Whistle Blowers

WASHINGTON - Three years ago, the Obama administration brought criminal charges under the Espionage Act against Thomas Drake, an Air Force veteran and intelligence expert at the National Security Agency in Maryland. He was not accused of aiding the enemy or of revealing national secrets. He had, however, helped a Baltimore Sun reporter reveal a billion-dollar boondoggle at the NSA - a computerized data-scanning system that never worked as planned. The case against Drake collapsed on the eve of his trial when it was revealed that the information was not classified.

WASHINGTON - The former top federal prosecutor in Arizona retaliated against the lead whistle-blower in the Fast and Furious gun-smuggling scandal by leaking an internal report that suggested the whistle-blower once favored allowing illegal gun sales as a way to track weapons to drug cartels in Mexico, the Justice Department's inspector general's office said Monday. Dennis K. Burke, who resigned from the U.S. attorney's office following the Fast and Furious matter, told investigators that he leaked an internal memorandum to a television producer in which ATF Special Agent John Dodson discussed an earlier case involving gun trafficking on the border.

An obscure legal doctrine leaves whistle-blowers at the San Onofre nuclear plant with less legal protection than other California workers, including employees at the state's only other nuclear plant. San Onofre is majority owned and operated by Southern California Edison, a private company, but it sits on land leased from the Camp Pendleton Marine Corps base. That puts the plant in a so-called federal enclave, where courts have held that many California laws, including labor laws intended to protect whistle-blowers, do not apply.

WASHINGTON - Three years ago, the Obama administration brought criminal charges under the Espionage Act against Thomas Drake, an Air Force veteran and intelligence expert at the National Security Agency in Maryland. He was not accused of aiding the enemy or of revealing national secrets. He had, however, helped a Baltimore Sun reporter reveal a billion-dollar boondoggle at the NSA - a computerized data-scanning system that never worked as planned. The case against Drake collapsed on the eve of his trial when it was revealed that the information was not classified.

Nice to see that the referees in Arizona were consistent in calling charges against both UCLA and USC, altering both games for the home team, and raising eyebrows about their competency. And it is nice that the NCAA makes it a point that coaches aren't to comment about missed calls, thus burying their mistakes or issuing an apology days later, which does nothing for the players or the team that had the poor call against them. Barry Levy Hawthorne :: I really believe that Pac-10 officiating today is just as dishonest and/or just as incompetent as Big Ten officiating was back in the '50s.

It's disappointing to see leaders, public figures and CEOs undone by sex scandals. But it becomes a tragedy when these cases are of an abusive nature. And worse yet, when they're kept quiet, leaving the victims even more powerless. The Penn State case, in which Jerry Sandusky abused young boys while Joe Paterno and  administrators worried more about the institution than the victims, was a harsh reminder that we can't blindly trust people, even respected members of our communities.

WASHINGTON -- The federal government's automatic budget cuts mean there will be less financial incentive to turn in tax cheats. In a notice on its website, the Internal Revenue Service said it would pay 8.7% less to informants who blow the whistle on tax-dodging individuals or corporations. The payments are being reduced because of the spending reductions required by the across-the-board cuts known as sequestration that kicked in Friday, the IRS said. QUIZ: How much do you know about the federal budget cuts?

The new financial reform law has what some lawyers call a secret weapon against fraud on Wall Street and in corporate America: the promise of a million-dollar jackpot to insiders who reveal an illegal scheme to the government. Tucked in the massive bill is a provision that for the first time extends a concept long applied to government contracts to the private sector. It gives whistle-blowers a mandatory 10% — and as much as 30% — of what the government recoups in fines and settlements in financial fraud cases.

It looks like the NBA was able to fine enough players and coaches for complaining about the replacement officials to afford a contract with the regular officials. Sol Bialeck Van Nuys

Reporters don't take promises of confidentiality lightly. A complex story often hinges on tips from insiders. And insiders, fearful of retribution, will sometimes talk to reporters only on the condition that their names not be used. Breaking such a promise can jeopardize the source's job or worse. It also casts a chill over others who may be thinking about blowing the whistle.

