Guest Blogged by Stephen Heller
The truest act of patriotism is to protect the public from a corrupt and wasteful government.
— TheFirstWhistleblower.org
The United States government and American corporations are counting on you to keep your mouth shut.
According to Transparency International’s Peter Eigen, the World Bank estimates that every year corruption costs one trillion dollars. Here in the United States, billions of our tax dollars are stolen every year due to corruption, bribery, fraud, willful malfeasance and misfeasance, and plain old greed. And if you come across evidence of this fraud and corruption, you are expected to keep quiet about it.
The government and the corporations want you to shut up. Stay asleep, people. Nothing to see here, just move along. Go to work, earn your pay, watch TV so you’ll know what products you should be buying, then go to the mall and buy them. Don’t worry about what your government is doing, don’t think about what the corporations are doing, just trust us and be good little “sheeple.” Just. Shut. Up.
To hell with ’em.
Don’t shut up. Don’t let the bastards win. When you see something, say something. Take a deep breath, and blow that whistle HARD!
You should know that you’ll probably get hammered for it. You’ll likely lose your job, get harassed and threatened, you might even be charged with a crime.
I know whereof I speak…
I became known as the Diebold Whistleblower. While working as a temp word processor at the Los Angeles office of international corporate law firm Jones Day, I saw, in the course of my assigned duties, documents about Jones Day’s client Diebold Election Systems, Inc., that caused me to fear for the integrity of our elections, and thus of our entire democracy. (You can read PDFs of some of the more important documents here.) These documents provided smoking-gun evidence that Diebold was breaking the law in California and lying to the state, the taxpayers, and the voters about their voting machines and the software therein.
I made the choice to steal and expose those documents, and as a result I was charged by the Los Angeles District Attorney with three felonies: unauthorized access to computer data, commercial burglary, and receiving stolen property. Long story short, Diebold got de-certified in the state of California due in part to the documents I exposed. I eventually pleaded guilty to one felony count of unauthorized access to a computer. I acknowledged in court that I committed a serious crime by stealing attorney-client privileged documents. I did not receive any jail time, and I am currently on felony probation. For the record, I do accept full responsibility for the crime I committed. After all, I did it; I did steal the documents, and they were clearly marked as attorney-client privileged. As I said, I committed a serious crime. And just as I warned in the previous paragraph, I lost my job, was harassed and threatened, experienced a financial meltdown, and was arrested.
There are countless other whistleblowers with more dramatic stories than mine. Think of people like Jeffrey Wigand. Sibel Edmunds. Daniel Ellsberg. Joseph Wilson. And people like Ron Ridenhour or Donald Vance; these two are superheroes. They served their nation in the military, and served their nation again by blowing the whistle on crimes against humanity. All of them faced terrible pressure, retaliation, threats, fear, financial hardship, and much more because they dared to speak truth to power, dared to make their voices heard in the interests of truth, justice, and the American way.
They dared to blow the whistle.
So with the examples above, and the example of my own story (three felony charges, fired from two good-paying jobs with full benefits, a double mortgage on our house to pay the legal bills, threats from the Jones Day law firm with a financial judgment that would have kept my wife and me impoverished for the rest of our lives, threatened by the District Attorney with a state prison sentence, and a lot of tension and fear), you might be thinking that no matter what, you’d never blow that whistle. It’s just not worth it, right?
Wrong.
Why do it? Why risk everything to expose fraud and corruption?
Because our nation, our democracy, our way of life, depends on it. “In this era of increasingly secretive government and government contracting, whistleblowers are one of the only ways of finding out what our elected officials are doing to our rights,” says Cindy Cohen of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Whistleblowers reveal crimes against our society. They expose and stop government and corporate misconduct. They save lives.
All of us, as citizens of this great democratic republic, have a responsibility to ourselves and our fellow citizens to see to it that the government and corporations conduct their affairs ethically and in compliance with all laws and regulations. If we fail in this duty as citizens, we fail our neighbors, our children, ourselves, and our nation.
