The self-professed source of the National Security Agency leaks may have caused angst in the intelligence community as top-secret surveillance programs are being revealed to all of America, but for one woman — his pole-dancing girlfriend — all he's caused is heartbreak.

Lindsay Mills, 28, dated Edward Snowden, the 29-year-old tech admin who says he is the one who divulged details about the NSA's data-collecting programs, NBC News confirmed on Tuesday.

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Snowden, who was an employee of government consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, leaked documents to The Guardian and The Washington Post; as the manhunt for him continued on Tuesday night in Hong Kong, the last place he was seen after he fled from the U.S., information and sultry pictures of the woman he has dated for at least four years were being circulated online.

Mills had followed Snowden around the globe, documenting her adventures on her blog and calling him her "man of mystery."

Her final entry this week waxed poetic as Mills shared the heartbreak she felt at him leaving for Hong Kong — where he was last known to be hiding from authorities following the leak.

"For those of you that know me without my super hero cape, you can probably understand why I'll be refraining from blog posts for awhile. My world has opened and closed all at once. Leaving me lost at sea without a compass," read Mills' final blog post, which was posted on Monday before the site, www.lsjourney.com, was deactivated.

"Surely there will be villainous pirates, distracting mermaids, and tides of change in this new open water chapter of my journey. But at the moment all I can feel is alone. And for the first time in my life I feel strong enough to be on my own. Though I never imagined my hand would be so forced. As I type this on my tear-streaked keyboard I'm reflecting on all the faces that have graced my path."

 

An avid dancer, she had posted numerous photos of herself wearing little-to-no clothing — one entry showed her wearing just a hat and underwear, which she titled "Super Spy."

Others entries on the blog, which was titled "Adventures of a world-traveling, pole dancing super hero," pictured her on said pole. 

Mills and Snowden, who Mills simply called "E" on her blog, had lived together in Hawaii before he fled to Hong Kong. In a March 2, 2012, post, she wrote to her readers while still living on the mainland.

"Squared away a few things this weekend and now I can announced what I've been so vague about the past few weeks. As some of you know (because I'm terrible at keeping secrets), E got a job on the not-so-distant island of Oahu. Yes, I'm moving to Hawaii. Yes, I'm excited. Yes, I'm incredibly sad."

In another post, she expresses her frustration with the government after having to show her driver's license to buy cold medicine. 

“Really, Uncle Sam, you need to track just who is buying this medicine? I assure you I’m only going to be making the tiniest amount of illegal drugs with it and the rest will go to my flu-ridden partner (will the government bots pick up on sarcasm?) When did my every move become so interesting to Uncle Sam. Maybe it was when Mr. O announced that we call the government our federal family,” she blogged on Sept. 9, 2011. 

Contacted at the family home in Laurel, Md., Jonathan Mills, Lindsay' father, couldn't confirm his daughter's whereabouts on Tuesday, but he said he had met Snowden, whom he described as "shy and reserved." He said the two had been dating about four years.

Snowden checked out of Hong Kong's Mira Hotel on Monday, and has not been heard from since. 

NBC News' Tracy Connor, Debra Pettit and Stephen Weeke contributed to this report.

Related content:

• What we know about NSA leaker Edward Snowden
• Edward Snowden, professed NSA leaker, may have few safe havens

A former CIA agent was sentenced to 30 months in prison on Friday for revealing the identity of CIA operative involved in the agency’s harsh handling of alleged terrorists.

John Kiriakou, 48, who was among the first government officials to confirm the CIA’s use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation measures, had been accused of disclosing classified information to reporters and lying about the source of other information he published in a book.

But Kiriakou pleaded guilty to one count of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act by leaking the identity of an agent to a reporter. 

The sentencing in federal court in Alexandria, Va., was the result of a plea deal between defense and prosecutors. Kiriakou's defense team failed to persuade the judge that his release of information was the act of a whistle blower concerned about practices used in the war on terrorism in the name of the United States.

