Federal Daily - April 15, 2009

PEER: Whistleblower Protection Remains Inadequate

President Barack Obama pledged during his long campaign for office to protect long-neglected federal whistleblowers who risk losing their jobs to disclose findings of waste, fraud and abuse in the course of their work. But, according to new release by a premier watchdog group—Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER)—federal employees under the new administration continue to “face blackballing and career derailment for reporting problems.” “[T]he reality of retaliation inside the agencies remains unchanged,” PEER said. “Nor has the Obama administration ended Bush-era prosecutions of civil servants who [previously] blew the whistle.” The group highlighted the case of William Knox, a Park Service safety officer who worked at an agency facility in Harper’s Ferry, Md., and who blew the whistle on a dangerous and unresolved asbestos problem on the site. Knox suffered retaliation for his efforts—a finding upheld in two final rulings in federal appeals court—yet the agency has yet to rectify the matter. “Bill Knox is the poster child for mistreatment of whistleblowers,” stated PEER Senior Counsel Paula Dinerstein, who recently filed a new complaint charging that Knox has been blackballed and abused by the agency. “Rampant retaliation is still occurring within the federal service and is unlikely to stop unless the Obama administration makes it a priority.” For more, go to: http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=1179

:: Back to Top ::

GAO: Passport Oversight Must Be Tightened

The State Department needs to tighten oversight of the passport acceptance process after an undercover auditor was able to fraudulently obtain a passport using the Social Security number (SSN) of a man who died in 1965, GAO said in a letter to lawmakers last week. A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report last month examined the passport review process, and—in both the report and the letter—auditors stated that the State Department still had not remedied weaknesses GAO had previously identified. Undercover auditors, for example, managed to obtain four genuine U.S. passports using counterfeit or fraudulently obtained documents—and in the most egregious case used a dead man’s Social Security number, noted the April 13 letter. In response, the department’s Passport Services division said it bought a subscription to the Death Master File which includes weekly updates of deaths recorded by Social Security Administration, a resource it will use to supplement other checks, GAO reported. GAO recommended that the State Department improve the training and resources for passport acceptance facility employees and establish a process where passports are held until they are checked against names listed in the Death Master File. GAO said the department also should explore commercial options for performing real-time checks of the validity of SSNs and conduct “red team” (covert) tests to improve the performance of passport acceptance agents, the report said. “State officials agreed that our investigation exposed a major vulnerability in the department’s passport issuance process,” GAO said. To see the GAO letter and links, go to: www.gao.gov/new.items/d09583r.pdf.

:: Back to Top ::

DoD Temporary Disability Program Needs Improvement, GAO Says

DOD and the military services do not effectively manage or monitor key aspects of the Temporary Disability Retired List (TDRL) program, a plan that allows servicemembers to draw interim disability retirement pay, according to a new Government Accountability Office report. The report, released April 13, scrutinized the temporary benefits program, which pays benefits for as long as five years to those with service-related injuries or illnesses which are not stable enough to immediately rate their severity. Once placed on the TDRL, temporary retirees must undergo periodic medical reexaminations and evaluations at least once every 18 months, the report noted. DoD and the military services could do a better job of both implementing and overseeing the TDRL, the report said. For example, the military does not systematically examine physical evaluation board stability decisions on reported disabilities for accuracy and consistency. Military procedures do not ensure consistent enforcement of TDRL rules, and information about the TDRL that the services provide is not always clear or complete, the report said. TDRL caseloads within DoD grew by 43 percent, from 9,983 in Fiscal Year (FY) 2003 to 14,285 in FY 2007, the report said, noting that few of those placed on the list ever returned to active duty. A high proportion eventually become eligible to receive permanent military disability retirement benefits, the report said. Given the low number of temporary retirees who return to the military and the added cost for administering TDRL cases, Congress “may wish to consider shortening consider shortening the current five-year maximum tenure on the TDRL,” the report suggested. To see more, go to: www.gao.gov/highlights/d09289high.pdf.

:: Back to Top ::