Everyone claims to be a patriot. But patriotism is more than waving the flag and chanting “U.S.A.! We’re Number 1!” True patriotism means, among other things, believing in and standing up for American justice. And American justice means that when (not if) the government or a corporation is lying, cheating, screwing you, your neighbors, your kids, your nation, and you see evidence of it, you stand up. You make your voice heard. You hold your head high. And, unfortunately, you get ready to fight the crooks in expensive suits and the government lackeys who will try to destroy you.
But you won’t be alone. When news of my story went public, there was quite a response. People from all over the world contacted my wife and me with messages of support and donations to my legal defense fund. The Los Angeles District Attorney’s office was flooded with calls, letters, and emails insisting that they stop prosecuting a whistleblower. Here in Los Angeles, a number of celebrities stepped forward to help me with publicity and donations. The blogs pitched in big time, especially our own Brad Friedman. We heard from people in all 50 states, as well as Guam and Puerto Rico. We heard from people in Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan, the Netherlands, Holland, Germany, and France. We heard from people in the American military who applauded me for standing up for the integrity of our elections and our democracy. So if you blow that whistle, you’ll have to take some hits for it, but others will be there to stand with you, encourage you, and maybe even assist you financially.
“Freedom isn’t free.” How many times do we all hear that? And it’s the truth; freedom is most certainly not free. Usually “freedom isn’t free” is referring to the terrible cost paid by soldiers to establish, defend, or expand freedom. But we citizens who aren’t soldiers also have a duty to help pay the cost of freedom.
Those of us who live in this country and who aren’t in the military get our freedom for free, for the most part. The cost of freedom is paid for us by others. But by becoming a whistleblower, you have a chance to repay some of that cost.
I never had to be in the military; when I turned 18 there was no more draft. I never had to pay anything for my freedom. Becoming a whistleblower changed that. Blowing the whistle on Diebold’s dirty deeds, lifting up the pretty skirt Diebold wears before the world and exposing the filthy corruption underneath, led to some hard knocks for me and my wife. But it was an opportunity for me to pay a small part of the cost of freedom.
And let me tell you, it feels pretty good.
I was surprised to find within myself the courage to stand up and risk jail and financial ruin in the name of American democracy and clean elections. I exposed, at great risk to myself, information that threatened the integrity of our republic. I am now a convicted felon, but my head is held high. I am a patriot, an American, and a man. No one – not Diebold, not Jones Day, not the District Attorney – can take that away from me.
So for those of you who have seen or someday will see evidence of government or corporate corruption, join me. Expose it. You’ll help pay the cost of freedom. You’ll feel like a true American patriot. That’s a feeling that can’t be bought, and it can’t be beat.
Blow that whistle, and blow it hard.
Stephen:
Hats off to you! You are truly an American hero. Thanks so much for everything that you have done on behalf of your fellow citizens/voters. We are all in your debt.
Can’t wait to hear more details when you are in a position to reveal them.
best wishes to you and Michele,
Joan Brunwasser, voting integrity editor, OpEdNews
Stephen,
Thank you for blowing the whistle on Diebold. You’re a true patriot.
It always amazed me how Diebold could build ATM machines that produced paper receipts but they couldn’t build a voting machine that did. Weird huh?
Troubled Texan
thank you. Thank You. THANK YOU. I am truly grateful to you Mr. Heller.
Steve,
Great editorial and you are a tremendous inspiration to all of us. Great pic, too. Wonderful to get together with you and Michelle recently, give your brave and supportive (and lovely) wife a hug from all of us.
“The United States government and American corporations are counting on you to keep your mouth shut.”
That’s true. And the rest of the truth is: THERE ARE MORE OF US THAN THERE ARE OF THEM.
They desperately need all those free-thinking individuals to eat potato chips and watch “Survivor” instead of engaging in the acts of patriotism that will result in the REAL survival — of our democracy.
Bless you. It is true that more and more people are willing to rally ’round. What Steve is too modest to say is that he did this THREE YEARS AGO when the support network had not yet formed. His act of courage has shown so many others that they, too, can stand up for all of our civil rights.
