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For Immediate Release
January, 29 2009, 12:07pm EDT
Contact:
Contact: Tom Devine,
GAP Legal Director
Phone: 240.888.4080
Email: tomd@whistleblower.org
Contact: Charity Wilson, American Federation of Government
Employees
Phone: 202.639.6440
Contact: Sarah Dufendach, Common Cause
Phone: 202.736.5709
Contact: Dave Colapinto, National Whistleblower Center
Phone: 202.342.6980
Contact: Donna Lenhoff, National Employment Lawyers
Association
Phone: 202.898.2880
Contact: Marthena Cowart, Project on Government Oversight
Phone: 202.347.3958
Contact: Angela Canterbury, Public Citizen
Phone: 202.454.5188
Contact: Celia Wexler, Union of Concerned Scientists
Phone: 202.390.5481
Contact: Dane vonBreichenruchard, U.S. Bill of Rights Foundation
Phone: 202.546.7079
House Passage of Taxpayer Accountability Amendment Safeguards Stimulus Dollars
A Joint Statement by GAP, American Federation of Government Employees, Common Cause, National Whistleblower Center, National Employment Lawyers Association, Project On Government Oversight, Public Citizen, Union of Concerned Scientists, and U.S. Bill of Rights Foundation
WASHINGTON
Our nine organizations today are offering our public support and
appreciation for the House's unanimous acceptance of a taxpayer
accountability amendment yesterday.
The bipartisan amendment,
sponsored by Reps. Todd Platts (R-PA) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD)
ensures that federal workers who expose waste, fraud and abuse in
government will be protected from retaliation. Current whistleblower
laws on the books fail to protect federal whistleblowers from being
fired, demoted or harassed. Since 1994, federal workers who were
retaliated against have won less than one percent of their cases.
Click here to read the amendment: https://www.whistleblower.org/doc/2008/Amend128.pdf
The
House amendment incorporates the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement
Act of 2007, a bipartisan bill sponsored by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA)
and then-Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA), in addition to Representatives Platts
and Van Hollen in the last Congress. The House overwhelmingly approved
the bill by a bipartisan vote of 331 to 94 in March 2007.
The
Platts/VanHollen amendment had the strong backing of House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) who went to the House floor to speak for its
passage. The Speaker wisely understood that the amendment guarantees
that the stimulus package will disburse federal dollars in the most
effective and transparent way.
Our groups agree with the Speaker
that "It is inconceivable that the people's business had been conducted
so long without whistleblower protections to encourage every public
employee to do the right thing...whistleblowers save extraordinary sums
of money, protect the integrity of research done in federal labs, and
restore public confidence in the work of our nation."
Our
groups also appreciate the support of House Oversight and Government
Reform Chairman Edolphus Towns (D-NY), Homeland Security Chairman
Bennie Thompson (D-MS), Rep. Bruce Braley (D-IA), and Rep. Chellie
Pingree (D-ME), all who issued statements in favor of the amendment.
We
urge the Senate to ensure that its stimulus package, and the final
stimulus law sent to the president, contains these strong whistleblower
protections. Protecting federal whistleblowers is the best way to
protect taxpayers and American families.
The Government Accountability Project (GAP) is a 30-year-old nonprofit public interest group that promotes government and corporate accountability by advancing occupational free speech, defending whistleblowers, and empowering citizen activists. We pursue this mission through our Nuclear Safety, International Reform, Corporate Accountability, Food & Drug Safety, and Federal Employee/National Security programs. GAP is the nation's leading whistleblower protection organization.
LATEST NEWS
Israel's Takeovers of Gaza Hospitals Amount to 'War Crimes,' Says Human Rights Watch
"The Israeli military's denial of water and electricity left sick and wounded people to die, while soldiers mistreated and forcibly displaced patients and health workers, and damaged and destroyed hospitals."
Mar 20, 2025
As the Israel Defense Forces continued a devastating assault on the Gaza Strip Thursday, a U.S.-based rights group said that the IDF "caused deaths and unnecessary suffering of Palestinian patients while occupying hospitals" there over the past 18 months, "amounting to war crimes."
"International humanitarian law provides that hospitals and their staff may not be deliberately attacked," states the new Human Rights Watch (HRW) report. "Parties to the conflict must at all times respect and protect hospitals and take all feasible precautions to minimize harm to patients, staff, and facilities during the hostilities."
