Wednesday
14 Mar 2007
Whistling in the Dark Halls of Homeland Security
By Annie Jacobsen in category Government Secrecy
Today, March 14, The House of Representatives is voting on the latest round of whistleblower laws. The President has already issued a statement saying he will veto it. What would a veto mean? For starters, less accountability from federal government. Whistleblowers are government employees who "whistle the truth" says Tom Devine, legal director for the Government Accountability Project. Devine sees whistleblowers as witnesses to government fraud and corruption. To Devine, protecting whistleblowers' rights means that government investigators can "uncover the iceberg instead of just the tip."
The Aviation Nation's Think Tank Contributor Bogdan Dzakovic is a government whistleblower. He was one of a handful of whistleblowers and members of Congress who participated in a press conference today, held at Cannon Terrace, right before the Congressional vote.
Bogdan is a former leader of the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Red Team. Prior to 9/11, this elite, counterterrorism unit tested aviation security in airports around the world. Bogdan was the unit’s leader from 1995 until September 11, 2001. For several years prior to the 9/11 attacks, Bogdan tried to improve aviation security in the face of the ever-increasing terrorist threat. He sent reports through the established chain of command, as well as to the Department of Transportation (Office of Inspector General) and the General Accountability Office. When the gravity of his reports fell upon deaf ears, he notified members in both houses of Congress.
In October 2001, Bogdan filed a Whistleblower Protection Act disclosure complaint against the FAA. Once the complaint was received, he was immediately removed from his Red Team leadership position. He now works for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). As reported in USA Today, his current assignments include tasks such as hole-punching, updating agency phonebooks, and “thumb-twiddling”.
You can read further articles about Bogdan in USA Today, The Huffington Post, The New American, WorldNetDaily.com, and The San Francisco Chronicle.
Bogdan is represented by lawyers with GAP.