Steve:
I am sorry you have had to suffer for bringing us our democracy back. But let me say that only time will show the importance of your efforts. And time will reward you for all your suffering. I gathered documents in 2004 that I am only now seeing used in a court case against Georgia criminals like Cathy Cox, Britt Williams, Kathy Rogers and Diebold. The wheels of justice, however slowly they may turn, do always come full circle and reward the heroes and punish the criminals.
This chapter of history will show you a martyr for your cause and Diebold will eventually experience a financial devastation for their criminal activities. The activists always win.
Keep up the great posts and reminding folks about the importance of whistleblowing. Please know that already, thousands of activists across the country are grateful to you for your courage and will try to help you heal the wounds of going head to head with the most corrupt banana republic government in the world!
Phyllis
Seems like terrible things that are happening in broad daylight, like corporations making sure we can’t know how our votes are being counted, can’t be talked about by our politicians and election officials. When the people whose job it is to protect our democracy refuse to risk a damn thing, it’s people like Stephen who have to risk it all.
Thanks Stephen for finally getting it into a court of law. The politicians have been hiding behind the argument that nothing can be proven.
And they still are!
This is shameless!
And let us not forget Josh Wolf. The blogger who refused to give up his purely journalistic material upon demand. He stayed in jail and did not cave in.
He spoke truth and courage to power.
The MSM journalists on the other hand hid the truth from the people as they lied and covered up for the corrupt ones in power.
Night is different from day.
You saw the CMSM get a guy fired, Imus, when they relentlessly covered something. Why did they choose THAT, why NOW, and why IMUS? Imus isn’t the POINT…the question is WHY? And the Imus situation is the PROOF that when the CMSM CHOSES to cover something, even though the Imus thing didn’t warrant it, they got a guy fired.
What if they covered e-vote machines like the Imus story? (which did NOT warrant the coverage)
E-vote machines would be out the door as fast as Imus was out the door, am I right?
Question: Why did the CMSM cover the Imus thing to the point where he got fired, but not something 1 million times as important, as e-vote machines???
In this government of Caligulas and Neros it is still true today, as it was in their imploding empires, that selfless and courageous people like you and Sibel Edmonds will break through the deafening silence to expose the human sacrificing to their GODLESS ambitions. I am certain you will be remembered in history for your service to humanity! God be with you and yours always.
My deepest gratitude,
Ancient
Did John Carpenter give you permission to reprint his script of They Live?
Amen, Ancient! It never ceases to amaze me – not that the bad guys have never learned the basic lessons, but, far more puzzling, how so few good people remember. My immense gratitude goes out to Stephen and his family for remembering, and for realizing how important it was to muster the courage. If I had a son tommorrow, his first two names would be Stephen Heller
The PDF files do not appear to be available on the website you gave here:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0404/S00199.htm
If you go on that link to where it says “:[Links to PDF copies of selected memos”, and try to click on the PDF links, they appear to be “not found”.
jl
{ED NOTE: Thanks, jl. I’ve contacted the owner of the Scoop site to let them know of the broken links, with a request that they check and fix ASAP. Hopefully they’ll be taken care of shortly. – BF}
Hey Czaragorn
With Steven writing inspiring articles like this for the conscience challenged among us, who knows what might pop out of the wood work! I just hope they’ve heard of the Bradblog!!
Hi Ancient – I don’t have my own outgoing internets tube yet, and I well may never have one, but I try to plumb in where I can, and I make sure to tell all my friends to go to bradblog. I also strongly encourage them to visit Winter Patriot and Bart Cop 😉
OT SORRY
WHOLE HOUR OF DEMOCRACY NOW! WITH AMY GOODMAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LIVE!!!!!!
NOT ON ANBCBSNNX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
HOWARD ZINN AND NOAM CHOMSKY ARE BLACKLISTED FROM ANBCBSNNX!!!!!
THEY SPEAK FOR THE ENTIRE HOUR ABOUT PATRIOTISM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
http://www.democracynow.org/art.../04/16/1338223
http://play.rbn.com/?url=demnow...038;start=8:45
Mr. Heller is by his own words a “convicted felon”, but with the Libby case still fresh in mind, if ever there was a proper example of “jury nullification” being a valid defense, his should be it.
