Disquieted whistle-blowers (10/11/05)

USNews.com: N and W: Disquieted whistle-blowers (10/11/05): "10/11/05
By Kevin Whitelaw

CHINCOTEAGUE, Va. – The first annual National Security Whistleblowers Conference, held on this tiny resort island, has to be one of the more unusual gatherings of intelligence veterans in recent years. The nearly 20 current or former officials from the FBI, CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency, and even the supersecret National Security Agency who make up the core of the conference share an unusual distinction: They are all deeply out of favor with their longtime employers.

After speaking up, either internally or publicly, about alleged wrongdoings, many have been pushed out, typically under a cloud of usually unrelated but classified personal allegations. Many are still fighting to preserve their careers or at least their reputations. Most cannot discuss the allegations they are making in detail because the specifics are highly classified. Some even have trouble outlining the alleged violations that ended their own careers. The agencies they work for also refuse to answer questions about the specific cases.

So this disparate lot of intelligence and law enforcement veterans came together this week to see what they might all have in common. The tone was deeply pessimistic. In the wake of 9/11, many in Washington had voiced strong support for whistle-blowers like Colleen Rowley, the FBI analyst who wrote a memo laying out a series of failures in the case of Zacarias Moussaoui, who had been arrested while attending flight school a month before the al Qaeda attacks. But the current and former officials at the conference said that today's climate in Washington has never been worse for whistle-blowers. Citing what many referred to as the Bush administration's penchant for secrecy amid their war on terrorism, several panelists bemoaned the difficulty of government officials raising allegations of government abuse, fraud, or incompetence without suffering retribution in their careers."