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"I think 30 months is way too light," said U.S. District Court Judge Leonie M. Brinkema in Alexandria, Va. She went on to describe the damage that Kiriakou had caused the agency and the agent whose cover was made public, according to The New York Times' account.

"This is not a case of a whistleblower," Brinkema said. "This is a case of a man who betrayed a solemn trust."

Many of the details of Kiriakou’s alleged disclosures were kept under wraps by the Justice Department in its original criminal filing, the Washington Post  reported. But the complaint suggested that he provided information that was the basis for stories by the Times and other news organizations in 2008 and 2009 about sensitive post-9/11 CIA operations, it said.

The information included the capture and interrogation, including waterboarding, of key suspects, including Abu Zubaida and Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the 9/11 attacks on the United States.

Information and photographs supplied to journalists by Kiriakou ultimately came into play in the defense of these high-value detainees, the Justice Department said.

Kiriakou worked for the CIA from 1990 to 2004.

After a 2007 interview with ABC News, during which Kiriakou provided a description of the waterboarding of Abu Zubaida, he was frequently sought out by the media for interviews.

He went on to publish his memoir, "The Reluctant Spy: My Secret Life in the CIA's War on Terror," in 2010.

Prosecutors accused Kiriakou of using media attention to get consulting work and sell copies of his book, the Post reported. 

The FBI arrested him on Jan. 23, 2012, and he pleaded guilty to a violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act.

Kiriakou did not speak at Friday’s proceedings. However, Kiriakou’s lawyer, Robert Trout, said his client did not intend to harm the United States or "cause injury to anyone."

"He was concerned about certain practices that were employed in the war against terror," Trout said.

Since 2009, the Obama administration has charged five other current or former government officials with leaking classified information, the Times reported.

Lance Armstrong may not face criminal charges for admitting to doping, but fending off millions in civil claims could be tougher than climbing the Col du Tourmalet, experts say.

His reported confession to Oprah Winfrey is likely to bolster a whistleblower lawsuit that has caught the feds’ attention, demands for refunds of prize and bonus money, even potential defamation actions by critics he viciously attacked.

“At the end of the day, I would be surprised if the damages – total amount – aren’t in the tens of millions of dollars,” said Andrew Stoltmann, a Chicago lawyer who has represented professional athletes in civil cases.

That would punch a big hole in Armstrong’s fortune – estimated at more than $100 million – but would still be a softer blow than jail time.

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Federal prosecutors spent 20 months probing doping allegations against Armstrong for possible criminal charges. Using performance-enhancing drugs in sports isn’t a crime, but investigators probably looked for evidence of fraud, trafficking and perjury.

They closed their criminal case in February 2011, and some observers think it’s unlikely that whatever Armstrong said to Winfrey would lead prosecutors to reopen it.

“Mr. Armstrong is very well-advised by capable lawyers and I don’t think he would be admitting on the Oprah Winfrey show something that would give rise to a criminal charge,” said Wayne Lamprey, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice in San Francisco.

But that doesn’t mean Armstrong is completely off the hook with Uncle Sam.

Settlement agreement in place?
A Justice Department official told NBC News some lawyers in the civil division are pushing for the government to join a whistleblower lawsuit filed in 2010.

The suit is under seal but published reports have said that Armstrong teammate Floyd Landis brought it on behalf of the U.S. Postal Service, which sponsored the team and paid out $30 million in fees.

If successful, the suit could compel Armstrong and other defendants to pay back that money plus $60 million in damages, with up to 30 percent going to Landis. Federal involvement in the suit could improve Landis' chances.

Lamprey, who handles whistleblower actions, said Armstrong’s decision to spill at least some of his guts while the whistleblower case is still pending “begs the question” of whether there’s an informal settlement agreement in place.

“If I was representing a defendant in a case like this, if I didn’t feel like if I had something buttoned up, I wouldn’t have my client on national television admitting to the core of the charges,” he said. NBC News has been told that talks are under way.

The whistleblower suit is just the biggest-ticket claim on the horizon.