Like previous publications exposing the IDF's systematic destruction of the Gaza health system, the HRW report lays out how Israeli forces who occupied hospitals neglected their legal obligations and instead "severely interfered with the treatment" of injured and sick Palestinians, including by denying doctors' pleas to bring in supplies and blocking access to facilities and ambulances, "leading to the deaths of wounded and chronically ill patients."
HRW interviewed patients and healthcare workers present for Israeli takeovers of al-Shifa medical complex in Gaza City, Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, and the Nasser facility in Khan Younis. According to witnesses, the IDF "denied electricity, water, food, and medicines to patients; shot civilians; mistreated health workers; and deliberately destroyed medical facilities and equipment. Unlawful forced evacuations put patients at grave risk and left desperately needed hospitals nonfunctional."
In the section on Israeli activities at al-Shifa in November 2023, HRW reported that "Ridana Zukhra, 25, said she left al-Shifa with her children, brother, and cousin when Israeli forces ordered people to evacuate. Despite holding white flags, a tank fired at the group, badly wounding her daughter, Ghazal, 5, whose leg had to be amputated."
The report also shares accounts from the hospital five months later:
Dr. Badr B., 28, who asked not to use his real name for his protection, said that electricity at the hospital was cut off at about 2:00 am on March 18. Israeli forces broadcast a message that no one could leave, he said, and they shot and wounded four healthcare workers near the entrance. A doctor told the BBC that two patients on life support died because of the electricity cut.
Israeli forces seized the complex with "military vehicles, snipers, quadcopters [drones], soldiers, everything," Dr. B. said. Israeli forces ordered the 72 healthcare workers left at the hospital to transfer about 180 patients from the third and fourth floors of the ICU in the specialized surgeries building to the ground floor and warned they would "start shooting at these floors" within two hours. Dr. B. said that they began "shooting as we were evacuating the last group, three [patients] on crutches and the rest in wheelchairs." Staff then transferred patients to the hospital's reception building.
HRW also detailed Israel's December 2023 assault on Kamal Adwan and the February 2024 raid at Nasser, "when 850 patients and up to 10,000 displaced people were sheltering there."
According to the publication:
Duaa D., who asked that her real name not be used for her protection, said her son Mohammed, 20, was a kidney patient in Nasser hospital at the time, where there was no fresh food, clean water, or medicine for Mohammed's hypertension. Her two younger children, sheltering in a tent in the hospital courtyard, went sleepless with fear. Mohammed said he could barely walk and had lost almost half his body weight due to vomiting and diarrhea, that the water was contaminated, and that he could not digest the canned food due to his chronic illnesses.
On February 13, Duaa saw Jamal Abu al-Ola, 25, who had been sheltering in the hospital, in a white hazmat suit with his hands bound. NBC and other media reported that Israeli forces had detained and beaten him and ordered him to warn the hospital to evacuate, threatening to kill him and others if he did not return. Duaa said al-Ola shared the warning and left the hospital, but soon after was carried back in and "shot, with a fountain of blood pouring." Witnesses told news media that Israeli forces shot and killed him near the hospital entrance.
Duaa told HRW that she saw a large number of bodies on the ground and recalled an "unbearable" smell. "We saw cats and dogs eating bodies," she said. "Once a dog brought a human hand and gave it to its puppies."
Bill Van Esveld, associate children's rights director at HRW, demanded accountability for Israeli troops' well-documented war crimes.
"Israeli forces repeatedly demonstrated deadly cruelty against Palestinian patients in hospitals that they seized," Van Esveld said. "The Israeli military's denial of water and electricity left sick and wounded people to die, while soldiers mistreated and forcibly displaced patients and health workers, and damaged and destroyed hospitals."
"The Israeli military's occupation of Gaza's hospitals has transformed sites for healing and recovery into centers of death and mistreatment," he added. "Those responsible for these horrific abuses, including senior officials, should be held to account."
The report was published just days after Israel fully abandoned a cease-fire that took effect in January. Gaza Ministry of Health spokesperson Khalil Al-Dakran toldAnadolu Agency on Thursday that "the bodies of 710 people were transferred to hospitals since Tuesday, in addition to over 900 others injured."
Al-Dakran said that 70% of the injured were women and children, and "many of the injured died due to the lack of urgent medical care amid an Israeli blockade on Gaza, which causes a severe shortage of essential equipment and medicine."
