A wide-ranging surveillance operation by the Food and Drug Administration against a group of its own scientists used an enemies list of sorts as it secretly captured thousands of e-mails that the disgruntled scientists sent privately to members of Congress, lawyers, labor officials, journalists and even President Obama…
What began as a narrow investigation into the possible leaking of confidential agency information by five scientists quickly grew in mid-2010 into a much broader campaign to counter outside critics of the agency’s medical review process, according to the cache of more than 80,000 pages of computer documents generated by the surveillance effort…
The extraordinary surveillance effort grew out of a bitter dispute lasting years between the scientists and their bosses at the F.D.A. over the scientists’ claims that faulty review procedures at the agency had led to the approval of medical imaging devices for mammograms and colonoscopies that exposed patients to dangerous levels of radiation.
A confidential government review in May by the Office of Special Counsel, which deals with the grievances of government workers, found that the scientists’ medical claims were valid enough to warrant a full investigation into what it termed “a substantial and specific danger to public safety…”
But Stephen Kohn, a lawyer who represents six scientists who are suing the agency, said he planned to go to federal court this month seeking an injunction to stop any surveillance that may be continuing against the two medical researchers among the group who are still employed there.
The scientists who have been let go say in a lawsuit that their treatment was retaliation for reporting their claims of mismanagement and safety abuses in the F.D.A.’s medical reviews.
Seems pretty clear FDA bureaucrats behaved like the worst model favored by corporate barons. I realize there always is a certain amount of interchangeability between the breeds; but, one would hope a measure of ethics – both by choice and requirement – might have ruled behavior in a federal agency.
Perhaps not.
“Seems pretty clear FDA bureaucrats behaved like the worst model favored by corporate barons” – sorry, but no. It is the model of Romans Crucifying for obedience, enemies list,.. same model this Progressive Obama Administration applies on all levels. It is Chicago Politics personified. Do not mix corporations into this as they are clean as snow vs. Chicago Politics and much more importantly – they work with their own money for their own purpose and do not have the power of The State in hand. This is abuse by civil servants, by order of Administration who should serve us, yet it is serving itself. If Congress attempts inquiry I bet Holder would deny all documents – because this is “internal investigation” and maybe Obama will issue some of his Presidential Obstructions to the truth as well.
You should get a new tinfoil hat.
No this just proves that you should never use corporate email addresses. Get your own.
now it can be said that “entryism” is officially happening at the FDA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entryism
corporate america’s take over of government is nearly complete
There has been a revolving door between corporations and government bureaucracy for as long as I remember.
Anybody who is stupid enough to be a whistleblower without using a special anonymous web mail address is a schmuck.
Any organization accepting data over an unsecured channel is obviously an amateur outfit and shouldn’t be trusted.
• The first rule of being a whistle blower is cover your ass. Leave no evidence incriminating yourself.
• The second rule of being a whistle blower is cover your tracks. Leave no evidence incriminating your actions.
• The third rule of being a whistle blower is to cover only the act that’s trying to go unreported. Too much information is worse than too little.
• Gather evidence, use only encrypted and trusted remote servers to record it, disseminate the path to few and the specific decryption key by hand only to trusted correspondents.
Then and only then can you play at being Deep Throat…
Remember, if you find out something that somebody else wants to hide, you never know what lengths they’ll go, or how little your life may be worth, to those who want to keep a secret.
Only the paranoid survive.
The Karen Silkwood story is a case in point.
She was a whistleblower at a plutonium plant.
After she revealed that she would release information about practices that threatened the health of plutonium workers at the plant, she mysteriously became exposed to massive amounts of radiation.
She gathered documentation of her own exposure and the exposure of other workers and arranged a meeting with correspondents.
She died in a single-car accident on the way to the meeting, and no documentation was found in her car.
According to Richard L. Rashke’s book The Killing of Karen Silkwood, investigators of Silkwood’s death, as well as the Kerr-McGee corporation and their Cimarron plant, received death threats. One of the investigators disappeared under mysterious circumstances. One of the witnesses to the Silkwood incident committed suicide very shortly before she was to testify against the Kerr-McGee corporation about the alleged happenings at the plant.
There is more to the story, but that is enough.
Perfect example, of people who swear to uphold the Constitution, pervert their understanding; to be an oath to the institution or people. Another fine example of a government not practicing what it claims to value and tries to spread throughout the world with force, democratic/representative democracy.
By the time the Average American figures out what is happening to this country and how they involvement could have saved it; it will be too late and Americans (as third world poor they will be) will powerless to stop it.
When you realize that most (if not all) of the government agencies, starting with “F”. Are really the “Friends” of whatever corporate industry they’re supposed to be policing. FDA is the Friends of the Drug-makers of America. FCC is the Friend of the Communications Cabal. FAA is the Friends of All Airlines. And so on. I’m sure one can think up some others. What may be amazing is that anyone working for these agencies, ever believes otherwise. Aren’t they told in their job interview, that they’re expect to play ball?
There is a consensus that shall not be challenged. If you do, people will seek to have you fired.
I am an engineer for the FAA and completed REQUIRED training last week. There is nothing worse than having your faced rubbed in it. I sent this article to several colleagues for their amusement.
Eric Arthur Blair would call this newspeak…
(30200003) (CBI/WEB) FAA No FEAR Act and Whistleblower Protection Laws
BRIEFING FAA30200003