The organization that runs the Tour de France has already said Armstrong should pay back almost $4 million it awarded him for his wins. An insurance firm, SCA Promotions, is asking for $12 million in bonus payouts it covered in 2002, 2003 and 2005. The Australian government on Tuesday asked Armstrong to return millions in appearance fees to race in the Tour Down Under.

Until his sitdown with Winfrey, which airs Thursday and Friday, Armstrong has never wavered in his denial of doping, branding his accusers liars and worse, and his insults theoretically could be grounds for defamation claims.

“I would expect people to come out of the woodwork,” Stoltmann said.

But David Newman, of Manhattan firm Day Pitney, said the statute of limitations may have run out on many of those statements, and plaintiffs would have to prove they had been damaged by Armstrong’s rantings.

Newman also said he would not expect to see lawsuits from some of Armstrong’s former sponsors, like Nike, Anheuser-Busch and Trek, seeking to recoup what they spent.

“One could argue fraudulent inducement or misrepresentation,” Newman said. “But Nike or any of these sponsors don’t want to get into a lawsuit even if they’re right, because long, drawn-out litigation blackens their name even more.

“They want to cut the ties and move on and find the good new person to sponsor – the next Oprah Winfrey.”

NBC's Pete Williams contributed to this report.

Tune in to TODAY Friday for an exclusive live interview with Livestrong CEO Doug Ulman. 

Related stories:
Oprah: Armstrong 'forthcoming' in interview about drug use
Calculated Armstrong losing image
Even with mea culpa, Armstrong's brand value 'near zero'

 

 

 

 

 

By Myron Levin, Lilly Fowler and Stuart Silverstein
FairWarning.org

Robert J. Barnhart was a crew chief for a billboard company, and a soldier in a war on trees.

Trees were the enemy if they spoiled the view of a billboard. On days of an attack, Barnhart, 27, would arrive by dawn at Lamar Advertising Co. in Tallahassee, Fla. After removing the magnetic Lamar logo from a company truck, he would set forth with a machete, a hospital mask and a container of what he described as a "pretty gnarly" herbicide.

It was all about being fast: Hack into the roots or base of the tree, douse the wound with herbicide, and get out of there. The Lamar executive who gave the orders, said Barnhart, called it "a hit and run."

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Barnhart’s account, detailed in court papers and in statements to investigators, is the focus of a criminal investigation. It also is the basis for a whistleblower suit in which Barnhart, who through his lawyer declined to be interviewed, maintains that he was fired because he would not keep poisoning trees. His claims are supported by sworn testimony from Barnhart’s former supervisor, Chris Oaks, who admitted that he, too, had illegally poisoned trees before Barnhart took over in 2009 as poisoner-in-chief.

As long as there have been billboards, trees have been getting in the way. And billboard companies have been removing them — sometimes legally, sometimes not. News archives are replete with accounts of mysterious tree disappearances near billboard sites. Usually, no one gets caught, due to lack of evidence or to officials failing to aggressively pursue those responsible.

Fewer trees means more viewing time for motorists, and more money for billboard operators. A 500- foot clearance in front of a sign creates more than five seconds of viewing time for a motorist going 60 mph.

It’s uncertain if the Tallahassee tree-poisonings were isolated, or reflect a pattern at Lamar. The Baton Rouge, La., company has nearly 150,000 billboards, more than any other U.S. outdoor advertising firm.

Barnhart and Oaks said they acted under orders from Lamar’s former regional manager, Myron A. "Chip" LaBorde, who ran company operations in Florida and Georgia and was past president of the Florida Outdoor Advertising Association LaBorde died of pancreatic cancer last summer.

Hal Kilshaw, a Lamar vice president and chief spokesman, declined to discuss the criminal investigation, but said "cutting of trees or poisoning of trees without the required permits would be contrary to company policy."