Since the Hamas-led October 2023 attack on Israel, the IDF has slaughtered at least tens of thousands of Palestinians—leading to an ongoing genocide case at the International Court of Justice. The International Criminal Court has also issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant.
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Teachers Say 'See You In Court' as Trump Tries to Abolish Department of Education
"We won't be silent as anti-public education politicians try to steal opportunities from our students, our families, and our communities to pay for tax cuts for billionaires," said the head of the nation's largest labor union.
Mar 20, 2025
As U.S. President Donald Trump prepares to sign an executive order Thursday directing officials to shut down the Department of Education, Democratic politicians, teachers and communities across the nation are vowing legal and other challenges to the move.
Trump is set to check off a longtime Republican wish list item by signing a directive ordering Education Secretary Linda McMahon to "take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return education authority to the states."
Shutting down the department—which was created in 1979 to ensure equitable access to public education and employs more than 4,000 people—will require an act of Congress, both houses of which are controlled by Republicans.
"Trump and his Cabinet of billionaires are trying to destroy the Department of Education so they can privatize more schools."
Thursday's expected order follows the department's announcement earlier this month that it would fire half of its workforce. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and more than three dozen Democratic senators condemned the move and Trump's impending Department of Education shutdown as "a national disgrace."
Abolishing the Department of Education is one of the top goals of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation-led roadmap for a far-right takeover and gutting of the federal government closely linked to Trump, despite his unconvincing efforts to distance himself from the highly controversial plan.
U.S. Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) called Trump's bid to abolish the Department of Education "more bullshit" and vowed to fight the president's "illegal behavior until the cows come home."
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said on social media: "Trump and his Cabinet of billionaires are trying to destroy the Department of Education so they can privatize more schools. The result: making it even harder to ensure that ALL students have access to a quality education. Another outrageous, illegal scam. We will fight this."
New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin, a Democrat,
warned that "ending the U.S. Department of Education will decimate our education system and devastate families across the country."
"Support for students with special needs and those in rural and urban schools will be gone," he added. "We will stop at nothing to protect N.J. and fight this reckless action."
Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association (NEA)—the nation's largest labor union—said in a statement Thursday that "Donald Trump and Elon Musk have aimed their wrecking ball at public schools and the futures of the 50 million students in rural, suburban, and urban communities across America, by dismantling public education to pay for tax handouts for billionaires."
Musk—the de facto head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—is the world's richest person. Trump and McMahon are also billionaires.
"If successful, Trump's continued actions will hurt all students by sending class sizes soaring, cutting job training programs, making higher education more expensive and out of reach for middle-class families, taking away special education services for students with disabilities, and gutting student civil rights protections," Pringle warned.
"This morning, in hundreds of communities across the nation, thousands of families, educators, students, and community leaders joined together outside of neighborhood public schools to rally against taking away resources and support for our students," she continued. "And, we are just getting started. Every day we are growing our movement to protect our students and public schools."
"We won't be silent as anti-public education politicians try to steal opportunities from our students, our families, and our communities to pay for tax cuts for billionaires," Pringle added. "Together with parents and allies, we will continue to organize, advocate, and mobilize so that all students have well-resourced schools that allow every student to grow into their full brilliance."
National Parents Union president Keri Rodrigues said that closing the Department of Education would disproportionately affect the most vulnerable students and communities.
"Let's be clear: Before federal oversight, millions of children—particularly those with disabilities and those from our most vulnerable communities—were denied the opportunities they deserved," Rodrigues said in a statement. "The Department of Education was created to ensure that every child, regardless of background or ZIP code, has access to a public education that prepares them for their future. Eliminating it would roll back decades of progress, leaving countless children behind in an education system that has historically failed the most marginalized."
President Trump is trying to bypass Congress by dismantling established programs they already approved to protect students' education and civil liberties. Take action now to save the Department of Education.
[image or embed]
— ACLU ( @aclu.org) March 19, 2025 at 10:33 AM
The ACLU is circulating a petition calling on Congress to "save the Department of Education."
"The Department of Education has an enormous effect on the day-to-day lives of students across the country," the petition states. "They are tasked with protecting civil rights on campus and ensuring that every student—regardless of where they live; their family's income; or their race, sex, gender identity, or disability—has equal access to education."
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers,
responded to Trump's looming order in four words: "See you in court."
