December 2009 Letter to DOT-DHS-DOJ Inspector Generals
"A Greater Openness of Government..."
WHISTLEBLOWING
AIRLINE EMPLOYEES ASSOCIATION
“Patriotism and Freedom of Speech in
Action”
December 12, 2009
4204 Lakeside Way
Newnan, Georgia 30265
The Honorable Calvin L.
Scovel
Inspector General
Department of Transportation
P.O. Box 708
Fredericksburg, Virginia
22404
The Honorable Richard L.
Skinner
Inspector General
Department of Homeland
Security
Washington, DC 20528
The Honorable Glenn A. Fine
Inspector General
Department of Justice
Investigations Division –
Room 4706
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530
SUBJ: WHISTLEBLOWING AIRLINE EMPLOYEES ASSOCIATION
Dear Mr. Scovel, and Mr.
Skinner, and Mr. Fine,
On April 12, 2006, I sent
the attached letter via certified mail to then Attorney General Alberto
Gonzales, Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, and Secretary of
Transportation Norman Mineta. Please
refer to the attached letter responses from officials of the Departments of
Justice and Homeland Security. You will note in these letters that both DOJ and
DHS deferred me to the Federal Aviation Administration for appropriate legal
disposition of serious aviation safety and security matters.
Below is an excerpt from a
May 12, 2006 letter response from DHS Charlotte Bryan, Acting Assistant
administrator – Transportation Sector Network Management:
Below is an excerpt from the
July 3, 2006 letter response from DOJ Gerald Toner, Assistant Chief for Labor –
Management, Racketeering, Organized Crime Section:
The Department of Transportation
never responded to my April 2006 letter to Secretary Mineta.
During this same 2006 time frame, I
transmitted an FAA Whistleblower Report to the FAA, but it was subsequently ‘lost’
per correspondence that I received from that office earlier this year:
----- Original Message -----
From: US Department of
Transportation
To: Dan Hanley
Sent: Thursday, February 12,
2009 1:23 PM
Subject: RE: FAA Whistle Blower
Report Submission
Thank you for
contacting the OIG Complaint Center Operations regarding your concerns. Based
on our review of the material provided and a search of our record keeping
system, we were unable
to substantiated receipt of your April 9, 2006, Whistle Blower Report. Therefore, we
recommend that you contact the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Safety
Hotline via telephone at 1-800-255-1111, option #2 and request a copy of your
whistleblower complaint number "WB0658." Thank you for bringing this
information to our attention. We anticipate no further action from our office regarding this
matter.
In addition to sending Mr. Scovel the attached letter via
certified mail on January 25, 2009, I concurrently filed a second FAA
Whistleblower Report, which is currently under investigation by the Department
of Transportation Inspector General’s office. Six months ago, I was advised by Mr. Scott
Harding of this office that response would be forthcoming within 30 days, but
sometimes take as long as 180 days to investigate. It has now been over 180 days since filing
that report, and over 43 months since my original report filing, and I am still
awaiting a response.
The issues addressed in my original and subsequent FAA
Whistleblower Reports concerned grave commercial aviation
safety and security issues.
Additionally, allegations of methods of suppression of honest pilots who
speak out in the name of passenger safety, but are ushered off the property at
their airline through employment of ‘hostile workplace environment forced
medical and psychiatric evaluations’ were addressed, as this sometimes results
in the pilot loss of his medical certification, which is a federal requirement
to fly commercial jet aircraft.
I currently serve as the ‘Transportation
Medical Whistleblower’ for the grassroots group Medical Whistleblower.
Executive Director Dr. Janet Parker recently wrote to members advising that a
letter had been sent to Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy concerning
issues relating to reporting “Medical Fraud, Abuse and Neglect of Patients and
Human Rights Violations”. She went on to
suggest that certain members of the group might be called upon in the future to
testify before congressional committees to focus on “ways in which the
Department of Justice can further justice and help in an effort to protect
Mandated Reporters and those who report medical fraud”.
Recently, it has been reported to our association that several
years ago, unnamed former United Airlines Chief Pilots presented to senior
level flight operations managers a file containing evidence of alleged abusive
employment of company-forced
medical and/or psychiatric evaluations of aircrew members by
company-appointed medical or mental health professionals, but United Airlines
management refused to review the materials contained therein.
