Transparently Bad: U.S. Whistleblowers Feel Blowback

Transparently Bad: U.S. Whistleblowers Feel Blowback
Federal employees who expose government waste, fraud and abuse are having a tough time in the “most transparent administration in history.”
Robert MacLean, a former air marshal, told a House subcommittee Tuesday that managers at the Transportation Security Administration “thumb their nose” at whistleblower protection laws.
MacLean, who complained that air marshals were improperly grounded by the TSA, is taking his termination to the U.S. Supreme Court after losing a series of lopsided proceedings at the agency. He said the TSA branded him “an organizational terrorist.”
Robert Van Boven, former director of a Veterans Affairs facility in Texas, said, “The (bureaucratic) culture fights transparency and degrades whistleblowers.”
Boven, a medical doctor, was fired after alleging “fraudulent billing and ghost employees who didn’t help one single veteran.”
Nevertheless, whistleblowing is on the rise, according to Carolyn Lerner, chief attorney in the U.S. Office of Special Counsel.
“The numbers are through the roof,” Lerner reported.
The outcomes aren’t necessarily good news for taxpayers or advocates of open government.
Of 2,900 cases last year, 1,400 involved retaliation against whistleblowers, and whistleblowers prevailed less than a quarter of the time.
“There is a new trend,” saidTom Devine, legal director for the Government Accountability Project. “(Washington) is making it a crime to blow the whistle. 
You have the choice of resigning or facing charges. 
That’s chilling.”