WHISTLEBLOWING AIRLINE EMPLOYEES ASSOCIATION

Patriotism and Freedom of Speech in Action

FAA AND TSA WHISTLEBLOWER SUPPRESSION/STONEWALLING
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Federal Employees

The Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2009 is designed to provide enhanced protections for federal workers who observe wrong-doing in the workplace. As we have observed the past decade under the Bush regime, many whistleblowers suffered harsh recriminations for speaking out when they believed that they had laws to protect them, but more importantly, institutions of government and politicians to support and protect them, while appropriately addressing their legitimate concerns. In almost all cases, they had neither.

There are many examples of such federal employees in the aviation industry as fired Federal Air Marshal Robert MacLean, TSA Red Team Leader Bogdan Dzakovic, FAA Inspectors Gabe Bruno, Chris Monteleon, and Rich Wyeroski, Air Traffic Controllers Anne Whiteman and Ray Adams, and many others. In every one of these instances, not only did federal law protections disintegrate, but politicians and law enforcement who could have interceded in their behalf turned a blind eye to obvious travesties of justice. This continues today as these honest employees struggle to bring their cases to the court of public opinion for judgment.

The House version of the above legislation allows for jury trials/discovery phase, which must be included in the final version of the bill that President Obama signs, who also campaigned on a promise of enhance whistleblower protection. Many citizens already recognize the broken campaign promises of the current administration. If 'We the People' are to right this sinking ship, we must demand this legally-protective enhancement signed into law.

Airline Employees

For airline aircrew members who are not federal employees, but are nonetheless the 'front-line employees' in the field who can readily identify safety and security frailties first-hand, the complexities and resultant pressures in doing so multiply exponentially. An extreme case was exemplified for airline employees during the post-9/11 bankruptcies where financial yield was grossly diminished with sky-high fuel prices and reduced passenger loads. Similar pressures are being brought to bear in a weak economy with the mega-merging of trunk carriers.

Please recall that the Airline Transportation Stabilization Act enabled the disbursement of a "whopping" $10-billion in loan guarantee relief to be divided amongst ALL financially-distressed air carriers under extremely stringent loan conditions requiring massive employee pay/pension and work rule concessions. Of the $10-billion, only $1.5-billion total in loans were let, of which United Airlines, a 9/11 victim-airline and the largest airline in the world at the time, received $0. In light of the unaudited billions given to banks last year, somehow something seems peculiar here, doesn't it?

Regardless of passenger yield, jet fuel prices, airlines in bankruptcy or merger, or any other external financial, legal, or political pressures impacting an airline bottom line, do these pressures relieve aircrew members from their safety and security reporting responsibilities in the performance of their assigned duties? Of course they don't! Professional aircrew members must never compromise safety and/or security for any reason. Airline passengers depend on aircrew to do what is SAFE. This is what they pay for with ticket purchases.

After the Colgan Air 3407 disaster in Buffalo, New York last year, many promises were made by Congress and the FAA to the families of the next-of-kin, but issues such as increased training requirements and crew fatigue issues for cockpit crew members at lower-cost carriers. The DOT intends to issue a report in a few weeks, which hopefully will fulfill promises made to the next-of-kin, but this remains to be seen. Similar enhanced security promises were made immediately following 9/11 and were never implemented, but are still needed, as was demonstrated in the Northwest 253 near-disaster in Detroit on Christmas day last year. Why not? Money.

After Colgan Air 3407, much media hoopla was made over the round-table discussions held by the FAA, airline management, and the union leadership, with promises made of a 'new day' at the FAA, who also admitted that they had problems at the time, but were correcting them. This still remains to be seen, but this doesn't appear to be the case thus far one year into the 'new day'.

Captain Dan Hanley, national public spokesperson for the Whistleblowing Airline Employees Association, tragically concluded his 35-year pilot career and serves as an example of massive failures by the Department of Transportation, Federal Aviation Administration, and the Transportation Security Administration to adequately resolve safety and security issues in a timely and expeditious manner. The advent of this association blossomed directly from his harsh treatment as both an FAA and TSA whistleblower, neither of which has been appropriately addressed to date by either the Office of Inspector General of the Departments of Transportation and Homeland Security...eight years later. Why not? Do we have to wait for the 20/20 hindsight of these safety and security agencies to focus with the next air disaster(s) for corrections to be made?

