Advocates of a whistle-blower protection bill made a furious push Wednesday to save it from the White House and defense lobbyists.
Foes of the bill, including the White House, say that it will endanger national security by allowing disgruntled Pentagon or defense contract employees to reveal secrets without being held to account.
The bill, officially entitled the Federal Employee Protection of Disclosures Act, would give whistle-blowers the right to appeal punishments derived from their revelations to the federal circuits.
Right now, any whistle-blower who feels he or she has been unfairly punished for revealing waste, fraud or abuse must take the case to the Merit Systems Protection Board and then appeal to the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals.
Critics, like the Government Accountability Project’s Tom Devine, say that those administrative courts are “a rubber stamp” that allows government agencies to squash do-gooders who take their cases public.
Since it began hearing cases in 1978, the Federal Circuit has ruled for whistle-blowers once, Devine said. It has ruled for the government 122 times.
“You don’t have a chance,” Devine said.
Proponents of the measure tacked it to the most recent Defense Department authorization bill, hoping that it slip through because the authorization must pass in order for the Pentagon to spend its budget.
The authorization is currently in conference.
But the White House has been pressuring conferees to strip the whistle-blower bill out of the authorization. The Bush administration says that the law would endanger national security.
Josh Holly, spokesman for conference co-chair and U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., said Hunter “is engaged” in the conference negotiations. He refused to comment further because Hunter and Virginia Republican Sen. John Warner — the other conference chair — have agreed to keep negotiations secret.
U.S. Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., is one of the bill’s champions. His spokesman, David Marin, said that Davis was working the phones and hallways furiously Wednesday to lobby conferees in the bill’s favor.
“It’s clear that without constant pressure from Congress, some agencies will continue to choose to shoot the messenger instead of responding to the message,” Davis said in a statement Wednesday.
“We need reforms that make it crystal clear that that choice is not an option.”
White House officials didn’t respond to requests for comment.
