by Declan McCullagh

The U.S. Senate is investigating allegations by two National Security Agency whistleblowers who have described widespread monitoring of innocuous telephone conversations by the Bush administration's clandestine program.

Sandalio “Sandy” Gonzalez recently retired after a 32-year career in law enforcement, 27 as an agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), at one point serving as its head of operations in South America.

Three years ago, Gonzalez’s career came to an abrupt end after he blew the whistle in a horrifying case now known as the “House of Death,” in which Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents stand accused of looking the other way while one of their drug informants participated in torturing and murdering at least a dozen people in the border town of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

(Washington, D.C.) – As congressional negotiations over bailout legislation continue, an extraordinary movement of organizations from across the ideological spectrum, representing millions of Americans, is demanding that Congress in its waning days pass legislation to strengthen whistleblower protections for government and corporate employees.

By Joe Davidson
Wednesday, September 24, 2008; D04

Amid the swirl of activity on Capitol Hill surrounding legislation for a $700 billion bailout of financial giants is a little-noticed effort to protect Frank and Flo Fed if they reveal things their agencies are doing wrong.

Good-government groups have long wanted to strengthen protection for whistle-blowers and they had a good chance to get such legislation passed before the financial markets took a dive. Now that all the attention is on rushing the bailout through Congress, those groups are trying to get on board.

The House and the Senate passed bills to protect federal employees who blow the whistle on waste, fraud and abuse by veto proof margins last year (H.R. 985, S. 274), but have yet to agree on a final bill. Now is the time to tell negotiators, leadership, and other interested Members of Congress that passing a strong bill -- especially one that extends protection to whistleblowers in the FBI and intelligence agencies -- before Congress goes on recess is a priority!

(Washington, D.C.) – Today, the Government Accountability Project (GAP) announced that seventy new organizations from across the United States have joined a June petition calling on Congress to enact sweeping new whistleblower rights for government employees. The groups are calling on Congress to finish the job before adjourning for the upcoming elections. Both chambers have approved legislation to revive the discredited Whistleblower Protection Act (WPA), but efforts to reconcile the different versions have stalled.

Well, the Mainstream 'American' Media (MSM) may not be interested in the case of Sibel Edmonds, former FBI whistle-blower but its looks the the FBI is after the Sunday Times of London ran a few articles about her case.  Unfortuantely, they are not interested in her case per se just the fact that the Sunday Times ran their stories.

By BABAK PASDAR