RAWSTORY.COM (11/26/2008)-- The US Office of Special Counsel, which is tasked with protecting government employees who blow the whistle on corruption and mismanagement within their ranks, is not doing its job, a watchdog group says in a report released this week.

The Project on Government Oversight examined the cases of several Federal Air Marshals who alleged they were retaliated against by superiors after attempting to point out problems, and the special counsel was unable to protect them.

“As many of us travel for Thanksgiving, we should remember the federal air marshals upon whom we are relying to keep us safe. We have not kept up our end of the bargain,"POGO executive director Danielle Brian said in a news release. "When they blew the whistle on misconduct, there was no one keeping them safe from retaliation. Air marshals deserve a system that both listens to their concerns and protects them, the way they are protecting us,”

The 36-page POGO report (.pdf) outlines problems experienced by several air marshals in dealing with the Office of Special Counsel and puts forward several recommendations to improve the office. Some of the office's problems are systemic, the report finds.

"The OSC lacks the independence it needs to truly be successful: it is a small, weak institution located in the executive branch; its head is a presidential appointee that is expected to carry out the President’s agenda," the report says. "It may be impossible for an executive branch agency to effectively extend justice to whistleblowers who have been retaliated against by their executive branch agencies’ management."

Problems in the Air Marshal service were reported earlier this month in an investigation by ProPublica.com that found dozens of air marshals had been charged with criminal behavior.

The POGO report says air marshals who tried to highlight inappropriate behavior were often retaliated against and many lost their jobs as a consequence of speaking out.

After 9/11, the ranks grew exponentially within the Federal Air Marshals Service, which is a component of the Transportation Security Agency that was folded into the Department of Homeland Security. Out of a sense of patriotism, POGO says, many air marshals felt obligated to report problems that could endanger air passengers.

Instead of listening to its employees in the field, however, FAMS responded by trying to search out and silence the critical voices. For example:

• In 2008, TSA launched a Big Brother-esque investigation to discover which air marshals disclosed to CNN that less than one percent of the nation’s daily flights carry armed federal air marshals.37 One TSA investigator suspected that former Federal Air Marshal Jeffrey Denning may have known where the disclosure came from. While Denning was serving in Iraq, the TSA investigator called Denning’s wife, posing as a friend of his, and asked her questions about her husband.38 An air marshal from January 2004 to March 2007, Denning had resigned “due to the mismanagement of the FAM Service, and the way [he] was treated by management after voicing concerns about [his] personal safety, the safety of the passengers and crew, as well as national security.”39

• After Federal Air Marshal Robert MacLean and his entire field office were given unprecedented one-on-one threat briefings regarding a suicide hijacking plot detailed in a July 26, 2003, “DHS Advisory,”40 MacLean raised concerns about a FAMS cost-cutting plan to eliminate federal air marshal missions that required them to stay overnight at a hotel. After MacLean was rebuffed by his supervisors and the DHS Inspector General (IG) offices in Washington, D.C., San Diego, and Oakland, California, MacLean disclosed the plan to the media as a last resort. Immediately after the media report, which didn’t name sources, TSA canceled the plan. In response to the media report, FAMS initiated an internal investigation into the source of the disclosure. After reports of FAMS managers threatening air marshals with the USA Patriot Act to find the sources of the article, Congress requested that DHS IG investigate such abuses. DHS IG later concluded that there were in fact such threats.41 In 2005, after DHS IG rejected a request by then-FAMS Director Thomas Quinn to conduct a criminal investigation, Quinn did not stop his crusade and requested that the ICE Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) conduct its own internal investigation of MacLean, who was serving as the Executive Vice President for the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association – Federal Air Marshal agency (FLEOA-FAM), calling him one of the “strident and irresponsible anti-management voices.” MacLean was fired, and four months after, FAMS retroactively labeled his July 2003 disclosure as Sensitive Security Information (SSI), an unclassified information label not designated by statute.42 (Appendix C)

• Starting in October 2004, FAMS directed the DHS OPR to conduct at least four investigations into Federal Air Marshal Frank Terreri, raising allegations such as improper email to a co-worker, improper use of business cards, and association with an organization critical of FAMS. FAMS’ accusations against Terreri followed a press release and several letters Terreri had written to the agency and Congress, acting as the President of FLEOA-FAM, regarding FAMS’ dress code and boarding procedures policies. The DHS OPR cleared Terreri, a 16-year law enforcement officer who had never received lower than an “excellent” rating, of the allegations. (Appendix D)

• In August 2004, FAMS management initiated a seemingly retaliatory year-and-a-half-long investigation into Federal Air Marshal P. Jeffrey Black for allegedly unauthorized release of SSI.43 Just before the investigation was launched, Black had testified before the House Judiciary Committee about internal FAMS policies that promoted aviation security breaches, such as professional dress code requirements, the submission of false surveillance intelligence reports, the use of a dangerous type of ammunition, and the large number of unaddressed instances in which suspicious passengers had been observed surveying passengers and crews (probing) while aboard commercial flights. The ICE OPR determined that FAMS’ allegations against Black were “unfounded.” (Appendix E)

Pogo says such examples are not isolated events.

In a letter to the FAMS Director Robert Bray, POGO highlights its concerns and recommends some possible fixes, including re-hiring whistle-blowing marshals who were fired and reforming policies that had led to retaliation.