Charges in the tree-poisoning case could be filed soon. Meanwhile, another tree-killing binge in the Florida panhandle has also drawn attention. In that episode, billboard operator Bill Salter Outdoor Advertising cleared more than 2,000 trees from public rights of way to enhance views of its signs.

Florida transportation officials acted "in flagrant violation of the law" in issuing permits for the cutting, a grand jury found in January, because, among other things, they did not require Salter to compensate the state for the loss of the trees, valued at $1 million to $4 million. The permits were issued to Salter after a state legislator, Greg Evers, intervened by making calls to the state Department of Transportation. The agency is currently negotiating with Salter for repayment.

Tree pruning also happens routinely, and legally, by arrangement between billboard operators and private landowners. The industry has lobbied for state laws to allow tree-cutting along public highways under certain conditions. According to the Outdoor Advertising Assn. of America, the industry trade group, 29 states, including Florida, have "reasonable" regulations on clearing vegetation that blocks views of signs. The group says on its website: "The OAAA discourages vegetation control that is not in compliance with state and local laws and regulations."

However, environmental groups have criticized these laws, asking why publicly owned trees that provide beauty and shade should be removed to accommodate advertising signs. Though billboard companies pay for the cutting, critics say permit fees and compensation for destroyed trees do not meet the real cost to taxpayers. Moreover, they note, in states that permit vegetation removal, illegal cutting still takes place.

Lamar’s Kilshaw said his company’s record is good. "We have over 150 offices, we have thousands of employees, we’ve been in business over 100 years," he said. The record shows Lamar is "doing the right thing almost all the time, almost everywhere."

'An honest, legitimate mistake'
In 2008, Lamar was sued by the state of Connecticut after the company and a tree service trespassed on state land and removed 83 trees along Interstate 84, including oak, spruce, maple and birch trees up to 37 inches in diameter. They "swept a swath of destruction," said then-Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, "obliterating a vital environmental buffer protecting homeowners from noxious noise and views."

The problem was that Lamar had a permit to trim — not cut down — trees. It also felled trees outside the permitted area.

It was "an honest, legitimate mistake," Kilshaw said, adding that a state transportation official had observed the work without raising objections. But a judge found Lamar liable in October, 2010. In lieu of paying damages, Lamar agreed to fund a replanting program for an estimated $181,000.

In 2009, Lamar was forced to pay about $182,000 to an irate Ohio couple for illegally felling 34 trees on their property to improve views of a sign.

The dispute began in the late 1990s when, according to John Blust, he and his wife rebuffed Lamar’s offer to plant a sign on land they owned in the Dayton suburb of Beavercreek.

A neighbor proved more obliging, and the billboard went up there. But it turned out that the Blusts’ trees were in the way. They lived a few miles from the property, and did not learn of the destruction of their woodland until alerted by a cousin.

Blust told FairWarning that he sought compensation, and "If they had sent me $3,000, it would have been all over." But a Lamar executive "laughed at me over the phone from Baton Rouge, Louisiana," said Blust, who then decided to sue.

A jury awarded the Blusts more than $2.2 million in punitive damages. Appeals dragged the marathon case into 2009, when an appeals court ruling led to Lamar paying damages and attorney fees.

"In that case, our contractor made a mistake," Kilshaw said, "and simply went across a property line, and we ultimately paid on that."

For his part, Blust, 76, said he was "satisfied that I caused them pain. Did we make a lasting impression on the management of Lamar? If they’re still cutting down trees, I guess we didn’t."

What is unusual about these episodes is that someone got caught. More often, over the years, the culprits remained unknown or were not aggressively pursued by authorities.

For example, a 1985 report by the General Accounting Office cited dozens of incidents in Georgia of illegal tree cutters acting with impunity, including a case in which about 500 trees were poisoned near three signs along interstate highways.

In Louisiana, said the GAO, "over 2,000 feet of vegetation and trees were cut and cleared to enhance the visibility of two signs. We counted over 900 stumps from destroyed trees at this site."