He’s convicted, yes, but wrongly convicted in my opinion. This is also a profound case for Presidential pardon, but don’t be looking to Bush for it, sad to say.
I am an atheist, so of course I cannot say “my prayers are with you”, Mr. Heller, but I certainly can say you have my moral support, for what that’s worth.
Here’s another thing that isn’t free: courage. I deeply admire your courage Mr. Heller, and I am so saddened it has cost you so much, but I can only hope that if I am ever faced with a situation similar to yours someday that I will have your courage to pay the price; you have made the world a better place by your sacrifice, and I applaud you.
Thanks for all you did in helping to expose the problems with the Diebold machines. You are to be commended for your courage and sacrifice in this extremely important matter.
As someone who is in the middle of a second multi-million dollar “defamation” suit for speaking out on public interest issues, your encouragement, Mr. Heller, is what matters most. It is only through communicating to the public that what is important to us was not damaged by these legal attacks, that we can hope to inspire more people to do the same when faced with the ability to expose corporate/government malfeasance. Thank you for being so eloquent and public with your message! You have just made your experience that much more valuable for those who are watching…
Thank you for speaking truth to power and exposing criminals. If the govt. wants to spy on us, they she be monitored too.
Btw, Holland and the Netherlands are one and the same.
Steve, it’s good to see you out and about 🙂
Be a weapon for good, but whistle-blowing is a dead weapon and will make you one.
I speak as a whistleblower whose story made it to mainstream – and the alternative press – who was viciously attacked by some of the biggest 9/11 “truth out” scamsters.
My advice: if you know something, shut your mouth and leave the country. Go to somewhere other than your native country, you will be more respected. No matter what they say publicly about being a “heroic” whistle-blower these very people will not help you one bit for speaking out. E.g., No one will hire you, the very people who laud your actions, will run from you. You will find yourself with financial and legal problems you never imagined, just because you did “the right thing”.
In America these days, there is no room for the right thing. Perhaps in a generation, but not this one.
What’s going on is bigger than you can imagine… no one who hold that line for justice is allowed to financially succeed – so, it isn’t worth it. Anyone in IJ who is making it, is unwittingly helping “their” program.
Keep your evidence, write your story down, and sell it to the largest bidder, anonymously. And hope for a better day.
I respectfully disagree, Anna.
I’m on a walk, and decided to visit a library to make this comment, just to see if my comments are showing up. (you never know.) They seem to be OK, altough I can’t be sure they are not monitoring my library card and giving me the appearance of freedom.
Anna: (whoever you are)
Stay comfortable. But if what you say is true, it is time to sacrifice, wouldn’t you say?
Stephen,
My hat off to you Stephen! I know that sometimes true patriots have to pay the price. I have a great respect for you and what you did. Thanks again.
We as american citizens all need to follow your example. We have to keep the pressure on and the issue of voter integrity and on the top burner.
People! we need to support Brad, Black box Voting,John Gidion and others in their continued efforts by finiancially contributing when and if you can. Without all these orginizations and people the issues would be buried by all vendors when it comes to the DRE’s. Get involved and do something to keep pressure on congress and let them know that they need to serve the people not the lobbyists.
As an Ohio resident, I have seen the frightening tactics of our former Secretary of State attempting to influence the outcome of elections and the rush to electronic voting machines without a paper trail. So I understand and share the concerns many people have with using non-transparent election systems, but that does not excuse your actions.
If you truly believe this, then what you did violating the sanctity of attorney-client privilege was wrong. Our system of American justice depends upon the ability of all people and corporations (including those that have done something wrong) to be represented by council and to be able to openly and frankly communicate with their attorney. Our system of justice is based on rules, and when people violate those rules, even in the mistaken belief that the purpose is noble, the system of justice fails. We cannot randomly let people decide when the rules apply and when they don’t.
You have a valid point and I respect your views. Violating attorney-client privilege is a serious crime, and I accept responsibility for the crime I committed. However, I believe that there are times when breaking the law is not necessarily wrong. I believe this was one of those times because what Diebold was doing weakened the very underpinnings of our republic. But as I wrote, I respect your point of view.
