fueling congressio- Coleen Rowley, the FBI agent who went public about the bureau’s mishandling of the Zacarias Moussaoui case, is shown nal investigations and hearings. They even gained the attention during an interview with the Associated Press in Washington, of the Special Staff of the 9/11 Joint Intelligence Committee. D.C., Sept. 9, 2004. Rowley warned that counter-terrorism agents Rowley made use of this attention to raise awareness of the may be getting more information than they can sift through. (AP FBI’s systemic failings and to force the organization to correct Photo/Stephen J. Boitano) O CT O BER 2 0 0 5 313 inaction, unwieldy paperwork, tangled or to non-governmental organizations ers take to intimidate workers who bureaucracy, and what she saw as a “risk- (NGOs). Currently, Congress is debat- challenge the status quo include: job adverse culture.” Rowley’s whistleblow- ing whether or not to strengthen federal demotion, psychiatric evaluations, strip- ing contributed to a revamping of the whistleblower protections, particularly ping away security clearances (meaning intelligence community. She recently the Whistleblower Protection Act employees effectively lose their jobs), announced plans to run for Congress (WPA), which was originally passed in and transferring employees to new loca- and said the focus of her campaign will 1989 to better help these employees. tions. The whistleblower may be forced be on “ethical decisionmaking by gov- Since 9/11, the general public has to work in a hostile work environment ernment leaders.”2 had a heightened awareness of national and suffer physical threats or blacklist- Rowley chose to be public with her security issues. This, coupled with the ing, and other retaliatory acts. actions, but another famous whistle- public visibility of whistleblowers like Employees who go through the blower chose to be exceedingly anony- Coleen Rowley, has generated new dia- proper channels at work to report wrong- mous and was also very effective. This logue about whistleblowing and ethical doing are often faced with hostility and past summer it was revealed, to great dilemmas. Official whistleblower reports find they can only turn to someone out- public fanfare, that former FBI assistant in general are on the rise. According to side the agency to get problems fixed. director Mark Felt was the mysterious Public Employees for Environmental A survey taken in 2000 by the Merit “Deep Throat” informant. Felt’s work Responsibility, the number of official Systems Protection Board, which is an with Washington Post reporters Bob whistleblower reports has risen signifi- independent government agency cre- Woodward and Carl Bernstein helped cantly, from 380 in the year 2001 to ated to protect federal employees from spark investigations into the Watergate 535 in 2003. agency management abuses, found that break-in scandal that eventually forced 44 percent of the survey respondents President Richard Nixon to resign from Whistleblower Retaliation who had made formal disclosures of office. Many employers in the private and pub- wrongdoing experienced retaliation for These two cases were fairly unique: lic sector do not want to be confronted the disclosures. Only 4 percent of those most whistleblower cases do not receive with a whistleblower’s concerns. Coleen employees who did not make a formal media attention to the extent that Rowley observed in a 2004 Minnesota disclosure experienced retaliation. This Rowley’s and Deep Throat’s have. And Law and Politics article, “I’ve learned also suggests that many supervisors in not every whistleblower is allowed to the sad lesson that most organiza- federal agencies are unready to facili- make as much of an impact on the prob- tions are resistant to change and have tate an office atmosphere that is open lems they witness. The road to exposing a natural tendency to want to cover up to in-house dialogue about workers’ government errors or corruption is very problems and mistakes.” This organi- concerns. bumpy and very costly. zational mindset is troubling, primarily Outlining examples of the types of because it can endanger the organiza- negative reactions whistleblowers face, Introduction to Whistleblower Issues tion’s employees or the nation’s security. Elaine Kaplan, former head of the U.S. Thousands of federal workers, like The compulsion to cover up problems Office of Special Counsel, testified Rowley and Felt, play key roles in rather than to address them openly is in 2003 to the Senate Committee on achieving security for our nation. They understandable: nobody wants to admit Governmental Affairs: do so as translators and investigators they made mistakes or to have those This same scenario could play who handle sensitive intelligence, as mistakes scrutinized, especially when out in any number of contexts: officials who protect the safety and an agency’s budget or a manager’s career an inspector at the Nuclear security of our nuclear weapons labs is at stake. Addressing a whistleblower’s Regulatory Commission who suf- and power plants, as personnel who test concerns often means a supervisor must fers retaliation when he recom- the efficacy of airport baggage screening, admit to wrongdoing. Yet if agencies are mends that a nuclear power plant’s and in many other ways. truly to serve the public interest, they license be revoked for violating Although the vast majority of fed- would benefit from zooming in on a flaw safety regulations, an auditor who eral employees and officials work in the right away—without adding the hard- is denied promotions because he best interest of the public, instances of ship and drama of retaliating against found improprieties in a federal wrongdoing do occur, not only in ways whistleblowers. grant program, or an investigator that waste tax dollars, but also in ways When agencies retaliate against a in the Inspector General’s office that compromise national security and whistleblower, they are simply “shoot- who is geographically reassigned the public health. Many workers raise ing the messenger,” and this does more because he has reported mis- their concerns to unresponsive employ- harm than good. This is evident from the conduct by a high level agency ers and are then compelled to take many instances of whistleblower retali- official.3 those concerns to the press, Congress, ation. Some of the actions that employ- S O CIAL E DUCATI O N 314 This type of sad and dramatic out- his security clearance, effectively ending blower to meet a higher standard of come can be seen time and again in many the career of one of the best security proof than is required for prosecuting of the personal stories of whistleblow- analysts in DOE. In a November 2003 criminals. The 1999 case of Lachance v. ers. For example, FBI translator Sibel Vanity Fair article, Levernier said, “If White ruled that the WPA only protects Edmonds was fired in 2002 after report- I had to do this over again, I wouldn’t. employees who charge the government ing ineptitude and possible with misconduct and can back it espionage by a co-worker to her up with “irrefragable proof,” or supervisors. Congressional brief- proof that is impossible to refute.5 ings concerning Edmonds’s case This standard was not mandated were retroactively classified by by the original legislation or in the Department of Justice (DOJ), reports by Congress on the intent sealing her national security con- of the WPA. cerns from dialogue and correc- There are several other tion, despite a separate DOJ loopholes in the WPA. It does Inspector General report that not offer employees full pro- confirmed much of Edmonds’s tection from retaliation by their allegations. bosses. For example, employees The case of New York City are not protected by the WPA if police officer Frank Serpico, an employee reports wrongdo- made famous by a book and a ing to the boss or to someone in movie entitled Serpico, illus- the chain of command at work; trates that sometimes a whistle- if employees blow the whistle in blower faces life and death the course of their job duties—for situations for his actions.