In a 1996 deposition, a former billboard company tree trimmer testified that he had cut down and poisoned trees in the Los Angeles area for many years, usually without the owners’ consent. The former employee, Fred Jackson, worked until the late 1980s for two large billboard companies, Foster & Kleiser and Patrick Media, that eventually merged and were absorbed by Clear Channel Outdoor.

Jackson said he occasionally was confronted about what he was doing, and would make up a lie. It might be "‘I’m working for the Edison Company,’" Jackson testified. "That was a great one."

More recently, illegal tree clearing near billboards and "supergraphics’’ — giant ads draped on buildings — has been a problem in Southern California, said Dan Freeman, an official with the state Department of Transportation, or Caltrans.

"The billboard industry — well, my impression of them is they’re kind of lawless," said Freeman, Caltrans’ deputy director of maintenance for Los Angeles and Ventura counties. "They pretty much do whatever they want."

"We’ve been victim a number of times to people who come in the middle of the night, with a chainsaw, and just kind of clear cut the area immediately in front of one of these supergraphics or a large billboard," Freeman told FairWarning.

"And, of course, we call them," Freeman said, referring to the sign company, "and they say, ‘We have no idea who could have done it. My, what a terrible thing.’ They don’t own up to it. We have had a very, very difficult time in getting traction on prosecuting them."

The right to be seen
Billboard companies have sometimes claimed an inherent right to have unimpaired views of their signs. If revenues go down because of public trees, they have argued, public agencies should pay damages. This has been a hard sell.

For example, a Tennessee appeals court rejected an industry lawsuit against the state department of transportation over its failure to maintain unrestricted views of roadside signs.

"It is true that wild vegetation, as well as that planted by the State, has and will have a normal tendency to grow taller," said the 1979 ruling. "Plaintiffs seem to insist that the licensing of a billboard confers some special right of visibility or imposes some special duty upon the State to maintain visibility of the licensed billboard. No authority has been cited or found to sustain this novel theory."

In 2006, the California Supreme Court rejected claims of billboard operator Regency Outdoor, which had sued the city of Los Angeles, claiming it lowered the value of its signs by planting palm trees for a beautification project.

"The right to be seen from a public way…simply does not exist," the Supreme Court ruled. "Regency cannot claim unfair surprise from the plantings. Local governments have long planted trees along roads for aesthetic reasons, to lessen the burdens of climate, and for other salubrious purposes."

So the industry has turned to state legislatures to establish the right to be seen. Under laws or regulations of most states, billboard operators can legally cut back trees and other vegetation along state and federal highways. Typically, they must pay for a permit, file a work plan, and either replant or pay for lost trees.

The Outdoor Advertising Assn. of America failed to respond to interview requests, but in an email described vegetation control as "a common, longstanding practice along roadways for the sake of safety and visibility."

Once state rules are in place, billboard companies often lobby state legislatures to relax restrictions and expand the freedom to cut. In the past year, for example, the industry pushed through such changes in Georgia, North Carolina and Wisconsin.

In Georgia billboard companies won more freedom to clear trees, though the new law is tied up in a court challenge. The industry’s legislative success followed years of cultivating lawmakers. From 2001 through 2010, billboard owners and the Outdoor Advertising Association of Georgia contributed at least $467,522 to candidates for state office, according to a report by the advocacy group Scenic Georgia.

The Outdoor Advertising Association also did some wining and dining, last year hosting 34 Georgia legislators and two board members of the state Department of Transportation at a golf outing at the Reynolds Plantation resort, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

A Georgia Department of Transportation spokeswoman said that in the past five years, the agency has completed investigations into 20 complaints of illegal tree cutting, and collected about $203,000 in compensation.

In North Carolina, the industry-backed law passed last July expanded the cutting area to up to 380 feet on each side of billboards — up from 250 feet before. This translates into extra viewing time of 1.5 seconds for motorists approaching billboards at 60 mph. State transportation officials estimated that up to 200,000 trees could be removed in the next five years as a result.

