Reply #7: Davis wins battle to keep security whistleblower ammendment out!

[cascadiance]

Damn! This article says that the ammendment that Carolyn Maloney and Diane Watson tried to add to protect federal security whistleblowers was pulled in the version of the bill approved by the committee. Headline of this article really mischaracterizes what really happened here!

We'll have to keep battling to help our congress folks to win support for this folks!

From GovExec.com:

http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0905/092905c1.htm

DAILY BRIEFING
September 29, 2005

Panel approves bill strengthening whistleblower protections

By Chris Strohm
[email protected]
The House Government Reform Committee approved a bill Thursday that strengthens protections for federal whistleblowers, but Republicans defeated an amendment that would have extended protections to employees at national security agencies.

The committee passed the Federal Employee Protection of Disclosures Act (H.R. 3097) by a vote of 34 to 1, sending it to the full House for consideration. The legislation amends the 1989 Whistleblower Protection Act and would allow federal whistleblowers to have a jury trial if the Office of Special Counsel does not act on their complaints within 180 days.

"If enacted into law, the committee's jury trial reform would be a landmark good-government breakthrough when our country needs it most," said Tom Devine, legal director for the Government Accountability Project. "This action represents milestone progress toward a goal whistleblowers have sought for over two decades: a day in court with their rights decided by the taxpayers they purport to defend."

...

The legislation, for example, does not apply protections to employees at the FBI, CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency. It allows the president to exempt employees at any agency from protections if their primary job is "the conduct of foreign intelligence or counterintelligence activities."

...

Sibel and the NSWBC may have lost this battle. Hope she wins the big one in the SCOTUS in the coming weeks though. That's where it counts!