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Tom Devine, Legal Director
202.457.0034, ext. 124
tomd@whistleblower.org
Shanna Devine, Legislative Campaign Coordinator
202.457.0034, ext. 132
shannad@whistleblower.org
Dylan Blaylock, Communications Director
202.457.0034, ext. 137
dylanb@whistleblower.org
Today, the Government Accountability Project (GAP) is announcing the successful settlement by Air Force aircraft mechanic George Sarris of his Whistleblower Protection Act (WPA) lawsuit. GAP adjunct attorneys Thad Guyer and Stephanie Ayers challenged a wide range of retaliation surrounding removal of Sarris' security clearance, ranging from removal of meaningful duties to lowered performance appraisals.
"The Air Force agreed to give Mr. Sarris everything that the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) could order, and more, without a hearing," commented GAP Legal Director Tom Devine.
A loophole in the WPA deprived Sarris of the right to challenge the security clearance removal. Congress is reconsidering an overhaul of the law, which was on the verge of passing last December when the final vote was blocked by a secret Senate "hold" an hour before adjournment (https://bit.ly/g9BB8j). That overhaul, the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act (WPEA), would give employees a chance to file lawsuits challenging retaliatory removal of clearances.
Sarris is a well-known figure within the whistleblower rights movement, who spoke at the 2010 National Whistleblower Assembly. He expressed his feelings at the end of a nearly four-year struggle:
In an attempt to prevent me from disclosing non-airworthy conditions overlooked by previous generations of aircraft mechanics, management presented me with two un-lawful written orders threatening me with disciplinary actions. Essentially, management attempted to blackmail me into allowing the operation of non-airworthy aircraft in exchange for continued employment. I did not fall prey to blackmail and elevated my concerns through the appropriate channels.
Many of the non-airworthy discrepancies reported by me were substantiated by a DoD Civilian Reprisal Investigation, a 55th Wing Inspectors General Investigation, and a 55th Wing Commander Directed Investigation. Some of the discrepancies implicated outdated, inaccurate, and misleading Technical Orders utilized in maintaining the OC/WC/TC/RC-135 aircraft - a claim supported by a September 2007 Comprehensive Air Force Technical Order Plan. The 55th Wing Aircraft Maintenance Squadron Commander thanked me by suspending my security clearance alleging that I am untrustworthy, a thief, suicidal, and a threat to wing personnel, then took credit for correcting many of the problems that I lawfully disclosed to Congress.
Despite the defamation of my character, I was successful at increasing the margin of safety for the Big Safari, Rivet Joint, Combat Sent, Constant Phoenix and Open Skies programs. Some of my concerns will never be aired, so I wish the best of luck to those who continue to operate the special mission C/KC-135 aircraft. To the United Kingdom which is replacing its aged Nimrod MR1 and MR2 aircraft with the even older RC-135; rest assured, the RC-135 is a safe airframe as long as it is properly maintained.
Background
Sarris is a college graduate and lifelong aircraft mechanic whose career until blowing the whistle was marked by steady commendations, bonuses, and performance appraisals such as one that rated him "the employee that all supervisors desire." That is, until 2007 when he began blowing the whistle at the Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska. Sarris' watch was aircraft reconnaissance planes used for intelligence missions over Iraq and Afghanistan. But he discovered a dangerous breakdown in maintenance. For example, fuel, hydraulic and emergency hoses were up to 30 years past their service life, and not replaced until they visibly deteriorated. When Sarris' official reports were ignored, he protested up the chain of command. When that led nowhere, he went to the Office of Inspector General (OIG), Congress, and media. Two months after a November 2008 front page Kansas City Star article spotlighted Sarris' concerns, the Air Force suspended his security clearance.
