Official who oversees whistleblower complaints files one of his own

The Obama administration’s top official overseeing how intelligence agencies handle whistleblower retaliation claims has lodged his own complaint, alleging he was punished for disclosing “public corruption.”

Daniel Meyer, who previously oversaw the Defense Department’s decisions on whistleblowing cases, also says he was targeted for being gay, according to records obtained by McClatchy.

Meyer made the allegations in a complaint before the Merit Systems Protection Board, an administrative panel that handles employment grievances from federal employees, after another agency rejected his claims.

Meyer’s claims add to a barrage of allegations that the federal government’s handling of defense and intelligence whistleblower cases is flawed.

In the complaint, Meyer, who once worked for the Pentagon’s inspector general’s office, accused his former Defense Department bosses of “manipulation of a final report to curry favor” with then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.

The inspector general’s report concluded that Panetta had leaked classified information to the makers of the film “Zero Dark Thirty,” Meyer said. That conclusion was later removed after then-acting Inspector General Lynne Halbrooks met privately with Panetta, he said. Meyer does not accuse Panetta or Halbrooks of making the change.

Halbrooks, who is now practicing law at a private firm, said she’s certain Meyer’s complaint will be rejected. “During my time in the Office of Inspector General, I strongly supported the rights of whistleblowers throughout the Department of Defense,” she said in an email. “I am confident that any government agency’s review of Mr. Meyer’s allegations will find them to be without any merit.”...

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/national-security/article91949562.html

Crash and burn: Lockheed loses Air Force records in database fiasco

More than 100,000 US Air Force internal investigation records dating back to 2004, many of which were related to fraud and abuse, were potentially lost due to a database crash.

The database, known as the Automated Case Tracking System, crashed last month. ACTS hosts files for the Air Force’s inspector general and legislative liaison divisions, and it is the singular repository of records concerning investigations on everything from fraud to workplace disputes and Freedom of Information Act requests.

“The database crashed and there is no data,” Ann Stefanek, an Air Force spokeswoman at the Pentagon told The Hill. “At this time we don't have any evidence of malicious intent.”

Lockheed Martin, the contractor tasked with operating the database, spent two weeks trying to recover the information before notifying the Air Force, according to Defense One.

The Air Force is now seeking help from cybersecurity experts from the Pentagon and third party contractors to recover the records, which relate to 100,000 different cases dating back to 2004.

“We’ve kind of exhausted everything we can to recover within [the Air Force] and now we’re going to outside experts to see if they can help,” said Stefanek, according to Defense One.

The Air Force has launched an investigation to determine the cause of the crash, and is trying to assess how much damage is done and how much data may have been backed up at other bases...

https://www.rt.com/usa/346681-lockheed-loses-airforce-database/

CIA Releases New and Gruesome Details on Its Torture Program

The CIA released 50 new documents yesterday relating to its post-9/11 torture and rendition program. Despite the many disclosures that have come in the course of our decade-long fight to reveal the details of the program, the new revelations still have the capacity to shock.

The documents, released in response to an ACLU Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, vividly depict the brutality of torture, and further expose the fiction that this abuse is a scientific method for extracting information from victims. The documents also reveal how hard the CIA worked to bury the evidence of its crimes — including by seeking to silence its victims.

A few of the many new findings include:

CIA pressure to “break” detainees was deadly. A newly released CIA inspector general report about the death of detainee Gul Rahman concluded that he was singled out for especially harsh torture because of “pressure” to “break him.” We learned that he was kept nude or in a diaper for most of his detention, “solely for humiliation.” When they ran out of diapers, the guards would use “a handcrafted diaper secured by duct tape.” CIA torturers kept Rahman naked in “cold conditions with minimal food or sleep” and kept questioning him even when he “appeared incoherent.” When they decided he wasn’t sufficiently “broken,” CIA personnel brutalized, starved, and froze him to death — and then lied about it.

We also learned just why the CIA and Bruce Jessen, one of the psychologists who designed the program, considered Rahman “resistant,” leading to torture so extreme that it resulted in his death. Based on pseudoscientific theories of torture and “resistance,” they assessed Rahman to have a “sophisticated level of resistance training,” because — among other reasons — he “complained about poor treatment” and said he couldn’t “think due to conditions (cold).” No one has yet been held accountable for Mr. Rahman’s death, but the ACLU represents Mr. Rahman’s family in suing Jensen and James Mitchell, the other psychologist who collaborated with the CIA in designing and overseeing the torture program...

https://www.aclu.org/blog/speak-freely/cia-releases-new-and-gruesome-details-its-torture-program

Pentagon source: Edward Snowden had little choice on NSA files