From 2005 through June, 2011, billboard interests donated at least $206,000 to state legislative and gubernatorial candidates in North Carolina, according to a report by the nonprofit group Democracy North Carolina, and research by FairWarning.

"They’ve got a lot of money, and it’s amazing how cheaply legislators can be bought," said North Carolina resident Charles Floyd, a retired University of Georgia business professor who has written extensively about the billboard industry and is critical of the new law.

Even in states such as North Carolina that provide a legal means to enhance billboard views, incidents of illegal cutting and poisoning still occur. In some respects, loosening restrictions is the path of least resistance, reducing the number of violations and need for enforcement.

"If you legalize vandalism,’’ Floyd complained, "that helps out a lot.’’

Since July, 2006, the North Carolina Department of Transportation recorded 88 incidents of illegal tree removal near billboards, according to agency data reviewed by FairWarning.

The cost to the state was $923,000 under a formula based on the size of lost trees. Of that amount, records show, the state was able to collect only about $39,000. Without admitting liability, Lamar paid $18,487.50 to settle one of the cases.

Criminal probe in Florida
Soon after Barnhart filed his whistleblower suit, he led state agriculture officials to an oak tree he claimed he had poisoned next to a CVS pharmacy in Tallahassee. When the lab results came back in October, they revealed a herbicide, Triclopyr, in soil and vegetation samples.

He told officials it was one of seven to 10 trees he had illegally poisoned since 2009. Sometimes, he said, he used a machete before pouring in the poison, other times drilled holes in a tree, and on still other occasions he simply cut them.

Barnhart has been granted immunity by the state attorney in Tallahassee. Asked to comment on the criminal probe, State Attorney William Meggs said his office is continuing to gather information.

In a deposition taken in the whistleblower case, Chris Oaks, Barnhart’s supervisor, confirmed Barnhart’s account. Oaks admitted to poisoning trees himself under orders from his boss, LaBorde.

Oaks, 35, claimed he initially balked, saying he thought Lamar must first get permits.

"And he told me, he said to just jump over the fence and do what needs to be done and kick a little dirt over it," Oaks testified, referring to LaBorde, "and if you don’t know how to do that, I’ll take out my gun and I’ll shoot you in the head."

Oaks said he figured LaBorde was joking. But "I felt then that I needed to do what the man was telling me for fear — not for death, I didn’t really think he would kill me, but I did feel like it was threatening to my job," Oaks said.

"I just want to get it clear that none of this was me," Oaks said. "I did not want to do any of this."

Barnhart said fear of getting caught on a surveillance camera and, according to his lawyer, pressure from his wife led him to come forward. Barnhart said that after suffering a back injury and going on light duty, he told managers that he would no longer poison trees when he came back. In August, he says, he was fired.

Lamar contends it never fired Barnhart. The company’s response is less clear cut on the other alleged violations, such as criminal mischief and illegal handling of poisons.

"Any act or omission by Lamar was done in good faith," the company said in court papers. "To the extent that the actions of any Lamar employee were, in fact, in violation…, those actions directly violated Lamar’s corporate policies and procedures and were, thus, beyond the course and scope of their employment."

FairWarning is a nonprofit, online investigative news organization focused on public health and safety issues.

Support for this story came from the Fund for Investigative Journalism.

Air Force officials violated whistleblower laws when they retaliated against four civilian workers who reported the mishandling of war remains at the military mortuary at Dover Air Force Base, Del., independent federal  prosecutors said on Tuesday.

The Office of Special Counsel concluded that in 2009 and 2010, three Dover mortuary officials retaliated against the employees for reporting the misconduct and must be disciplined. The employees alleged that they faced job termination, indefinite administrative leave and five-day suspensions.

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 “We applaud the whistleblowers for their courage in coming forward,” Special Counsel Carolyn Lerner said in a news release. “We expect the Air Force will now take appropriate steps to discipline the wrongdoers and deter future acts of retaliation.”

In a written statement, Secretary of the Air Force Michael Donley said “there is no place for reprisal in the Air Force.”  He said he has appointed a two-star general to review the findings and take "appropriate action."