Ask a Chris Monteleon or a Gabe Bruno or a Bob MacLean. Ask Captain Dan Hanley, as some of the 2003 issues that he federally reported could have possibly averted Colgan Air 3407 or would have alerted the cockpit crew of Northwest 235 that something was amiss in the cabin during a critical phase of flight. Unfortunately, the airline safety and security equation is driven by the death statistics...but mainly the bottom-line as a commercial enterprise.

In 2003, after attempting to keep safety and security lapses out of the public eye and within the company during the United Airlines post-9/11 bankruptcy, United Airlines B-777 Captain Hanley submitted internal company federal reports that were stonewalled. Realizing this, he intended to send a certified letter (below) to United Airlines CEO Glenn Tilton, but was warned by ALPA management and legal department, "Go ahead and send that letter if you never want to fly another United airplane again in your life".

Frustrated and perplexed, while suspecting that bankruptcy pressures precluded union support and legal representation, Captain Hanley elected to draw the FAA Principle Operation Inspector into the equation by filing federally-mandated reports to 'normalize' the situation so that his legitimate safety and security concerns would be appropriately addressed.

As a result, his 35-year career was terminated by what he alleges was a 'hostile work environment company psychiatric evaluation resulting in the loss of his medical certification required to fly commercial jet aircraft. For complete details, please click here. Was this right? Could it happen to you now? Of course it could! Just ask National Security Administration whistleblower Russell Tice or Dr. Janet Parker or Continental First Officer Newton Dickson!

The Whistleblowing Airline Employees Association serves to augment the Departments of Transportation and Transportation Security Administration in making our aerospace system 'the safest, most efficient aerospace system in the world'. Our 'special interest' are the millions who travel by commercial air, and those dedicated safety professionals who serve them daily...aircrew members, FAA personnel, and federal air marshals.

Our website it being globally read and downloaded in over 40 countries to date and expanding daily!

It should be noted that this independent grassroots organization is not hampered by pressures exerted by Big Banks/Wall Street, K-Street, Big Oil, the Air Transport Association, the Regional Airline Association, airline management, or unions, nor do our actions assure our success during the next congressional election cycle.

If any employee EVER experiences political, communication and/or administrative challenges, regarding safety and security issues that are not being adequately addressed by appropriate authority, please visit our website and, if you cannot find the information you need there, kindly employ the 'Contact Us' page on the site. If we cannot provide you with an answer, we will direct you to someone who can. Remember...the life you save may be your own...or many of our 'special interests'!

Please continue reading to the bottom of the page and please share on your facebook wall. This release will also be posted on our blog, twitter, etc.

The following letter was intended to be mailed certified to United Airline CEO Glenn Tilton in 2003, but was not sent as a result of threat of termination by United Airlines management as suggested by ALPA management and ALPA legal at the time.

July 23, 2003

Mr. Glenn Tilton, Chief Executive Officer
United Airlines
P.O. Box 66100
Chicago, Illinois 60666

Dear Mr. Tilton,

I do not play politics with other peoples’ lives.

I will not compromise aviation safety and security to ensure the financial survival of United Airlines.

United Airlines is currently conducting unsafe flight operations. The employee morale is lower than I have observed in any organization I have ever served. Chronic lethargy is running rampant. It is readily transparent that company survival concerns have taken precedence over employee issues and aviation safety and security matters. From my experience in the past 22 months since 9/11/01, the safety communications processes established within the company and the union has either broken down or has been stifled at some level at every turn. The ALPA, my supposed safety and security buffer and communications link in the work environment, has either been threatened or gagged. Consequently, this organization has not addressed obvious security issues because the government and the industry do not want to “waste” the money on such “trivial” matters because their very own survival is at stake.

I have appended enclosure (1) for your perusal. I am a patient man and have been so for the past 22 months. I do not believe in using intimidation, coercion, extortion, deceit, manipulation, or exploitation to achieve my goals and objectives. We both know these managerial styles are devoid of all leadership principles exhibited by the truly great leaders and personify the pinnacle of moral depravity.

There are currently individuals in key managerial positions, both within United Airlines and the ALPA, who have yet to demonstrate the moral strength and courage (for whatever reason), to address the critical safety and security issues that we face. I perceive that they are selfishly directing all energies toward company survival without due regard to safety. This effort, although perhaps a capitalistic noble one, is diametrically in opposition to the ALPA Code of Ethics and every precept of safety this industry was built on and forces each pilot to compromise his professional integrity and aviation safety.

