So much for Transparency.... :-(
 

The VA?s Unprecedented Attack On Whistleblowers
TND Guest Contributor: Wendy McElroy |
obama va
The scandal over the wretched conditions and wait times at veteran?s hospitals as well as the falsification of records by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has the White House in full-scramble defense mode. President Obama risks losing the support of veterans, military personnel, and their families.A new report on the VA from early June this year depicts a truly embarrassing state of affairs. As the Associated Press puts it,

A VA audit this week showed that more than 57,000 new patients had to wait at least three months for initial appointments.? It also found that over the past decade, nearly 64,000 newly enrolled veterans requesting appointments never got one, though it was unclear how many still wanted VA care.

The audit covered 731 VA medical facilities. It said 13 percent of scheduling employees said they?d been instructed to enter falsified appointment dates, and 8 percent used unofficial appointment lists, both practices aimed at improving agency statistics on patient wait times.

Indeed, on May 30 (even before the damning audit was released), Obama accepted the resignation of one of his most trusted cabinet members, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki. The president stated that Shinseki ?does not want to be a distraction, because his priority is to fix the problem and make sure our vets are getting the care that they need.? And I agree. We don?t have time for distractions; we need to fix the problem.?

But a recent development suggests it is likely that the federal government will try to suppress embarrassing information rather than try to actually repair the VA. According to a recentTechDirt article, ?The VA?s Inspector General [IG] has made the unprecedented move to subpoena documents turned over anonymously to independent, non-profit watchdog group Project on Government (POGO).?

The IG is the officially designated office to which fraud, waste, and abuse in the VA are supposed to be reported for investigation. But many people who have made such reports to the IG say that the reports go no further than the IG?s desk.

POGO is a private organization devoted to establishing ?transparency and accountability throughout the federal government.? Its website states, ?We work with whistleblowers and other inside sources, and access information through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), to shed light on the government?s activities.? POGO was founded in 1981.

An administrative subpoena is an official demand for information issued by a federal agency without the need for judicial approval or involvement; all the agency needs to do is to allege that specific information is necessary for an investigation. Administrative subpoenas are routinely used by the National Security Agency, for example, to demand personal customer information from telecommunications companies, hospitals, banks, insurance companies, and bookstores. Critics claim the subpoenas violate privacy and Fourth Amendment guarantees of probable cause.

The administrative subpoena is now being put to an innovatively intrusive use ? determining the identities of VA whistleblowers.

Whistleblowing on Veterans Affairs

On May 15, in alliance with the group Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, POGO coestablished a page entitled VAOversight.org, headlined ?Help Us Hold the VA Accountable.? The page?s message is addressed to VA employees who ?have direct knowledge of fraud, waste or abuse.?

In capital letters, the page advises whistleblowers not to use ?a government or contractor phone, fax, or computer? as a means of contact. It suggests that you ?maximize your security and anonymity? through electronic communications using the Tor Browser Bundle service. From there, reports will be submitted ?to POGO in an encrypted message.? In short, VAOversight.org establishes a secure path for people to report VA abuses without fear of reprisal.

According to news sources, POGO has received hundreds of accounts of corruption, deplorable health care, life-jeopardizing wait times, and the falsification of official documents.

POGO has now also received the IG?s administrative subpoena demanding it hand over a copy of every report in full and allow the IG access to the originals. This could expose any whistleblower who included any potentially identifying details in their messages to POGO.

If it is successful, the subpoena could dissuade further leaks and so potentially prevent further embarrassment to the Obama administration.

Plugging the leaks is particularly important because of two bills that moved with dazzling speed through Congress. On June 10, the House passed a bill to let veterans receive private medical treatment if the VA wait time was too long. On June 11, the Senate passed a similar measure that also called for ?bad actors? in the VA to be held accountable. With strong bipartisan support, the bills are expected to be reconciled in short order and sent onto the president for his signature.

With the election edging closer, Republicans are loudly asking, ?Who knew what, and when?? It is to the advantage of Democrats for no answers to arise. And yet, any member of Congress who is seen to oppose the public cry for answers and solutions will lose support. Even President Obama cannot risk vetoing such a popular bill, despite the danger that officials at the highest level might eventually be revealed as ?bad actors.? Limiting damage by limiting transparency may be the most that Democrats can accomplish.