Mr Heller. People like you make me proud to be an American. Courage is being willing to make a sacrifice to uphold a higher value. Breaking the law, and risking your reputation and financial survival to expose someone who is breaking the law and ripping off millions of people? That takes lots of courage.
Not just California, but this whole country owes people like you (and Bruce Funk who comments here) a debt of gratitude for helping to make our voting systems more fair.
I followed your case closely. I hope that you and your wife are doing ok financially now.
If my son grows up to have half the integrity and courage that you do, then he will be doing ok.
One question – please tell me – Can felons vote in the state of CA? It would be the ultimate irony if you had to give up your vote.
Suzanne: I honestly don’t know. I recently got a jury summons, and was excused because I am a felon. They pull the jury pools from the voting rolls, so that might mean I’m still a registered voter. But now that I filled out the jury form stating I am a felon, that might be what leads to my voting registration getting pulled. Again, I honestly don’t know. I will have to check with the registrar to find out.
Keep on rockin’, Steve.
You’re my favorite civilly disobedient person, bar none.
If that defense fund ever needs re-filling, give me a call. We’re behind you all the way.
Perhaps, some answers”¦
If you are still wondering how we got into this mess, we are in with whistleblowers piling up along the road in paralyzed suspended animation waiting for the break that will allow them to get their case into the light and addressed, read further”¦.
——————————————————-
How Dick Cheney Broke My Mind
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Columnist
Tuesday 26 June 2007
I was absolutely savaged by an unexpected emotional detonation on Thursday. Every rough emotion I am capable of experiencing – anger, fear, sorrow, rage, bitterness, despair, loathing, astonishment, woe, regret, horror, fury – erupted within me at the same time that day. I spent hours in the aftermath trying to type an accurate description of what had happened to me and why, but I failed. For the first time in a long, long while, I was completely unable to write.
What could have been powerful enough to huff and puff and blow my house down? What manner of mind bomb could hurl me so far off kilter that I was incapable of explaining it on paper?
It was, of course, Dick Cheney.
The news story that started it all was just another report on Dick being Dick, doing his Dick thing the way Dick always does. If they ever hold a contest to decide which politician has the most appropriate first name, you should bet the farm, the barn, the house, the cow, every crop, every truck, and throw in all your shoes besides, on Dick winning in a walk. Dick would win in such a dominant fashion that the NBA Finals would appear competitive by comparison.
It was Dick, and he got me on Thursday but good. You’ve probably heard the news story by now, and maybe you reacted to it like I did.
The National Archives is basically the federal filing cabinet where all governmental paper records are stored and organized. The Archives is an invaluable repository of our governmental history. These documents are publicly available, and are a giant treasure trove for historians, biographers or anyone who loves to feel a bit of history between their fingers.
So the Archives people had asked Cheney’s office for his papers, because it was time to do so, because doing so is the law, because those papers are the property of the people. We pay for their printing and we pay for their storage, and the return on our investment can be found in the History/Biography/Politics section of any bookstore in America.
Dick turned the National Archives down flat, and this is what destroyed me on Thursday. Not only did he turn them down, his office wrote – actually wrote on paper in a letter to the Archives – their amazing explanation for refusing to hand over the papers. If you’ve not heard this, brace yourself.
Dick had the fire-breathing gall, the awe-inspiring temerity, the light-bending arrogance to put forth the argument – which was actually written down – that the office of The vice president of the United States is not actually part of the executive branch of the federal government, and is therefore not required to give any papers to anyone, ever.
Breathe. Breathe. It’ll pass.
I could use a thousand words to describe what this thing did as it ripped through me. I tried all Thursday to do it, and failed time and again. I have finally fixed upon the one word that truly explains how I felt once the shock had passed.
I was offended.
These people offend me on a daily basis, but for some reason, this was too much. The vice president of the United States actually defended his insane lust for secrecy by claiming, with his bare face hanging out, that the OVP is not a part of the executive branch. Cheney is covered by executive privilege, and he is a member of the presidential cabinet, yet somehow his office is not part of the executive branch.
