Obama administration divides over whistleblowers
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/04/obama-administration-whistleblowers-transparency-90025.html
This is an assault on unions, and on the employee civil protections of hundreds of thousands of federal workers. And the implications of this particular assault are *especially* chilling, because we're talking about stripping worker protections from those who are closest to what is going on in the halls of our government.
So much for being able to speak out when malfeasance is observed.
This is likely headed to the Supreme Court.
Obama administration divides over whistleblowers
Reuters
By JOSH GERSTEIN | 4/13/13 4:34 PM EDT Updated: 4/13/13 5:19 PM EDT
It’s a battle that pits President Barack Obama against whistleblower advocates, against some of the largest federal employee unions, and against a bipartisan contingent in Congress.
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The Justice Department and Defense Department are arguing that federal employees like commissary managers and accountants, who don’t have access to classified information, can be demoted or effectively fired without recourse to the usual avenues of appeal if their jobs are designated as “sensitive.” The ripple effect of that — critics say it would effectively strip huge numbers of federal workers of civil service protections by treating them like those who have access to the nation’s most vital secrets — could hollow out legal protections that have allowed whistleblowers to speak out with less fear of being fired.
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Whistleblower advocates, including some in Congress, contend that allowing agencies greater latitude to reassign or even dismiss workers in “sensitive” positions will open another way for employees to retaliate against those who report fraud, waste or abuse of power.
....Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, agreed: “Providing agencies with complete discretion to strip federal workers of whistleblower and other civil service protections would undermine Congressional intent and would be patently unjust,” Cummings said.
It’s unclear how many workers are potentially affected by the dispute, but some lawyers involved believe the number is in the hundreds of thousands....Critics say that if typical accounting and stockroom jobs are deemed “sensitive” because of their potential impact on national security, almost any job at any agency could be designated as such and any supervisor or agency could elude normal civil service protections by ginning up a concern about a worker’s background.
“The Obama Administration is seeking a blank check to expand this throughout the executive branch,” Devine said. If the administration’s approach prevails, he said, “any job that matters in the civil service will be outside the rule of law.”
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