I cannot, in good conscience, allow this process to continue.

This correspondence is sent directly to you to serve notice that I intend to resubmit reports via appropriate communications channels to address safety and security concerns that are obvious to you and others in positions of influence and power in the company and the union.

I am charged with legal and moral responsibility of the safe carriage of passengers in commercial jet aircraft. This company is being driven by the corporate goals of the Marketing and Finance departments. This is understandable since United Airlines is a commercial enterprise in bankruptcy. Unfortunately, their goals and priorities conflict with, and have taken precedence over, most precepts of aviation safety.

The Flight Operations department has taken a back seat in perilous times and no one is speaking up on behalf of the pilot group. Why indeed? If the Marketing and Finance departments are driving our corporate objectives, then it appears they are clueless and unconcerned about aviation safety and security and their efforts must be redirected by whatever means available. Apparent concerns are not being addressed and necessary departments are not apprised because personnel somewhere are not doing their jobs or have devious designs for revenue enhancement.

It appears that the government and airline industry executives have determined, for financial reasons, that it is necessary to dismantle unions or otherwise render them powerless thereby diluting the effectiveness of my critical safety communications link in my job and the contractual safety provisions while operating in a high-threat, terrorist environment. Concurrently, they continue to ignore costly security measures necessary to ensure safe carriage of passengers. My real concern about my union is that they are guilty only of complicity under duress in this devious scheme; a scam that can be proven in a federal court of law and would be very damaging to all concerned parties. If this is the case, it cannot be allowed to continue. I am prepared to act and will do so.

As an aviation safety professional, performing my legal duties under the moral auspices of the ALPA Code of Ethics, if immediate response and redirection is not taken by responsible parties, I will be offered no other recourse but to seek remedy and relief by any and all available and appropriate means outside of United Airlines and the ALPA, but within the legal limits of the law. You and I do not want or need these awkward safety/financial issues to be pulled into the court of public opinion. I feel so very strongly about these matters that I am willing to risk my career and my pension and benefits to achieve my objectives, and am able to do so, if necessary. Peoples’ lives are at stake. I shouldn’t even have to take up your time by writing this letter to you. You are an honest man of high moral fiber or you would not be serving in your present capacity as Chief Executive Officer of United Airlines.

I do not play politics with other peoples’ lives.

Thank you for your time.

Respectfully,

Capt Dan Hanley
JFK B-777 Captain
United Airlines

Enclosure (1) Letter to Captain Paul Whiteford dated July 12, 2003

cc: Captain Duane Woerth, ALPA National Chairman

Captain Paul Whiteford, ALPA UAL-MEC Chairman

Captain Rory Kay, MEC – Central Air Safety Chmn

Captain J.A. Santiago, MEC – Professional STDS

Captain Mark Seal, Council 52 Chmn

Captain Bob Falco, Council 52 Professional STDS

Captain Greg Downs, Council 52 Safety

In lieu of the above letter being sent, and as a result of threat made, Captain Hanley elected to submit federally-mandated Flight Safety Awareness Reports, which essentially reflected his sentiments in the above letter, but expounded on the details of his safety and security concerns. In a word, he was 'fired' while attempting to protect our 'special interests' during a period of heightened security alert in the post-9/11 environment. Please click here to read these reports. The Departments of Transportation and Homeland Security continue to ignore him.

Please never allow this to happen to you in the future. If you are experiencing difficulties, Contact Us!

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

~ George Santayana ~

H.R.1507 - Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2009
Federal Employee Whistleblower Protection
Advocates Applaud Progress of Bill to Strengthen Protections for Whistleblowers and Taxpayers

From Betsy Combier:
President Obama has told America that his government had sufficient information to uncover the terror plot on Christmas Day (see article below, NY Times January 5, 2010). He most certainly did, but his administration chose to fire the whistleblowers who could have protected the American public. We all must change this twisted policy.

January 6, 2010
Obama Says Plot Could Have Been Disrupted
By JEFF ZELENY and HELENE COOPER, NY TIMES

WASHINGTON — President Obama said Tuesday that the government had sufficient information to uncover the terror plot to bring down a commercial jetliner on Christmas Day, but that intelligence officials had “failed to connect those dots.”

“This was not a failure to collect intelligence,” Mr. Obama said after meeting with his national security team for nearly two hours. “It was a failure to integrate and understand the intelligence that we already had.”

He added: “We have to do better, we will do better, and we have to do it quickly. American lives are on the line.”

