Thursday, February 02, 2006

Whistleblowing Case and Bill

Paul Revere Freedom to Warn Act: http://www.theorator.com/bills107/hr3806.html.
"To protect those who defend the United States by exercising their duty as patriots to warn against the existence of threats to weaknesses created by institutional failures that should be identified and corrected in a timely manner, and for other purposes." -excerpt from bill.

After reading this bill, do you think that it is a reasonable connection (not just any connection but specifically a reasonable one) to connect whistleblowing to protection from terrorist attacks? In this article Radack describes the events that took place during her whistleblowing experience: http://writ.news.findlaw.com/commentary/20050613_radack.html. Do you think her actions would be protected under the bill (Paul Revere) she wants passed? If so, how does her whistleblowing protect national security and not just Lindh? There is also one thing I did not quite understand, she said she resigned because some important emails went 'missing,' but then in the next sentence she says how she managed to uncover these emails and provide them to her boss. I was just confused as to what was going on here. Any ideas, answers, or thoughts on the issue?

1 Comments:

Blogger Professor Prenkert said...

The article you cite is the only information I have on this case, so I'm far from an expert. Nevertheless, I'll give a shot at addressing a few of your questions:

1. Connection between whistleblowing and protection from terrorist attacks: Certainly, for instance, Colleen Rowley's post-9/11 whistleblowing regarding the FBI's beaurocratic failings provides a pretty direct connection. (Recall Rowley of TIME person-of-the-year fame.) Radack's whistleblowing certainly doesn't have the same direct connection to protection from terrorist attacks as this. But, I'm not sure that she argues it does and I'm not sure that anyone supporting or sponsoring the Paul Revere Freedom to Warn Act would argue it does (or that it is required to for coverage).

2. Radack's coverage under PRFTWA: She makes her argument that she would be covered. Her argument is rational, but not terribly developed or nuanced (likely as much because of the constraints of space and audience in writin ga Findlaw column as because of an inability to fill out the argument). What you quote is from the Congressional findings of the proposed PRFTWA, so it's not a substantive part of the act. It suggests one of the primary ills that the act seeks to redress and, I think, Radack's actions arguably fall within the phrase "weaknesses created by institutional failures" or the final catch-all phrase. I don't think the WPA or the PRFTWA require a direct connection to national security. But her claim is that the Dept. of Justice was acting unethically, which is certainly a national security concern to some extent, even if the direct claim she was making was not an imminent security threat.

3. With regard to the e-mail issue: If I understand what she's written (and, for purposes of your question, taking her at her word), she claims that the hard copies of the e-mails were lost and so were not turned over to a federal court as ordered. So, she searched her own computer's archives for copies of the e-mails in question and made new hard copies of the e-mails for both her superiors and herself. When it appeared to her that DOJ still had not turned over the second batch of hard copies, she shared her copies with Newsweek.

3:30 PM  

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