It offended me. It offended my patriotism, it was a rank insult to anyone who took grade-school civics, and it was pure horrid hubris-flecked power run amok, power so deranged that it is dangerous to every American. I have no context to place this in, but maybe context isn’t required. Lawyers use a Latin phrase, “Res ipsa loquitor,” which means “The thing speaks for itself.” That’s pretty much exactly correct, as far as this mayhem is concerned.
Cheney’s argument, by the way, is prima facie cause for his removal from office. Simply, his office exists in the first place because all presidents are mortal, and so require a waiting replacement should the need arise. It sounded on Thursday like Dick pretty much quit his constitutionally-mandated next-in-line post. If he’s not doing that job anymore, he should go home.
This is a personal matter now.
Somehow, another news story about Cheney just being Cheney while doing his Cheney thing caused a tectonic shift. Encompassing the awesome, towering, astonishing, awful, brutal, sick, deadly thing that is alive within the man; a thing that once was mistaken for mere arrogance, was enough to get me thinking in Biblical terms. There are stories in the Book describing people confronted by the very face of God. They tend to have a common theme: The moment they actually see I Am Who I Am, they wind up getting clobbered for their trouble.
I saw the true face of Dick Cheney on Thursday, undistilled Cheney: The core essence and clearest example of what imperils us all. The monstrous things perfectly revealed by Cheney’s actions left me writhing like Saul in the dust of that Damascus road. It was holy, in a weird way, because it brought about a profound experience that hurt even as it cleansed. I now know that a glimpse of evil can also be a holy and spiritual moment, if you make it through the aftermath. The difference, perhaps, is that anyone who sees God is blinded by the sight. I got a look at evil walking like a man, and I see so much now that I didn’t see before.
I actually owe Cheney a bit of gratitude. I was worried that his actions, and the actions of his crew, had abused the fabric of my capacity for surprise beyond the limit, had worn down one of the better human emotions by just being Cheney. I was wrong. He proved I am still capable of awe.
William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of two books: “War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn’t Want You to Know” and “The Greatest Sedition Is Silence.” His newest book, “House of Ill Repute: Reflections on War, Lies, and America’s Ravaged Reputation,” is now available from PoliPointPress.
Here is an article that strikes home. I’ve written about similar situations regarding some people I personally am aware of. The game is the same, just different victims. I would urge everyone to do the following:
1. Exert as much effort as possible into getting friends and colleagues to pressure the Senate into passing the whistle blower protection law (S. 274) they are currently letting sit on hold which would grant whistleblower protections to Federal and Defense Dept. employees.
2. Encourage people, who hold information that would be of use in holding the wrongdoers accountable in any of the unethical or illegal activities going in the various government agencies, and within defense contractors, to come forward and report what they know. Reports may be sent to The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and also, I would at this point suggest POGO as POGO is currently working on some serious related cases. It may be possible to tag on and the combined information would probably support everyone’s cases.
3. Help publicize all of this by posting blogs, and leaving comments on other’s blogs to help keep things stirred up (so they can’t just make all the complaints go “gently into the good night”). And write your government officials, such as House and Senate elected representatives; you may not get a response, but keep a record of all such contacts you have made for future reference. If you possess sensitive or classified, information, I don’t recommend you disclose this in a public arena, but write an unleaded version, which shows the corrupt behavior, or cover-up without giving the sensitive details. Let the people you write to know if you have the sensitive/classified details, and that when someone with the proper clearances is put onto your case, you will be happy to cooperate with an official investigation. (If you know material is sensitive or classified, and disclose it, then you will most likely be held accountable, as you signed the standard form 312 briefing that is an agreement between yourself and the government that you will not improperly disclose classified government information. You do not want to end up in Federal Prison, so be careful with this.)
4. As Winston Churchill said”¦ Never, ever give up!
—————————————————————————————————————Whistle-Blower’s Fight For Pension Drags On
By Lyndsey Layton
The Washington Post Saturday 07 July 2007
Former defense official seeks private relief bill. From a cramped motor home in a Montana campground where Internet access is as spotty as the trout, Richard Barlow wakes each morning to battle Washington.