The tone of the president’s remarks on Tuesday — the sharpest of any of his statements since the incident nearly two weeks ago — underscored his anger over the lapses in intelligence as well as his efforts to minimize any political risks from his administration’s response.

The president said he was suspending the transfer of detainees from the Guantánamo Bay military prison to Yemen, where a Qaeda cell has been connected to the Dec. 25 attack. While Mr. Obama also renewed his commitment to close the prison, halting the transfer underscores the difficulty he faces in closing the center and reflects the criticism Republicans have directed at the administration.

Mr. Obama also said that intelligence and law enforcement reviews of the terror plot would be completed this week and that he would announce additional security measures for air travelers in the coming days.

The statement was Mr. Obama’s fullest and most forceful to date on the incident, in which a Nigerian man traveling to Detroit from Amsterdam tried to ignite an explosive mixture that could have brought down the Northwest Airlines flight and its 278 passengers.

“I want specific recommendations for corrective actions to fix what went wrong,” said Mr. Obama, who was speaking in the Grand Foyer of the White House. “I want those reforms implemented immediately, so that this doesn’t happen again and so we can prevent future attacks.”

Mr. Obama’s stark assessment that the government failed to properly analyze and integrate intelligence served as a sharp rebuke of the country’s intelligence agencies, including the National Counterterrorism Center, the organization set up after the Sept. 11 attacks to ensure that the government had a central clearinghouse for spotting, assessing and thwarting terrorist threats.

But Mr. Obama insisted that he was not interested in getting into a blame game. White House officials said the president was standing by his top national security advisers, including those whose agencies failed to communicate with one another.

In a meeting with those officials on Tuesday, the president called the events leading up to the attempted Christmas Day attack a “screwup,” one White House official said, and told the assembled officials, “We dodged a bullet, but just barely.” Mr. Obama, the official said, also told the group that he would not “tolerate” finger-pointing.

In his remarks to reporters after the meeting, the president called the threat against the United States “a challenge of the utmost urgency.” He suggested that the passengers aboard the Northwest Airlines flight were lucky to skirt disaster and warned that future attacks might not be thwarted unless communication improved among intelligence officials.

“I will accept that intelligence by its nature is imperfect, but it is increasingly clear that intelligence was not fully analyzed or fully leveraged,” Mr. Obama said. “That’s not acceptable, and I will not tolerate it.”

Dennis C. Blair, the director of national intelligence, said in a statement on Tuesday evening that the “intelligence community received the president’s message today — we got it.” He acknowledged the failures, but added, “We can and we must outthink, outwork and defeat the enemy’s new ideas.”

In the meeting, officials did not blame the organization of the intelligence or homeland security agencies, which were set up under the Bush administration, but rather how the information was analyzed.

“I don’t think it’s a structure problem,” said Denis McDonough, the chief of staff of the National Security Council. “This isn’t a problem of intelligence sharing, but rather a problem related to ensuring that all the wealth of information we had was appropriately correlated, analyzed and highlighted.”

The decision to suspend the transfer of detainees from Guantánamo Bay to Yemen because of the rising terror threats emanating from the country was another tacit acknowledgment of how difficult it will be to close the prison. Nearly half of the remaining detainees are from Yemen, senior administration officials said.

Mr. Obama was already poised to miss his self-imposed one-year deadline for shuttering the prison by Jan. 22, but evidence that a Qaeda branch in Yemen was behind the failed Christmas Day attack means the administration will fall even further behind schedule.

Mr. Obama inherited 242 detainees at Guantánamo when he took office, and so far he has released or transferred 44. Of the 198 remaining, about 92 are from Yemen. Of those, just under 40 have been cleared for release, a senior administration official said.

But the official said the administration had already decided before the attempted attack that it would slow down the release of the remaining Yemeni detainees. The administration sent six detainees back to Yemen just before Christmas, in a move that drew criticism from Republicans, including Senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John McCain of Arizona, as well as Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, an independent. That criticism did not come until after the administration had already sent the men back.

Mr. Obama did not disclose what changes might be in store at airport security checkpoints, but transportation security officials have already been in contact with equipment manufacturers to find out what capacity they have to increase production of whole-body scanners, which can help detect hidden weapons or explosives.

So far, there are only 40 of these devices in place at 19 airports nationwide in a domestic aviation system that has more than 2,200 checkpoint security lanes. An additional 150 machines were recently ordered and are in the process of being delivered.