More specifically, our association has been working closely with
fired former Federal Air Marshal whistleblowers Robert
Maclean and Spencer
Pickard, since their termination was the result of their public exposure of
frailties in aviation security systems, which parallel my 2003 allegations
reported in my filed federal Flight Safety Awareness Reports that were ignored
by the FAA Principle Operation Inspector at United Airlines at the time. Former Federal Air Marshal Supervisor Craig
Sawyer also suffered collateral career damage for defending his subordinates
and subsequently relinquished his accumulated 17 years of federal retirement
time through his resignation from TSA.
In light of the many months since the filing of my first FAA
Whistleblower Report in April 2006, coupled with the delay in response from the
Department of Transportation Inspector General’s office, and the recent online
exposure of a highly-sensitive document concerning TSA security screening
procedures, our association membership has become increasingly alarmed
regarding the safety and security of passengers, aircrew, and federal air
marshals onboard commercial jet aircraft.
Because your good offices maintain oversight of corresponding
departmental actions, and since the mission of the Whistleblowing Airline
Employees Association is in support of the published mission statements of the
Departments of Transportation and Homeland Security, we respectfully ask that
you address the above named concerns in a timely and expeditious manner.
Without appropriate governmental oversight of departments
responsible for ensuring passenger and aircrew safety, but even more
importantly, insurance of enforcement of
current whistleblower laws, which sometimes results in retaliatory action
against whistleblowers, our national air safety and security is compromised. Punitive actions against these honest public
servants send chilling
signals to other would-be whistleblowers within the airline industry, the
Federal Aviation Administration, and the Federal Air Marshal program.
With a 2% probability of success for today’s federal
whistleblowers under existing laws, the stronger language of HR 1507 must be
included in the final passage of the ‘Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act
of 2009’.
Very respectfully,
Dan Hanley
Public Spokesperson – Whistleblowing Airline Employees Association
Encl: Letter dated April
12, 2006 to AG Gonzales, DHS Chertoff, and DOT Mineta
Letter dated May
12, 2006 from DHS Charlotte Brown
Letter dated July
3, 2006 from DOJ Gerald Toner
Letter dated
January 25, 2009 to DOT IG Scovel
Cc: Tom Devine – Legal
Director, Government Accountability Project
SUBJ: WHISTLEBLOWING AIRLINE EMPLOYEES
ASSOCIATION
Dear
Mr. Scovel, and Mr. Skinner, and Mr. Fine,
On
April 12, 2006, I sent the attached letter via certified mail to then Attorney
General Alberto Gonzales, Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, and
Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta.
Please refer to the attached letter responses from officials of the
Departments of Justice and Homeland Security. You will note in these letters
that both DOJ and DHS deferred me to the Federal Aviation Administration for
appropriate legal disposition of serious aviation safety and security
matters.
Below
is an excerpt from a May 12, 2006 letter response from DHS Charlotte Bryan,
Acting Assistant administrator – Transportation Sector Network
Management:
Below
is an excerpt from the July 3, 2006 letter response from DOJ Gerald Toner,
Assistant Chief for Labor – Management, Racketeering, Organized Crime
Section:
The
Department of Transportation never responded to my April 2006 letter to
Secretary Mineta.
During this same 2006 time frame, I
transmitted an FAA Whistleblower Report to the FAA, but it was subsequently
‘lost’ per correspondence that I received from that office earlier this
year:
----- Original Message -----
From: US Department of Transportation
To: Dan Hanley
Sent: Thursday, February 12, 2009 1:23 PM
Subject: RE: FAA Whistle Blower Report Submission
Thank you for
contacting the OIG Complaint Center Operations regarding your concerns. Based on
our review of the material provided and a search of our record keeping system,
we were unable to
substantiated receipt of your April 9, 2006, Whistle Blower Report. Therefore, we
recommend that you contact the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Safety
Hotline via telephone at 1-800-255-1111, option #2 and request a copy of your
whistleblower complaint number "WB0658." Thank you for bringing this information
to our attention. We
anticipate no further action from our office regarding this
matter.