The charges were surreal. For example, in part they were based on a criminal investigation opened of Sarris for theft of government property. The primary misconduct was Sarris acting on OIG instructions to get hard evidence, which he provided by taking pictures, and by removing highly decayed hoses from the trash to share with investigators. He was branded as professionally incompetent and mentally unfit, stripped of all duties. At one point, he was instructed not to leave the empty room where he was assigned without work, even if there were a fire. Eventually he got a fresh start in gym maintenance, peaceful but away from national security duties. Ironically, this occurred despite Sarris' charges ultimately being confirmed, and leading to possibly life-saving corrective action.
The Settlement
The settlement allows Sarris to officially maintain his mechanic position with alternate duties until a 2014 retirement, even if his currently suspended clearance is revoked. It removes derogatory files, restores his performance appraisal to all "excellent" or "outstanding" ratings, and pays his attorney fees. Putting an exclamation point to vindication, the agreement explicitly permits him to further sue military officers in state court for violation of his rights.
Devine added, "This victory reflects new Merit Systems Protection Board leadership, which is no longer biased against whistleblowers. Even Administrative Judges are starting to get the message, and pressing parties for justice as here. Unfortunately, until Congress acts, whistleblowers like Mr. Sarris will not have independent due process rights against retaliatory removal of their security clearances. The Board did not have authority to restore his national security duties."
The Government Accountability Project (GAP) is a 30-year-old nonprofit public interest group that promotes government and corporate accountability by advancing occupational free speech, defending whistleblowers, and empowering citizen activists. We pursue this mission through our Nuclear Safety, International Reform, Corporate Accountability, Food & Drug Safety, and Federal Employee/National Security programs. GAP is the nation's leading whistleblower protection organization.
"Palestinians in Gaza cannot wait until after the U.S. election while bombs are dropping and burning their loved ones alive," said one campaigner.
On the eve of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, proponents of a U.S. arms embargo on Israel—which is on trial for genocide at the World Court for its assault on Gaza that has killed over 40,000 Palestinians—took to the streets of cities in states from New York to Hawaii on Sunday to amplify their demand of "Not Another Bomb" for Israeli military forces.
"It is crystal clear: In order to achieve a cease-fire in Gaza, the U.S. must immediately stop arming Israel," the Not Another Bomb campaign—an initiative led by the Uncommitted National Movement—said in a statement ahead of this weekend's demonstrations.
On Sunday, #NotAnotherBomb protests took place in dozens of cities including New York, Atlanta, Albuquerque, Boston, Los Angeles, and Oakland, California—the hometown of Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee whose campaign says does not support suspending U.S. arms shipments to Israel.
Earlier, Not Another Bomb demonstrations happened Saturday in cities including Chicago; Dearborn, Michigan; Milwaukee and Madison, Wisconsin; and on Friday in Washington, D.C.
"It is unacceptable that during a housing crisis, school closures, and the skyrocketing cost of living squeezing working families, billions of dollars are going to arm Israel as it commits genocide in Gaza," said Samer Arabi of the Arab Resource and Organizing Center, which endorsed the Oakland rally along with Jewish Voice for Peace and over a dozen other groups.
"Bay Area communities deserve investment in care and safety, and have been demanding a cease-fire in Gaza for months," Arabi added. "We need policy that addresses our community's needs, instead of sending arms for Israel to bomb Palestinian kids."
At least 40,000 Palestinians, including more than 16,000 children, have been killed during Israel's 317-day assault on Gaza, according to Palestinian and international officials. The Biden administration has been accused of complicity in genocide for providing Israel with tens of billions of dollars in armed aid, as well as diplomatic cover including vetoes of multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions.
On Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Israel to push for a cease-fire agreement amid intense Israeli attacks in Gaza, including an airstrike that wiped out an entire family near Deir al-Balah.
Not Another Bomb protests are set to continue through the Democratic National Convention, which is scheduled to begin Monday in Chicago. Tens of thousands of activists are expected to rally in the city, which saw a brutal police crackdown on anti-Vietnam War protesters during the 1968 DNC.