Industry officials said they expected a request for 300 more machines, which would result in a total of nearly 500 devices, still covering just a small fraction of the checkpoint lanes, but perhaps enough to have them at most of the major airports in the United States. The machines cost about $190,000 apiece.

Eric Lipton contributed reporting.

Obama says bomb attempt an intelligence 'screw-up'

The blog article below comes from two airline whistleblowers, Bogdan Dzakovic is former leader of the FAA Red Team, and Robert MacLean is a former Federal Air Marshal. (I was fortunate to meet both men at the International Whistleblower Conference in Washington DC in 2007 - Editor):

Other Voices: The TSA's assault against its own
LINK

After the Christmas attack on flight NW253, many legislators are scrutinizing the Transportation Security Administration and demanding expanded operations with more federal air marshals on long distance flights. Much has been made of the lack of an air marshal team on this flight that narrowly avoided catastrophe. Not enough has been made of the TSA's continual assault against its own employees, who expose serious safety lapses only to be fired.

The TSA fired one author of this piece, a former federal air marshal, for revealing a 2003 cost-cutting plan to cancel air marshal coverage from long-distance flights on the eve of a confirmed al-Qaeda suicidal hijacking plan. The type of targeted flight in that case was exactly like flight NW253.

The TSA plan never went into effect after Congress protested — based solely on the whistleblowing disclosure. TSA justified the firing with a single charge of “Unauthorized Disclosure of Sensitive Security Information” — an unclassified “hybrid secrecy” label the TSA retroactively applied to the disclosure.

While the problem was first widely exposed in 2003, it has not been fixed — an anonymous TSA official recently shared with the media that air marshals were not on NW253 because of “budget issues.”

There's a reason the official is choosing to remain anonymous.

This type of unjust retribution for performing one's job duties is not an isolated example.

The other author of this piece was a former leader of the Federal Aviation Administration's counter-terrorism unit “Red Team,” which, prior to 9/11, tested aviation security in airports around the world. The security system failed 90 percent of the time, but FAA censored any written records of the failures, and banned retesting.

After the attacks, the Red Team was grounded. When the TSA was created and took over airline security duties in the wake of the attack, the author was retaliated against in the first week of its existence and reduced to performing administrative work. In short, the state of airport security, now as it was then, is chalked full of holes and ripe for taking advantage of.

Our intention is not to alert citizens about our personal cases to bolster support. Our intention is to inform citizens that problems addressing threats against America are known by the TSA and could be prevented. Christmas day was a sober warning for the public that, despite this knowledge, the agency has not taken the necessary actions to thwart future terrorist plots.

The problem is that the TSA is reactive instead of proactive — only after major foul-ups occur are any parts of the system considered for change or updating. Employees who keep their mouths shut about possible problems are rewarded. Those who fight to improve the infrastructure are muzzled.

The TSA is trying to spin itself more positively. In July 2008 it announced a “Zero Tolerance of Retaliation against Whistleblowers” policy, specifying that any manager who retaliates would face possible termination. The TSA has no office for an employee to report any alleged retaliation, however, and the environment of fear lives on. This type of bureaucratic deceit permeates the agency.

Federal officers with inside knowledge of malfeasance want to make good-faith disclosures in order to save lives. The current system, though, makes federal employees commit professional suicide to warn of preventable tragedies. That means unnecessary disasters will occur as the rule, not the exception.

The most obvious cornerstone for any solution is restoring credible federal whistleblower protections to shield freedom of speech when it counts. In 1994, after Congress unanimously strengthened the Whistleblower Protection Act, it was the strongest free speech law in history — on paper. But in practice it has become a trap — an efficient mechanism that rubberstamps retaliation, because it denied normal court access to enforce the rights. Courts have ruled against whistleblowers in 204 out of 207 cases since 1994. Our so-called “rights” are the primary reason whistleblowers remain silent observers.

Congress is on the verge of restoring all the free speech rights erased since 1994, including providing court access with jury trials to enforce them. But it is essential that this legislation extend rights to all government workers — including contractors and those at national security agencies, whose warnings are most significant to fight terrorism.

This last item is currently a sticking point in the legislation. It shouldn't be. As long as whistleblowers must be career martyrs to defend the public against government breakdowns, the real victims are all Americans.

Bogdan Dzakovic is former leader of the FAA Red Team. Robert MacLean is a former Federal Air Marshal.