In
addition to sending Mr. Scovel the attached letter via certified mail on January
25, 2009, I concurrently filed a second FAA Whistleblower Report, which is
currently under investigation by the Department of Transportation Inspector
General’s office. Six months ago, I was
advised by Mr. Scott Harding of this office that response would be forthcoming
within 30 days, but sometimes take as long as 180 days to investigate. It has now been over 180 days since filing
that report, and over 43 months since my original report filing, and I am still
awaiting a response.
The
issues addressed in my original and subsequent FAA Whistleblower Reports
concerned grave commercial aviation safety and security issues. Additionally, allegations of methods of
suppression of honest pilots who speak out in the name of passenger safety, but
are ushered off the property at their airline through employment of ‘hostile
workplace environment forced medical and psychiatric evaluations’ were
addressed, as this sometimes results in the pilot loss of his medical
certification, which is a federal requirement to fly commercial jet
aircraft.
I currently serve as the ‘Transportation
Medical Whistleblower’ for the grassroots group Medical
Whistleblower. Executive Director Dr. Janet Parker recently wrote to
members advising that a letter had been sent to Senate Judiciary Chairman
Patrick Leahy concerning issues relating to reporting “Medical Fraud, Abuse and
Neglect of Patients and Human Rights Violations”. She went on to suggest that certain members
of the group might be called upon in the future to testify before congressional
committees to focus on “ways in which the Department of Justice can further
justice and help in an effort to protect Mandated Reporters and those who report
medical fraud”.
Recently,
it has been reported to our association that several years ago, unnamed former
United Airlines Chief Pilots presented to senior level flight operations
managers a file containing evidence of alleged abusive employment of company-forced medical and/or psychiatric evaluations of aircrew
members by company-appointed medical or mental health professionals,
but United Airlines management refused to review the materials contained
therein.
More
specifically, our association has been working closely with fired former Federal
Air Marshal whistleblowers Robert Maclean and Spencer Pickard, since their termination was the result
of their public exposure of frailties in aviation security systems, which
parallel my 2003 allegations reported in my filed federal Flight Safety
Awareness Reports that were ignored by the FAA Principle Operation Inspector at
United Airlines at the time. Former
Federal Air Marshal Supervisor Craig Sawyer also suffered collateral career
damage for defending his subordinates and subsequently relinquished his
accumulated 17 years of federal retirement time through his resignation from
TSA.
In
light of the many months since the filing of my first FAA Whistleblower Report
in April 2006, coupled with the delay in response from the Department of
Transportation Inspector General’s office, and the recent online exposure of a
highly-sensitive document concerning TSA security screening procedures, our
association membership has become increasingly alarmed regarding the safety and
security of passengers, aircrew, and federal air marshals onboard commercial jet
aircraft.
Because
your good offices maintain oversight of corresponding departmental actions, and
since the mission of the Whistleblowing Airline Employees Association is in
support of the published mission statements of the Departments of Transportation
and Homeland Security, we respectfully ask that you address the above named
concerns in a timely and expeditious manner.
Without
appropriate governmental oversight of departments responsible for ensuring
passenger and aircrew safety, but even more importantly, insurance of enforcement of current
whistleblower laws, which sometimes results in retaliatory action against
whistleblowers, our national air safety and security is compromised. Punitive actions against these honest public
servants send chilling signals to other would-be whistleblowers
within the airline industry, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the
Federal Air Marshal program.
With
a 2% probability of success for today’s federal whistleblowers under existing
laws, the stronger language of HR 1507 must be included in the final passage of
the ‘Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2009’.
Very
respectfully,
Dan
Hanley
Public
Spokesperson – Whistleblowing Airline Employees
Association
Encl: Letter dated April 12, 2006 to AG Gonzales,
DHS Chertoff, and DOT Mineta
Letter dated May 12, 2006 from DHS
Charlotte Brown
Letter dated July 3, 2006 from DOJ
Gerald Toner
Letter dated January 25, 2009 to DOT
IG Scovel
Cc: Tom Devine – Legal Director, Government
Accountability Project