In a Mother Jones interview published Saturday, Democratic Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson asserted that "what's happening right now" in Gaza "is not only egregious, it is genocidal."
"We have to acknowledge and name it for what it is and have the moral courage to exercise our authority," Johnson added.
Mohammed Khader, who manages policy and advocacy campaigns at the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights—a partner in the Not Another Bomb campaign—said that "despite clear calls for an arms embargo, Democratic officials have continued to sponsor the mass murder of Palestinian families in gross violation of U.S. and international law."
"Palestinians in Gaza cannot wait until after the U.S. election while bombs are dropping and burning their loved ones alive," Khader added. "An arms embargo is urgently needed, and it's an important electoral strategy, supported by a strong majority of Democratic voters who are paying close attention to the Harris campaign's policies."
The Uncommitted National Movement—which called on Democratic primary voters to pressure Biden by voting "uncommitted"—received 18.9% of the vote in Minnesota and 13.3% in the key swing state of Wisconsin.
Last week, a survey commissioned by the Institute for Middle Eastern Understanding Policy Project and conducted by YouGov revealed that Democratic and Independent voters in the swing states of Arizona, Georgia, and Pennsylvania would be more likely to vote for Harris if she backed an arms embargo on Israel.
Israeli airstrikes wiped out an entire family in al-Zawayda and killed 10 Syrian refugees in Lebanon as Hamas poured cold water on President Joe Biden's claim that a cease-fire is "closer than we've ever been."
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken departed for Israel on Sunday in an effort to secure a cease-fire in Gaza, even as Israeli forces continued to massacre Palestinians in the embattled strip and Hamas dismissed hopeful assertions by optimists including President Joe Biden that an agreement on a cessation of hostilities is within sight.
Blinken's trip to Israel comes days after Israeli negotiators met with senior U.S. officials, as well as Qataris and Egyptians mediating between Hamas and Israel, in Doha, Qatar. Although those talks ended without any major progress toward a cease-fire deal, Biden said Friday that "we are closer than we've ever been" to an agreement, "but we're not there yet."
In a separate statement, Biden said that a U.S. negotiating team presented a "comprehensive bridging proposal" offering "the basis for coming to a final agreement on a cease-fire and hostage release deal."
"I am sending Secretary Blinken to Israel to reaffirm my iron-clad support for Israel's security, continue our intensive efforts to conclude this agreement, and to underscore that with the comprehensive cease-fire and hostage release deal now in sight, no one in the region should take actions to undermine this process," the president added.
Israeli negotiators expressed "cautious optimism" over the prospects of a deal, Agence France-Presse reported.
During the weekly meeting of his far-right Cabinet, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that "there are areas where we can show flexibility, and there are areas where we can't show flexibility—and we are standing firm on them."
Consistent with what observers say is a pattern of Israeli escalations when cease-fire deals seem within reach, Israeli forces on Saturday bombed a home and adjacent warehouse in the central Gaza Strip town of al-Zawayda, killing at least 15 to 18 members of the al-Ejlah family, according to local and international media.
Victims include Sami Jawad al-Ejlah—a wholesaler who cooperated with the Israeli military to distribute food in Gaza—who was killed along with two of his wives, 11 of their children, and the children's grandmother, according to officials at al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in nearby Deir al-Balah.
"A massive fire broke out, burning everything in the warehouse as children were torn to pieces," Al Jazeera correspondent Tareq Abu Azzoum reported from the scene. "Rescue efforts are still continuing to try to recover more bodies."
According to the Lebanese satellite news channel Al Mayadeen, the al-Ejlah family "was wiped off the civil registry," a fate shared by at least scores—and perhaps hundreds—of Palestinian families during the 317-day assault by Israel, which is on trial for genocide at the World Court.
Al Mayadeen's Gaza correspondent said that "there were still individuals trapped under the rubble, with rescue teams working at the site of the massacre," and that most of the recovered victims "arrived dismembered" at al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.
A spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the attack targeted unspecified "terrorist infrastructure."
Meanwhile in southern Lebanon, where resistance to Israel's Gaza onslaught by Hezbollah has prompted fierce retaliation, an Israeli airstrike in the Wadi al-Kafur area of Nabatieh killed 10 Syrian refugees who fled that country's civil war, including a mother and her two children, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health.
An IDF spokesperson said the strike targeted a Hezbollah weapons storage site.
In response to reports of U.S. and Israeli guarded optimism over a possible cease-fire deal, Hamas Political Bureau member Sami Abu Zuhri told Agence France-Presse that "to say that we are getting close to a deal is an illusion."
"We are not facing a deal or real negotiations, but rather the imposing of American diktats," Zuhri added.
Blinken's trip to Israel comes as the Palestinian death toll of the IDF's assault on Gaza topped 40,000 this week, with more than 92,000 people wounded and at least 11,000 others missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of bombed-out homes and other buildings. Palestinian and international officials say most of those killed have been women and children.
The Biden administration has been accused of complicity in genocide for sending Israel tens of billions of dollars worth of arms and providing diplomatic cover, including by vetoing multiple United Nations cease-fire resolutions supported by the overwhelming majority of the world's nations.
"This is both about the Kolkata doctor who was brutalized and every woman who has faced sexual violence or harassment in the country," said one protester.
Indian doctors and healthcare workers on Saturday ramped up a nationwide strike in response to the rape and murder of a trainee physician in a state-run hospital in Kolkata, shutting down all hospital services except for emergency care in a bid to force action to protect women from sexual assault.
The August 9th murder of the 31-year-old doctor at R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata sparked massive demonstrations that began Monday and continued throughout the week. On Wednesday, protesters at a "Reclaim the Night" march attacked the hospital where the woman was killed. Protests also took place in cities including Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai, and Pune.
Saturday's strike, which was organized by the Indian Medical Association, is set to last for 24 hours, during which all treatment in government hospitals and outpatient clinics has been canceled. The IMA
condemned the "crime of barbaric scale and the lack of safe spaces for women" in the world's most populous nation.
"This is both about the Kolkata doctor who was brutalized and every woman who has faced sexual violence or harassment in the country," one Kolkata protester toldThe Guardian. Other demonstrators in the West Bengal capital shouted slogans including, "We want justice," "Enough is enough," and "Hands that heal shouldn't bleed."
"We don't feel safe,” Antara Das, a medical student who joined the Kolkata protest, toldAl Jazeera. "If this happened inside a hospital that is second home to us, where are we safe now?"
Indian physicians called for the implementation of the Central Protection Act, a proposed law meant to shield healthcare workers from violence.
"We just want to be safe while we are doing our duty," Sapna Rani, a 27-year-old female doctor in New Delhi, told Al Jazeera.
One man has been arrested in connection with the doctor's rape and murder. According to the Indian Express, the suspect's wife filed multiple complaints with police accusing him of assault, including while she was pregnant. The suspect is reportedly a "civic volunteer" who worked closely with police.
In stark contrast to the nationwide protests, local police and the principal at the victim's medical college, Dr. Sandip Ghosh, claimed the murdered doctor, who was sleeping in the hospital's seminar hall when she was attacked, killed herself.
Ghosh then claimed that the victim—who was found bleeding from her eyes, mouth, and genitals, and who had extensive traumatic injuries to her body—was still to blame for her own death.
"It was irresponsible of the girl to go to the seminar hall alone at night," he said, according toThe Wire.
Ghosh was interrogated Saturday by India's Central Bureau of Investigation. Earlier in the week, he tendered his resignation from R.G. Kar. Instead of accepting his resignation, the government transferred him to serve as principal of Calcutta National Medical College, where students staged a protest against the move.
India Todayreported Saturday that the West Bengal government has canceled Ghosh's transfer.