Subpoenas vs freedom of the press

POGO has refused to comply with the VA subpoena. Joe Newman, its communications director,declared, ?We are certainly prepared to go to court. We are certainly prepared to go to jail to prevent any of that information from being released.?

On June 9th POGO announced, ?In a letter sent to the IG this morning [June 9], POGO said the IG?s subpoena infringes on POGO?s constitutional ?freedom of speech, freedom of press, and freedom of association rights as they relate to all whistleblowers and sources.??

But, as a June 9 article on the tech site Ars Technica explained, the issue is wider than POGO and the VA. The Ars Technica article read, ?To defeat encryption, feds deploy the subpoena. Drop boxes, secured or not, are all the post-Snowden rage and ripe for subpoenas.?

A drop box is a file-storage service by which a person can deposit data anonymously ? usually with the option of encryption ? and then someone else can pick it up by arrangement. This technique protects whistleblowers who go to the press, as Snowden did.

The article stated that the ?number of so-called drop boxes from media organizations and other whistleblower groups is on the rise in the wake of the Edward Snowden revelations. TheWashington Post and the Guardian were among the latest to deploy drop boxes on June 5.?

The IG?s administrative subpoena is a brute-force method to compel the opening of encrypted communications and further reduce government transparency. It would also reduce freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

Conclusion

A few weeks after Obama assumed office for his first term in January 2009, he issued twomemos that promised unprecedented transparency in his administration. What he delivered instead was an unprecedented war against whistleblowers who expose flaws or corruption. AsSalon explained in 2012, ?The Obama administration has already charged more people ? six ? under the Espionage Act for alleged mishandling of classified information than all past presidencies combined. (Prior to Obama, there were only three such cases in American history.)?

If the new administrative technique of subpoenaing whistleblowers? communications prevails, it will provide a supply of information that may allow many more prosecutions. Or, far worse, people may fall silent before their own government, afraid to risk speaking out at all.




http://thenewsdoctors.com/the-vas-un...histleblowers/




.

5 of the 6 should of been charged for what they did :2 cents:

The VA has ALWAYS had this problem. They have always been understaffed and under funded - and over worked.

The problem isn't our government but instead the general population. How much money do we currently spend on the VA on a yearly basis, and how much MORE money will it take to fix the problem? It's very easy for us to stand up and say "This is horrible and we demand our government fix this" but when it comes to quadrupling the amount of money we are spending on this the public is like "Oh hell no".

Jesus Fucking Crist, you are really going to go there? You are going to say the problem is the people, not the person that promised to fix it, not the problem of the people that over saw it. They falsified documents you fucking retard!

Proof again you have your head so buried up Obama's ass that you can't see what he's doing to the country!

The IRA has a Billion dollar a year budget for IT, yet they can't find emails from Lerner and you accept that, shows how fucking ignorant you are!

I'm lucky because the service I got from the Valley VA was awesome.

80% of the senior executives got bonuses

The VA acknowledges that 23 veterans DIED because of delayed care.

Yet you in your fucked up twisted sense of morality say it's over population?

How fucking retarded can you be that you would say that about your fellow veterans?

This whole thing falls on Obama, he appointed Shinseki, he stated he knew about the problem when he took office and he DIDN'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT THE VETERANS!

Fuck any asshole that thinks otherwise

It truly amazes me that anyone with the IQ to tie their own shoes would believe Obama in anything he says.

You are correct. The right talks about the love of the troops but they dont give a shit. It costs money to fix things not bullshit political statements.

A veteran should be able to walk into ANY hospital, ANY medical facility or ANY pharmacy to get care. Simple as that. I'm not saying hospitals should bend over backwards for them or opt them into insane treatments that have little end-result, but they should be able to get care like any medicare/insured person can, at NO cost to them.

My grandfather fought in WWII and then fought for Veterans rights all his life. Had 3 heart attacks due to the stress and injustices against veterans. So I grew up firmly believing that veterans need to know and feel that their own country will take care of them and their families + actually follow through on those promises.

