Now Democrats want to elevate OIG pay?
Maybe there should be a survey of all the cases from 2009-today, and including those buried/blocked, muddled, etc. with the DOJ to expose actual results in order to gain a thorough review from this, prior to increase in pay? http://fcw.com/articles/2014/02/07/ig-legislation.aspx
Watching the Watchdogs: The Good, the Bad, and What We Need from the Inspectors General
http://www.pogo.org/our-work/reports/2014/watching-the-watchdogs-the-good-the-bad-and-what-we-need.htmlYou can add the NASA OIG to this list tagged above by POGO. The NASA whistleblowers have the same experiences of a corrupt (cover-up) OIG.
In order for whistleblowers to be an effective part of oversight for the US taxpayers (the public trust), they must have meaningful protection from the White House, Congress (GOP), the Office of Inspector Generals, and Office of Special Council agency from reprisal for their actions. The Office of Special Counsel (OSC) and/or the Office of Inspector General is the official place they must look to for such protections, but these offices appear to have no legs when dealing with the Department of Justice or White House interferences and/or blocking progress these days. The FBI even can get stonewalled by the DOJ today. It appears that they will not step into federal cases for this reason today, even if the OIG has gone corrupt? Example: Congress oversaw an FBI case that was substantially complete and referred to the US Attorney for the Northern District of California for prosecution, get stalled for more than a year and that an assistant U.S. Attorney was reassigned from the case. The DOJ allowed the case to run up against the statute of limitations, and that the first charge expired on December 15, 2012.
Stories in the media related to this case can be found at:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/feb/12/nasa-accused-of-technology-transfers/?page=all
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/02/22/nasa-missile-defense-tech-leaked-to-china-sources-say/
http://freedomoutpost.com/2013/03/eric-holder-plays-fast-furious-loose-with-space-weapons-technology/
investigation
that the FBI's case is substantially complete and was referred to the
U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California for prosecution,
but it has been stalled for more than a year and that an assistant U.S.
attorney was reassigned from the case. It is our understanding that the
charges in this case are rapidly running up against the statute of
limitations, and that the first charge expired on December 15, 2012.
Read more at http://freedomoutpost.com/2013/03/eric-holder-plays-fast-furious-loose-with-space-weapons-technology/#LlWqT6iiDTh1vz2S.99
Read more at http://freedomoutpost.com/2013/03/eric-holder-plays-fast-furious-loose-with-space-weapons-technology/#LlWqT6iiDTh1vz2S.99
investigation
that the FBI's case is substantially complete and was referred to the
U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California for prosecution,
but it has been stalled for more than a year and that an assistant U.S.
attorney was reassigned from the case. It is our understanding that the
charges in this case are rapidly running up against the statute of
limitations, and that the first charge expired on December 15, 2012.
Read more at http://freedomoutpost.com/2013/03/eric-holder-plays-fast-furious-loose-with-space-weapons-technology/#LlWqT6iiDTh1vz2S.99
Read more at http://freedomoutpost.com/2013/03/eric-holder-plays-fast-furious-loose-with-space-weapons-technology/#LlWqT6iiDTh1vz2S.99
The protections in our national security and protections of our taxpayer's interest is absolutely failing, OSC, OIG, and FBI appear to be failing their stated roles. Article found indicates that this has been going on for a very long time, and it seems to be surfacing more and more each year, that brave whistleblowers are starting to come forward to find media attention identifying the corruption high up the White House chambers, that even under the Bush Administration appointee Scott Bloch, the OSC began to act as the "Three Wise Monkeys" of Chinese legend http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/1911:office-of-special-counsel-must-change-climate-and-protect-whistleblowers.
The process just continues today, that when a whistleblower requests help in fighting agency retaliation, the OCS and OIG hears no evil, sees no evil and does not speak about any evil. Unfortunately, this situation continues to this day, and appears to be getting worse before our eyes when looking across the large cases surfacing from brave whistleblowers coming forward on Fast and Furious, Benghazi, the IRS scandal, and even this case this blog has been following since 2009.
One of the editors of this blog will be publishing a Whistleblower's Lessons Learned from inside activities in one of the most popular Agencies in the federal government on the clever hidden ways retaliation happens today that seems to be loopholes even in the Whistleblower Protection Act.
Today there is definitely degradation of ethics and integrity building within our very Federal oversight offices e.g., OIG. Many are finding that they are having to get permission from White House and DOJ on what cases to even investigate (otherwise be redirected to another job).
It's apparent that something is not working in the Department of Justice and the White House. Even the Department of Justice will not indict the obvious corruption in Wall Street due to Eric Holder's reservations in dealing with those guilty "Wall Street too big to Jail" http://www.businessinsider.com/eric-holder-wall-street-too-big-to-jail-2013-3
What does this tell the taxpayers? What does this do to the very foundation in our government? Who is really behind the curtain running the federal reserves, the federal government offices and services today? Remember the President is voted in to 'serve' the real government "We the people"? What happened to this oath civil servants swear to? Federal regulations/policies require those working for the federal government to come forward to report on appearances of criminal activities, so if these civil servants are blocked and punished (fired, retaliated on and/or worse; even put in jail for crimes of reporting crime as releasing secrets such as in some of the NSA whistleblowing cases), then do we really have a federal government concerned with "Public Trust" anymore?
These are serious questions. Many of us editors in this blog have noted a substantial new behavior growing in the federal sectors, and that is most civil servants are also using the Chinese legend "The Wise Three Monkey's" when witnessing appearances of serious waste, abuse, and criminal activities today due to "FEAR". So, the federal government puts in the "NO FEAR ACT"? Yet today there still is no teeth with the OIG, OSC, or any agencies to protect the whistleblowers. Only a few Senators & Congressmen have surfaced working hard to protect them e.g., Senator Grassley, Congressman Wolf, Lamar Smith, and periodically others members in the GOP.
The latest on the IRS scandal shows how the administration only throws all the workers under the bus when such scandals surface in these cases, surfacing the NO FEAR ACT as baseless today. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/11/20/irs-emails-show-cincinnati-official-fuming-lois-lerner-comments/?wpisrc=nl_fed
Unfortunately the public (taxpayers) are dealing with cognitive dissonance from all the media surfacing these cases, they want change but feel hopeless when the very White House and DOJ block progress on these cases getting prosecuted and appropriate actions are then put forward towards the goals of protecting the public trust.
