An open letter to President Obama

Dear Mr President,

                               While it is clearly a topic which causes great pain for yourself, and the nation as a whole, you need to stop the rot before it really is too late. I am concerned with the specifics of the way in which you, personally, have handled the revelations about information gathering and the Snowden case.

 

President Bush started the whole FISA fiasco with his executive order, which you decried whilst campaigning, and once in power you perpetuated that fiasco and thus made it your own. You are a lawyer, sir, and should be ashamed that you did not work out the illegalities of these situations.

President Nixon was impeached for wiretapping an office, Bush and the NSA cronies wiretapped the whole nation. You took power and perpetuated that crime, adding further gross acts of espionage in and on other countries to the list. Impeached for one office (Nixon), avoided prosecution by deceit (Bush), what, sir, are your crimes that will be remembered?

 

I guess none, as it is not a crime to not fix the mess, not expose the truth, or not prevent breaches of the very amendments and rights that make your nation free. Snowden did try to get the mess fixed, did try to expose the truth, and did attempt to stop those breaches ... obviously he must be a criminal. If you do not see how wrong that is, Mr President, reading further will not help you.

 

Basics of the matter:

 

Let us start with Snowden:

He was in your military, in the CIA, worked as a spy, dealt in intelligence, and finished his career as an analyst working with full access to the NSA and the data collections systems put in place. He attempted to report his findings and concerns, nothing happened officially, though he does claim he was warned to drop his investigations several times.

Let us turn to you now, Mr President:

As President, you, Barack Hussein Obama II, are supposedly the person responsible for the entire forces of the United States, and both military and civilian branches of government. You are often quoted as being "the most powerful man in the world" due to your "control" of the largest military force and nuclear arsenal in the world. This, however, is not quite true, as you well know. In 1947 control of the armed forces was passed from President to Secretary of Defense, a position nominated by the president which has to be confirmed by the United States Senate.

I am guessing, therefore, that a president has no jurisdiction over the Office of Special Counsel (OSC), but would hope that they are fully capable of performing their role. I am also guessing that a president has to, at least mostly, follow the law - and encourage others to do so too.

Legal aspects:

U.S. law is fairly clear on whistleblowing, as it is on how the OSC is instrumental in ensuring whistleblowers are not persecuted. The four main structures which the OSC acts under are:  the Civil Service Reform Act; the Whistleblower Protection Act; the Hatch Act; and the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA).

These acts provide the backbone for OSC actions and protections, and are instrumental in their policy and goals that: "Whenever misdeeds take place in a Federal agency, there are employees who know that it has occurred, and who are outraged by it. What is needed is a means to assure them that they will not suffer if they help uncover and correct administrative abuses … These conscientious civil servants deserve statutory protection …"

The OSC claims that any offences in certain categories come under it's purview, this is taken from the OSC poster (rev. 12/05):

                           Whistleblowing
A "whistleblower" discloses information he or she

reasonably believes evidences:

• A violation of any law, rule     • An abuse of authority

or regulation                               • A substantial and specific danger
• Gross mismanagement             to public health
• A gross waste of funds             • A substantial and specific danger

                                                    to public safety

The OSC is also tasked with providing protections to certain parties and groups of workers. Furthermore, it also extends it's reach and "provides a secure channel through which current and former federal employees and applicants for federal employment may make confidential disclosures". The next part of the disclosure poster then goes on to say that the "OSC evaluates the disclosures to determine whether there is a substantial likelihood that one of the categories listed above has been disclosed." This appears, at least at first, to be a reasonable way to enforce the policies in the four  acts which make up the backbone of the OSC.

Any former, current, or prospective employee is covered as long as they are probably going to meet the criteria. This does not cover the armed forces, as they are not federal employees. The Hatch Act does, however, apply to all DoD civil servants, and Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) employees who are directly supporting of the U.S. Coastguard.

As I said, Mr President, "at first", let me explain why. The third part of the poster is indeed a chilling reversal, and would deter any sane person from whistleblowing as it states: "If such a determination is made, OSC has the authority to require the head of the agency to investigate the matter." This is entirely ludicrous, be it through lack of foresight, or other reasons, this is unacceptable. If I am raising a concern that the FBI is illegally wiretapping and the director has been shown to be complicit, having that same director investigate is surely a stupid course of action to take. An outside body should be investigating, as per the WPO for the DoD.

So, there are structures in place to protect whistleblowers of; Wall street, federal government, the DHS (partly), U.S.Workers in the public sector, and U.S.Forces civilian employees. Military personnel are covered by the Military Whistleblower Protection Act, Title 10 U.S.C. § 1034, and enforced through the DoD Inspector General (IG).