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Georgetown Academic 'Abducted by Masked DHS Agents' at Risk of Deportation
One of Badar Khan Suri's lawyers called the case "emblematic of a broader strategy by the Trump administration to suppress voices—citizens and noncitizens alike—who dare to speak out."
Mar 20, 2025
The Trump administration was accused of "abducting" a postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University, following reporting thatBadar Khan Suri, who was studying and teaching at the school on a student visa, was arrested by masked immigration authorities on Monday night.
Following his arrest, a spokesperson with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had determined that Suri's "activities and presence" in the United States "had rendered him deportable."
Agents who identified themselves as being with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) arrested Suri, an Indian national, outside his home in Virginia, per Politico, which was first to report on Suri's arrest. The immigration officials told Suri that his student visa had been revoked, the outlet reported, citing court papers.
The news comes days after immigration agents arrested green-card holder Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate student at Columbia University until this past December who was involved in pro-Palestine demonstrations on the school's campus last year. U.S. President Donald Trump said that Khalil's arrest would be the "first of many."
"Another student who's legally in the U.S. was arrested for deportation, without a crime—allegedly for opposing U.S. foreign policy," said Nancy Okail, the head of the Center for International Policy. "If this absurdity continues, it won't be limited to specific groups. Any form of opposition will be punished and criminalized."
Nermeen Arastu, a member of Suri's legal team and an associate professor of law at the City University of New York similarly told the outlet Drop Site, "Mr. Suri's case is emblematic of a broader strategy by the Trump administration to suppress voices—citizens and noncitizens alike—who dare to speak out against governmental policies."
Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for public affairs at DHS, wrote on X on Wednesday evening that Suri was "rendered deportable" under section of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
That is the same provision of immigration law that the Trump administration has invoked in its effort to Mahmoud Khalil.
"Suri was a foreign exchange student at Georgetown University actively spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media," McLaughlin also said. In the post, she did not add anything to bolster this claim. McLaughlin also wrote that Suri has connections to a "known or suspected terrorist, who is a senior adviser to Hamas."
Suri has not been charged with a crime, per his lawyer's petition for a writ of "habeas corpus," or an order demanding that he be brought to court to determine if he is lawfully detained,according Politico.
Suri's petition, filed on Tuesday in federal court by his lawyer Hassan Ahmed, argues that his arrest violates his First and Fifth Amendment rights, according to Drop Site, and also "challenges the legality of his detention under U.S. immigration law."
Politico reported that "Suri is being punished because of the Palestinian heritage of his wife—who is a U.S. citizen—and because the government suspects that he and his wife oppose U.S. foreign policy toward Israel," citing the petition.
Drop Site reported that Suri is currently being held at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Louisiana, though it is reportedly not the same facility as where Mahmoud Khalil is currently located.
Suri's wife, Mapheze Saleh, is a Georgetown graduate student in the Walsh School of Foreign Service's Center for Contemporary Arab Studies.
Her father, Ahmed Yousef, is a former adviser to the Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, who was assassinated last year by Israeli security forces, according to The New York Times. Yousef told the Times that he departed his position as part of the Hamas-led government in Gaza over 10 years ago, and that his son-in-law is not involved in any "political activism." Yousef has also criticized Hamas' attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, per the Times.
Drop Site reported that Suri's arrest came after pro-Israel groups targeted Saleh with an "exceptionally public media campaign." The petition notes that Saleh and Suri have been targeted online due to their support for Palestinian rights, per Politico.
In February, the group CAMERA on Campus—which according to its X account helps students share "accurate education" and "correct misinformation" about Israel on campus—called Saleh a "Hamas affiliate" and alleged she "glorifie[d]" Hamas on social media. Also in February, the outlet Jewish News Syndicate published an opinion piece alleging that Suri "repeatedly endorsed Hamas terror and actively spreads its propaganda."
On Wednesday night, a Georgetown University spokesperson issued the following statement: "Dr. Khan Suri is an Indian national who was duly granted a visa to enter the United States to continue his doctoral research on peacebuilding in Iraq and Afghanistan. We are not aware of him engaging in any illegal activity, and we have not received a reason for his detention."
"We support our community members' rights to free and open inquiry, deliberation and debate, even if the underlying ideas may be difficult, controversial or objectionable. We expect the legal system to adjudicate this case fairly," the spokesperson wrote.
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