The problem isn't the government? Really?

http:// http://reason.com/blog/2014/06/22/even-at-the-va-your-federal-bureaucrats?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed& utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reason%2FHitandRun+%28Reason+ Online+-+Hit+%26+Run+Blog%29

Even at the VA Your Federal Bureaucrats Are Stellar Enough for Government Work

Ed Krayewski|Jun. 22, 2014 10:50 am

avvo.comDefenses of public sector salaries often rest on the idea that better pay attracts better candidates, while low turnover is chalked up to government workers being so good at their job nobody gets fired or wants to leave. The low turnover, of course, can also be attributed to union protections, and even in the absence of a public union governments often have stricter rules on managing employees than the private sector. It's difficult to compare or even gauge job performance, too, as so many government jobs don't have an equivalent in the public sector, while government employees often get stellar reviews from government supervisors.

For example,haThe New York Timeshareports that in the last four years, each of 470 senior executives at the Department of Veterans Affairs ha(VA) was reviewed as being "fully successful" (or better!) in their jobs, this while the department's employees were actively covering up criminal negligence in veterans' healthcare. ThehaTimeshareports:

The data also showed that in 2013, nearly 80 percent of the senior executives were rated either "outstanding" or as having exceeded "fully successful" in their job performance, and that at least 65 percent of the executives received performance awards, which averaged around $9,000. Only about 20 percent received the middle of the five ratings.

Veterans Affairs officials sought to play down the data, saying that only 15 senior executives across the federal government had received either of the two lowest ratings in the most recent year

That someone paid to spin things to the media would really think pointing out that every supervisor in the federal government gets a good review would help illustrates how disconnected from reality federal employees have become. Perhaps it shouldn't be surprising though, given the Obama administration's insistence that the scandals they're embroiled in are fake and the willingness of Obama apologists to eat that narrative up.

The datahaThe Timeshaquotes came out in testimonyhaby a VA assistant secretary last week who defended the system of performance bonuses by saying it was needed to retain talent?as lawmakers pointed out, there wasn't a mass exodus from the department after bonuses were suspended. Her testimony also revealed that the outstanding performance reviews are likely written by the people being reviewed. Government's justhathathagood.







.

Hate to break it to you big guy this falls on everyone left and right . They have know the system is broken and they still have not fixed it. The Bush admin learned of it in 2005 with this issue going back as 1995. Ask the 9/11 first responders how there benefits are doing.

But election day will come and go and the same people will be voting for there team and then a year down the road they will be bitching about something else the other side did. Its ground hog day all over again.

candy flip
Noun: the combination of LSD and Ecstacy
Verb: to take such a combination
Ex1: What's that in my coffee? -- A candy flip!
---
Ex2: Man I was candy flipping so hard I didn't know my own name.

If that is what you take after as a name sake, it all makes sense then doesn't it

Hate to break to you little guy, Obama promised change, he put Shinseki in place.

You're right, it's not a left or right thing, but I never said it was.

It has been a problem for a while, I never said otherwise.

Obama gets the blame because he took it over. 5 years later, 23 people died.

I never said this was partisan, is that in the liberal excuse book for Obama fuck up's?

Ughhhhhh too much to read, need cliff notes..:upsidedow

This is not about money, it's about bad management. If it would have been about money, Obama would be pushing that excuse. He's not because he knows that's not the fault. He is!

FBI has began a criminal investigation into the delays.

Both parties right now are looking at funding the VA to somehow fix this overnight. Democrats want emergency funds, Republicans want cuts else where to fund it in the budget.

When Obama came into office in 2009 he promised to fix the VA hospitals

He put Shinseki, who is a retired military officer in charge.

The VA gave out bonuses for good work, last year they didn't give out any bad reviews of the senior officers.

The VA acknowledges that 23 veterans waiting in line for help died as a result of the VA people creating bad lists of waiting veterans

Shinseki resigned.

people are pissed, veterans are pissed, cliff notes

Your report has nothing to do with anything really. They interviewed "470 senior executives" but this has nothing to do with the doctors or the care anyone receives.

Why don't they quadruple the amount of hospitals AND staff?

It's not about the doctors, it's about management.

Shinseki was at the top of that, Obama put him there