Statements by you, Mr President:

Your political statements, Mr President, are gravely misleading to anyone who reads them. You endorse whistleblowing for NSOs, yet the guy you put in place as SoD does not! You say that

"Barack Obama endorsed new protections for national security officers who blow the whistle on abusive, corrupt or illegal behavior [...] Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and other top Bush appointees wrote an unusually tough letter to Congress last year asserting that the bill protecting whistleblowers would threaten national security, violate the Constitution and undermine the government's ability to safeguard legitimate secrets. [...] Advocacy groups were cheered when an Obama aide promised the National Whistleblower Center in May 2007 that the candidate supported protecting whistleblowers "under the framework" of the House bill."(R. Jeffrey Smith and Joby Warrick, Washington Post Staff Writers, Wednesday, February 18, 2009)

and later, when it is clear that you might suffer politically by trying to continue to support whistleblowing you turn around and backpedal.

"Will Barack Obama, a champion of whistleblower protection when he was a state senator, act as strongly to protect them when they blow the whistle on his administration?" [...] "As an Illinois senator, Obama was responsible for passing legislation to protect government employees who come forward and risk their jobs to expose waste, corruption and national security lapses." (Will Obama Keep His Promise to Federal Whistleblowers? ABC News, Megan Churhmach and Rhonda Schwartz, August 4, 2009.)

And worst of all, your own words, Mr President, said when talking about protecting whistleblowers during your 2008 campaign: "acts of courage and patriotism, which can sometimes save lives and often save taxpayer dollars, should be encouraged rather than stifled." You have some serious un-stifling to do. No-one else can do it; you caused this mess, now fix it.

Your irresponsible actions, Mr President:

It is without doubt that you have, at best, misled your nation. Yes, in both senses, as a failed leader in this matter, and in the sense of diverting the nations attention away from your actions by scapegoating the very whistleblower you have said you would protect.

Your hasty actions, without full information or not, have been defended and continued actions upon those flawed decisions have compounded the errors from a basic embarrasment to a fully-fledged emarrasment of epic proportions. It was wrong of you to condemn a whistleblower who has served you well, and it was certainly wrong of you to not intervene and force actions to investigate these matters.

You have shown yourself to be weak by not defending whistleblowers, destroyed years of entente between countries, exposed thousands of your employees to the realisation they have been illegally surveilling their fellow citizens, and pushed back the trust of those around your country by many years.

You sir, are a hypocrite. Snowden should be given amnesty, he should be protected by the Contractor Disclosure Program and the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act (ICWPA) and you, sir, should have made sure that the Secretary of Defense complied with these DoD IG directorates.

Above all else, Mr President, you should have had the interests of the people foremost in your mind. It is not in the interests of the people to take away any and all restraints on wiretapping, surveillance, privacy or disclosure. Any good leader knows that he has to put the welfare of their charges first, even when change might be against their own instincts. It is not in the best interests of your country to be shown to be deceitful spying invasive people who will gladly infiltrate every aspect of  communication - even on their allies.

My final thoughts:

You sir, are ultimately responsible for the actions of those below you in rank, those around you in government, every federal employee, every soldier sailor and airman, every civilian and member of your public - it is your responsibilty to ensure that justice and sense prevail, whether it is distasteful or not, whether it goes against you politically or not, and whether it is decent and right or not.

Like it or not Snowden was one of those you should have been protecting. Claiming "national security" rather than "amnesty and let's investigate and discuss" is your failing Mr President, not his, nor anyone else.

Give Snowden amnesty, or a Presidential pardon. Investigate the agencies and departments that took simple necessary actions to extremes, but most of all Mr President, stop being someone you are not. Either never say you will support whistleblowers and that you lied, or stand up and do the right thing. Snowden is the one celebrated by those you have spied upon, indeed by anyone who believes in any modicum of decency.

Snowden has done more for the credibility of your country abroad than you can admit, but people who really do believe in the statement on the DoD IG site should make sure that these happen. I leave you with that statement and the words you spoke yourself, in the hope that you will do the right thing.

"Whistleblowing is not a ‘nice to have’ function; it is essential to the national security and defense mission of the Federal government." Department of Defense Whistleblower Program

"We need to empower federal employees as watchdogs of wrongdoing and partners in performance. Barack Obama will strengthen whistleblower laws to protect federal workers who expose waste, fraud, and abuse of authority in government. Obama will ensure that federal agencies expedite the process for reviewing whistleblower claims and whistleblowers have full access to courts and due process." The Office of the President-Elect.

Lastly, Mr President, we have the reason for my calling you a hypocrite:

"[talking about FISA] We might not have known how this program had been abused by the Bush administration. That, in addition, we might not have any leverage to ensure that going forward, the program wasn't violating the basic privacies and civil liberties of the American people. [...] I decided that it was better to go ahead and support the program as currently constituted,  knowing that I will be sworn in with your help, on January 20th, and then I can go and make sure the program is working exactly as it should be." Your own words in 2008

The program was NOT working exactly as it should be, FISA was not in place, Snowden was YOUR whistleblower who had the evidence you needed to affect that change to MAKE it work exactly as it should be. Yes, it was OK for you to go ahead when it was a political tool showing how bad Bush was and how you were going to make sure it was stopped, but then you got into power and now it was you in charge and someone else needed to make sure YOU did not abuse it. Well, you ARE abusing it - the evidence is clear.

Repent, Reward and Reform - Sir, Mr President, Sir!