“Throughout this process, the Air Force remains committed to this mission as a solemn obligation,” Donley said in the statement. “We continue to care for America’s fallen with dignity, honor and respect and provide care and support for their families.”

In an earlier investigation report released last November, the Office of Special Counsel said it had found "gross mismanagement" at the Dover facility, where small body parts of U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan were lost on two occasions. The Air Force said at the time that it took disciplinary action — but did not fire — three senior supervisors there for their role in the mismanagement. The reprisal accusations were a separate matter and were investigated by the Special Counsel under the Whistleblower Protection Act.

According to The Associated Press the three disciplined in connection with the earlier Special Counsel included Air Force Col. Robert Edmondson, who commanded the Dover mortuary at the time of the incidents, and two civilian supervisors — Trevor Dean and Quinton Keel.

Edmondson was given a letter of reprimand, denied a job commanding a unit at Shaw Air Force Base, S.C., and barred from future command assignments, The Associated Press reported. Dean and Keel took a cut in pay and were moved to non-supervisory jobs at Dover. All three have declined to comment publicly on the matter.

Although the Special Counsel did not identify the three accused of retaliating against the whistleblowers, two officials told The Associated Press that they are Edmondson, Dean and Keel. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of privacy restrictions.

Report: Air Force dumped remains of 274 troops in landfill

The four whistleblowers had alleged that they suffered retaliation for their disclosures, including job termination, indefinite administrative leave and five-day suspensions.

James Parsons, one of the whistleblowers, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he had not seen the investigators' report but was told Monday that its conclusions support his and the others' claims of retaliation.

Parsons is an embalming/autopsy technician. Two of the other whistleblowers are Mary Ellen Spera, a mortuary inspector, and William Zwicharowski, a senior mortuary inspector. Those three told The Associated Press last November, after the scandal broke, that the Air Force had retaliated against them. Parsons said he was fired in 2010 but reinstated almost immediately. Spera and Zwicharowski said they received letters of reprimand.

Zwicharowski also said he was put on administrative leave for eight months and at one point was labeled "mentally unstable."

Spera and Zwicharowski both said in interviews Tuesday that they had not seen the Special Counsel report.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta expressed deep disappointment in the Dover revelations last fall, and he ordered Donley, the Air Force secretary, to report back to him on the adequacy of the disciplinary actions he had taken.

Panetta also appointed a retired Army general, John Abizaid, to lead an independent assessment of actions taken to improve mortuary operations at Dover. That review is due to be completed by the end of February.

Air Force officials have 30 days to review the OSC’s findings and recommendations, according to the Air Force Times. If they do not sufficiently respond, the OSC can can pursue disciplinary action through the Merit Systems Protection Board.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

 

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The Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act appeared to be headed for approval one year ago - until the release of hundreds of thousands of U.S. diplomatic cables to the WikiLeaks website, allegedly by Army Pvc. Bradley Manning, thrust it to the sidelines.

Opponents of the bill seized on the incident to strip an important provision from the legislation, which ultimately died when Congress closed for Christmas without taking it up, advocates say.

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“There suddenly became a concern in the Congress that was ill-informed, that the legislation would protect leaks of classified information … which wasn’t true,” said Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, a nonpartisan independent watchdog that seeks good government reforms. “… It was in large part a reason why the legislation stalled and it also caused a real backlash of overreaction by agencies to start clamping down on employees’ access to information.”

As Manning has his first court appearance on Friday – a pretrial hearing – proponents of the legislation to protect government workers who report illegal or unethical behavior by officials have regrouped.

They are pushing a measure -- the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2011 -- winding its way through Congress, but they are encountering some familiar hold-ups. “The Manning case is certainly feeding the resistance,” said Brian, noting it was not the only factor.

Manning, who turns 24 on Saturday, is accused of using unauthorized software on government computers to pull classified information, illegally download it and send the data for public release by what the Army called the "enemy." He has been held for 18 months in confinement and his pretrial hearing at Fort Meade, Md., on Friday will be his first public appearance. He is charged with 22 counts that could land him in prison for life.