The University of California has agreed to pay $1.2 million to settle a federal whistle-blower lawsuit charging falsification of records and poor supervision of patients by UC Irvine anesthesiologists. The suit said anesthesiologists at the university's medical center filled out patient care reports before procedures started, "making it appear the anesthesiologist was present" when he or she wasn't. The lawsuit was brought by Dr. Dennis O'Connor, a former professor of anesthesiology at UCI School of Medicine, who will receive $120,000 of the settlement.

WASHINGTON -- The federal government's automatic budget cuts mean there will be less financial incentive to turn in tax cheats. In a notice on its website, the Internal Revenue Service said it would pay 8.7% less to informants who blow the whistle on tax-dodging individuals or corporations. The payments are being reduced because of the spending reductions required by the across-the-board cuts known as sequestration that kicked in Friday, the IRS said. QUIZ: How much do you know about the federal budget cuts?

In the same week that Lance Armstrong announced that he would not cooperate with the anti-doping agency that uncovered the deception he used to win seven Tour de France titles, the Justice Department on Friday opted to press him for the millions he took from former sponsor the U.S. Postal Service. By joining a whistle-blower lawsuit first filed by Armstrong's former cycling teammate Floyd Landis, the Justice Department alleges Armstrong and teammates violated sponsor agreements by using banned substances and methods, including blood doping, testosterone and human growth hormone.

An appeals court has overturned a $3.8-million jury award to a former Countrywide Financial Corp. human resources executive who contended he was fired because he refused to lie for the giant home lender and exposed unsafe working conditions. Michael Winston, a former leadership coach for Countrywide executives, won a wrongful-termination verdict in February 2011 from a Los Angeles County Superior Court jury in Van Nuys. The suit named as defendants Countrywide and Bank of America Corp., which acquired the high-risk mortgage specialist in 2008 and decided against retaining Winston.

When Michael Woodford in 2011 became president of Olympus Corp., the Japanese optical equipment maker, he told his secretary there was no need to walk backward each time she left his office. In the executive suite of a Japanese company, where fawning deference to those at the top is the norm, this counted as a radical egalitarian gesture. But, as Woodford discovered, he was not really at the top at all. Although he had been promoted to the presidency, becoming the first foreigner to assume that role since the company was established in 1919, he was kept out of the inner circle.

Biotech giant Amgen Inc. pleaded guilty in federal court to improper marketing of its anemia drug Aranesp and has agreed to pay $762 million in criminal fines and civil settlements to resolve complaints from company whistle-blowers. Federal prosecutors in New York said the Thousand Oaks company was "pursuing profits at the risk of patient safety" by encouraging doctors to use its popular anemia drug for unapproved uses to boost sales and to take market share from a rival drug maker.

Saying a staff psychiatrist was being punished by a "kangaroo court" for exposing horrid, life-threatening conditions at the county's Hillcrest mental hospital, Assemblyman Larry Stirling has introduced legislation to expand protection for so-called government "whistle blowers."

It's disappointing to see leaders, public figures and CEOs undone by sex scandals. But it becomes a tragedy when these cases are of an abusive nature. And worse yet, when they're kept quiet, leaving the victims even more powerless. The Penn State case, in which Jerry Sandusky abused young boys while Joe Paterno and  administrators worried more about the institution than the victims, was a harsh reminder that we can't blindly trust people, even respected members of our communities.

Help wealthy people dodge taxes. Go to prison. And cap it off by getting $104 million for ratting out your former clients to the IRS. In one of the largest whistle-blower cases in U.S. history, the federal government is paying that amount to a globe-trotting banker who once smuggled a client's diamonds in a toothpaste tube to avoid detection by tax authorities. The financier, Bradley Birkenfeld, later confessed his transgressions and helped the Internal Revenue Service nab thousands of Americans who had stashed money overseas to avoid paying taxes.