Once a top intelligence officer at the Pentagon who helped uncover Pakistan’s efforts to acquire nuclear weapons, Barlow insisted on telling the truth, and it led to his undoing.
He complained in 1989 that top officials in the administration of President George H.W. Bush – including the deputy assistant secretary of defense – were misleading Congress about the Pakistani program. He was fired and stripped of his security clearances. His intelligence career was destroyed; his marriage collapsed.
Federal investigations found Barlow was unfairly fired, winning him sympathy from dozens of Democratic and Republican lawmakers and public interest groups. But for 17 years, he has fought without success to gain a federal pension, blocked at every turn by legal and political obstacles also faced by other federal intelligence whistle- blowers.
“This case has been put before the Congress to right a wrong, and for various reasons, they’ve failed to do it,” said Robert Gallucci, dean of the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and an expert in nonproliferation. “It’s infuriating.”
Barlow, 52, and his supporters want funding added to the defense authorization bill to be debated by the Senate when it returns from recess next week. The mechanism Barlow hopes to use – a private relief bill that benefits a specific individual – is increasingly rare and, in his case, still faces hurdles.
Gallucci has known Barlow since the late 1980s, when Barlow was tracking the work of A.Q. Khan, the Pakistani scientist amassing materials to produce nuclear weapons. Some of the men setting policy at the Defense Department at the time of Barlow’s firing – Stephen J. Hadley, Paul D. Wolfowitz and Dick Cheney – resurfaced in the current Bush administration, which Democrats and others have accused of shaping intelligence on the Iraq war to fit political goals.
Barlow’s intelligence work began at the CIA, where he analyzed nuclear programs in other countries. He contributed to the National Intelligence Estimates and presented findings to national security agencies, the White House and congressional committees. He received the CIA’s Exceptional Accomplishment Award in 1988.
The next year, he became the first intelligence officer for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, charged with analyzing nuclear weapons developments involving foreign governments. He answered to Gerald Brubaker, the acting director of the Office of Non- Proliferation. Supervising Brubaker was Victor Rostow, the principal director. Rostow reported to Deputy Assistant Secretary James Hinds, who reported to Assistant Secretary Stephen J. Hadley.
At the time, the government was poised to sell $1.4 billion worth of new F-16 fighter planes to Pakistan to help the mujaheddin fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. But Congress, through two laws passed in 1985, had forbidden the sale of any equipment that could be used to deliver nuclear bombs.
Barlow wrote an analysis for then-Secretary Dick Cheney that concluded the planned F-16 sale violated this law. Drawing on detailed, classified studies, Barlow wrote about Pakistan’s ability, intentions and activities to deliver nuclear bombs using F-16s it had acquired before the law was passed.
Barlow discovered later that someone rewrote his analysis so that it endorsed the sale of the F-16s. Arthur Hughes, the deputy assistant secretary of defense, testified to Congress that using the F-16s to deliver nuclear weapons “far exceeded the state of art in Pakistan” – something Barlow knew to be untrue.
In the summer of 1989, Barlow told Brubaker, Rostow and Michael MacMurray, the Pakistan desk officer in charge of military sales to Pakistan who prepared Hughes’s testimony, that Congress had been misled. Within days, Barlow was fired.
“They clearly didn’t want the nonproliferation policy to get in the way of their regional policy,” Gallucci said. “They were worried someone like Rich [Barlow], in his stickler approach, would insist that if there’s going to be testimony on the Hill about the F-16 aircraft, that the answers be full and truthful. He was a thorn in their side, and they went after him. And they did a very good job of screwing up his life.”
In a 2000 deposition provoked by Barlow’s subsequent lawsuit, Hadley said he remembered underlings proposing to terminate an employee in August 1989 but did not recall “someone named Richard Barlow.” In a separate deposition, Wolfowitz also testified he could not recall Barlow. But Wolfowitz told Congress in 1990 that the retaliation Barlow faced was wrong and the government was legally obligated to keep Congress informed about Pakistan’s nuclear capability.