The Bradley Manning Support Network argues that the soldier is not a traitor but fits the definition of a whistleblower, citing online discussions in which he allegedly said he hoped to generate “worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms” and wanted “people to see the truth… regardless of who they are… because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public.”

The law firm representing Manning did not respond to an email or phone call placed seeking comment on whether they would argue this he was a whistleblower as part of his defense.

Though the new legislation pending in Congress could make some "very modest improvements,” it is still only a Band-Aid, said Stephen Kohn, executive director and co-founder of the National Whistleblowers Center, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

“I think that the underlying hostility to protecting national security whistleblowers pre-existed Manning … and there’s no end in sight -- meaning Congress, which excluded national (security) whistleblowers from protection in 1978 and has taken no action to fix the problem since, will continue in this current status,” he said.

Kohn said those opposed to the earlier legislation used the Manning case as a “smokescreen.”

“These folks were against it to begin with, they’ve been against it for years,” he said.

The Manning incident was bound to occur, he said, “because if someone was of conscience and did have concerns, they really have no legitimate place to go. … Under the current regime, there’s really no way to disclose these national security violations effectively and protect yourself. It does not exist.”

During the 2010 debate, Kohn’s group sent a letter to Congress with concerns that a provision in the legislation would allow “managers and political appointees to fire career civil servants who disclose violations of law.” This in turn prompted more than 90 organizations to voice their backing of the bill, The Washington Post reported.

Around the same time, the Post reported that Darrell Issa, a Republican congressman from California who had supported the bill, switched sides and argued for a delay. An Issa spokesman noted then that "new areas of concern that have been raised by the WikiLeaks" releases had convinced the congressman that the legislation should be considered in 2011.

In the first week of November, Issa and other lawmakers introduced the latest version of the legislation to the House.

"There’s really genuine interest in all three parts (White House, Senate, House of Representatives) to get something passed this spring. So I’m very hopeful actually," Brian said.

History has little to show for Americans in similar situations as Manning. In one of the most well-known cases of U.S. whistleblowing, former Marine Daniel Ellsberg in 1971 released what came to be known as the "Pentagon Papers," a secret government study put together during his time as an analyst in the Nixon Administration. The study revealed that previous administrations had deceived Congress about stepping up the Vietnam conflict. A judge eventually threw out the government's espionage and conspiracy case.

"The WikiLeaks’ unauthorised disclosures of the last year are the first in 40 years to approach the scale of the Pentagon Papers (and even surpass them in quantity and timeliness)," Ellsberg wrote in an editorial published in The Guardian, in which he called for other potential whistleblowers to not "wait until a new war has started."

Kohn did note a case that ended with positive results for whistleblowers in 1777, when 10 sailors and soldiers jumped ship and blew the whistle on the U.S. Navy commander for torturing British prisoners. The Continental Congress supported the whistleblowers, passed the country’s first whistleblower law and released all the documents -- regardless of how embarrassing they were to the United States.

“That was the first and maybe only time back in U.S. history that our government backed national security whistleblowers,” he said, chuckling. “It’s been pretty much downhill since 1777.”

Kohn also said the response to the incident showed “the founding fathers’ view of every person’s obligation to disclose misconduct was rather consistent with our view, and in fact, we believe that that is the legislative intent behind the First Amendment.”

Brian said she did not believe legislation to protect the Bradley Mannings of the world for leaking publicly classified information would ever be passed, but she hoped that his case would highlight the issue facing those in his situation. She noted that her organization and its allies were working hard to create "meaningful channels for a Bradley Manning.”

“I really believe that the lack of safe channels for disclosure is part of why people like Bradley Manning need to go straight to the public or to the media,” she said. “I’m hoping that what people learn from this is this is why we need to have a better way of handling this information,  because the government does sometimes hide their misconduct behind classification and we need to have a robust way of dealing with that.”

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