The American gulag
Posted by Charles II on July 7, 2007
I commenting on Susie Madrak’s post, I mentioned that it is policy at the highest levels of government to keep employees insecure, in a state of fear about their medical care and jobs. Read this by Lyndsay Layton of the Washington Post (via t/o) and consider:
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….
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.
Welcome to the American gulag archipelago: there are no guards and no walls, because there is no need when everyone knows what they’re supposed to do.
The deepest tragedy is that Barlow thinks that this is just the result of bureaucracy. I would guess it’s the result of an order by Cheney and quiet collusion by most Democrats. After all, look what happened to Fred Whitehurst, the guy who Time featured on their cover for blowing the whistle on malfeasance in the FBI lab.
A nation that loves the truth does not do such things.
2 Responses to “The American gulag”
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frances said
does they have a defense fund, or is the ACLU working on their behalf???
Charles said
After many years of living in hell, Fred Whitehurst ultimately reached a settlement such that he is financially secure. That is the unusual case for a whistleblower.
The more typical case is Barlow’s. His marriage is gone, he’s living from hand to mouth, and the future looks pretty grim. In extreme cases, like Karen Silkwood’s, they end up dead. For whistleblowers, there’s a little help from two sources GAP and POGO, POGO to get the story out there and GAP to maybe provide a little legal support.
The ACLU is a funny organization. In the words of one of their senior leaders, they support “civil liberties,” not “civil rights” (much less human rights). If someone had tried to prevent the publication of Barlow’s story, they might have gotten interested on First Amendment grounds. But if someone tries to silence Barlow by depriving him of the right to earn a living, the ACLU couldn’t care less.
The tragic reality is that most whistleblowers lose everything. Guys like Richard Barlow deserve medals for bravery no less than any soldier. Indeed, they endure months, years, decades of facing stress as intense as that of the battlefield (read the Whitehurst link to see how his ordeal brought back PTSD), with no help in sight.
Usually, they end up forgotten, but they are the Americans whose legacies endure.