“There have been times on that issue when I specifically sensed that people thought we could somehow construct a policy on a house of cards that the Congress wouldn’t know what the Pakistanis were doing,” Wolfowitz told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
After a 1993 joint probe, the inspector general at the State Department concluded that Barlow had been fired as a reprisal, while the inspector generals at the CIA and the Defense Department maintained that the Pentagon was within its rights to fire Barlow. Congress directed the General Accounting Office (now the Government Accountability Office) to conduct its own investigation, which was completed in 1997 and largely vindicated Barlow.
Barlow’s security clearances were restored, but he was unable to get rehired permanently by the government because of the cloud over his record, he said. Instead, he has worked as a contractor for a range of federal agencies, including the CIA, the State Department, the FBI and Sandia National Laboratories.
That left him without the $89,500 annual pension and health insurance that Barlow believes the government owes him.
He faces no organized opposition now but has so far been stymied by government inertia, the passage of time, congressional procedural errors, and endless debates over how much money he’s due and the proper legislative vehicle for his pension.
Twenty Senators and eight legislative committees have considered his case over the years without resolving it, suggesting a larger dilemma: No process exists to compensate fired whistle-blowers in the intelligence field, and those who retaliate against them face no criminal penalties.
A 1998 law instead allows employees of the CIA, parts of the Defense Department, the FBI and the National Security Agency to notify their agency’s inspector general that they intend to disclose a matter of “urgent concern” to congressional intelligence committees. But there is no remedy if they suffer retaliation for using this legal channel.
“There just isn’t a venue for someone like him,” said Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit organization that investigates and exposes corruption. “He was trying to prevent lies to Congress about something of global importance. And he didn’t even go to Congress – all he did was suggest that Congress not be lied to.”
Brian and Gallucci believe that had Barlow’s alarms been heeded in 1989, Khan might have been deterred from building the world’s largest atomic black market – a network that has since supplied nuclear weapons technology to Libya, Iran and North Korea.
Some Hill staffers say they worry that granting Barlow a pension will cause hundreds of other injured whistle-blowers to demand similar treatment. Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), a known champion of whistle-blowers who supports Barlow’s quest, is contacted each week by four new whistle-blowers looking for help, said his spokeswoman, Beth Levine. But Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) is considering sponsoring legislation providing Barlow a pension or a lump-sum payment, a staffer said.
Bingaman attempted to sponsor a private relief bill for Barlow once before, in 1998. But another senator persuaded colleagues to refer it to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, which hears lawsuits that seek money from the federal government in excess of $10,000. During the case, which lasted four years, the Justice Department invoked a “state secrets” privilege to block the court from seeing most of Barlow’s evidence, according to Barlow’s pro bono lawyer, Joseph Ostoyich.
In 2002, the court found that Barlow was not entitled to protection under whistle-blower laws. “It was a galling situation,” Ostoyich said. “There was plenty of evidence … and all of [it] … was taken out of the court’s hands. I’ve never seen anything like it.” Barlow’s original pro bono attorney, Paul C. Warnke, who was President Jimmy Carter’s chief arms-control negotiator, died in 2001.
An attempt several months ago by Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) to sponsor a private relief bill for Barlow encountered resistance from House Armed Services Committee lawyers who said there was no precedent for it, according to her staff. Next, she tried to offer a simple resolution stating that Congress supported Barlow in his efforts, but that was thwarted by the Rules Committee, which was juggling more than 100 other requests deemed more pressing.
Since his most recent employment contract at Sandia ended, Barlow has been living in a motor home that he parks in Montana during the summer and drives to Arizona or California in the winter. Most of his possessions, including 200 pounds of documents related to his fight, are sitting in a storage locker he rents for $100 a month.
Most weekdays, he pushes his cause in cellphone calls and e-mails to Washington from his motor home, dogging Hill staffers with a tenacity that seems bottomless and can be off-putting. “This is such an extraordinary case,” Brian said. “He was trying to say ‘Wait a minute, Congress needs to be told the truth because they’re making important decisions about nuclear proliferation,’ and the guy is living in a trailer.”