Whistle

In the latest vindication of the federal "whistle-blower" law, a settlement of civil claims against a contractor who defrauded the government brought $56 million back to the public treasury. Christopher Urda, a Binghamton, N.Y., auditor who alerted the government it was being fleeced, received $7.5 million because the False Claims Act provides a bounty of up to 25 percent of money the government wins back.That didn't sit well with Stuart M. Gerson, head of the Justice Department's civil division: "While I fully support the dual purposes of the [act's]

The Justice Department's secret review of Associated Press telephone records gives advocates for federal employees one more reason to doubt the Obama administration's full commitment to protecting whistleblowers, particularly those in national security agencies. Revelations about the department's broad prying into the work, home and mobile phone records of AP journalists in Washington, New York and Hartford, Conn., sent a chill through news organizations. Perhaps that was the point.

Editor's note: A little boy wishes that he could whistle, and finally figures it out.Oh, how Peter wished he could whistle!He saw a boy playing with his dog. Whenever the boy whistled, the dog ran straight to him.Peter tried and tried to whistle, but he couldn't. So instead he began to turn himself around - around and around he whirled ...faster and faster ...When he stopped everything turneddown ...and up ...and up ...and down ...and aroundand around.Peter saw his dog, Willie, coming. Quick as a wink, he hid in an empty carton lying on the sidewalk.

Though he did not participate in torture, ex-CIA agent John Kiriakou was the first person to publicly acknowledge the Bush administration's inhumane abuse of detainees ("The truth about torture," April 23). Mr. Kiriakou's disclosures informed the public and encouraged debate that helped pull this country back from a very dark place. But in doing so he drew the ire of the government, which began to harass and intimidate him and his family under both the Bush and Obama administrations, looking for ways to prosecute him. Finally, when Mr. Kiriakou privately shared a colleague's name to a journalist for use as a source, the government seized the opportunity and threw the book at him. Mr. Kiriakou is now serving 30 months in prison.

Federal investigators are checking an allegation that officials at Fort Meade illegally punished a whistle-blower who spoke out about alleged corruption on the base.Charles M. Johnson, a supply systems analyst in the Fort Meade Directorate of Logistics, said Wednesday that the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) is looking into his case."OSC is aware of allegations of reprisal at Fort Meade," said Paul Ellis, a spokesman for the independent federal agency that investigates reprisals against government whistle-blowers.

George Tarburton has one word -- actually, a contraction -- for anyone who might feel the urge to blow the whistle on official wrongdoing, government waste or chronic problems in the workplace: Don't. "It's not worth it," Tarburton says. "You'll just get screwed." Tarburton, once a cop with the Maryland Transportation Authority, learned this lesson the hard way. He blew the whistle on lapses in security in the port of Baltimore and lost his job for it. Tarburton was a source for a Sun reporter who, four years after the terrorist attacks of Sept.

For a grown-up escape from everyday life, head to Envy Salon in Historic Ellicott City for Tini Tuesdays and Brew & Do Wednesdays. What started as a way to promote new business hours is now a highly anticipated weekly event at the 13-year-old salon. "We basically started it as something to drum up business on a new day of the week we were open, which was Tuesdays," says Leeza Rainey, owner of the salon. "So we started the martini night and found it was super-successful. " On Tuesdays, clients can enjoy a signature hot pink "Envy-tini," which Rainey describes as both sweet and tart.

When somebody blows the whistle these days, people listen.Backed by a sea change in public attitudes and expanded help from Congress and the courts, whistle-blowers are having a greater impact and gaining wider acceptance, their supporters say."Public opinion has changed over the past few years to value these people instead of viewing them as tattletales or malcontents," said Louis Clark of the Washington-based Government Accountability Project, which has been defending and advocating for whistle-blowers since 1977.

NEW YORK -- Swiss character, such as it is, seemed to be nastily revealed with the firing of a bank guard who told the world that his bosses were burning records of Switzerland's quiet theft of the accounts of Jewish families murdered by Nazis more than 50 years ago.But we have our own dirty linen. Ask Richard Barlow, living now in bitter exile in Santa Fe, N.M., who was fired and drummed out of Washington. His offense? He told the truth, a truth his superiors did not want to hear.Mr. Barlow, a Central Intelligence Agency employee working in the Pentagon, got his eight years ago for challenging official federal disinformation regarding Pakistan's development of nuclear weapons.

The director of a Pasadena group home for girls fired Tina Nickersonand six other child-care workers because they blew the whistle on abuses there two years ago, Delegate W. Ray Huff said yesterday.Huff, D-Pasadena, asked a House panel to extend whistle-blower protections enjoyed by government workers to private-sector employees like Nickerson, whose company was under contract with the state."When you hear six or seven people coming out (with complaints) at the same time, that's more than a disgruntled employee," he told the Economic Matters Committee.

For a grown-up escape from everyday life, head to Envy Salon in Historic Ellicott City for Tini Tuesdays and Brew & Do Wednesdays. What started as a way to promote new business hours is now a highly anticipated weekly event at the 13-year-old salon. "We basically started it as something to drum up business on a new day of the week we were open, which was Tuesdays," says Leeza Rainey, owner of the salon. "So we started the martini night and found it was super-successful. " On Tuesdays, clients can enjoy a signature hot pink "Envy-tini," which Rainey describes as both sweet and tart.

Public sympathy for Pfc. Bradley Manning is misplaced ("Manning: 'I thought I was going to die,'" Nov. 30). He may well be a misfit, but he is a soldier who volunteered for the job. As a member of the armed forces, he must do as he is told. He had no authority to release classified information to the public. He stands to be convicted of sedition, mutiny, dereliction of duty and other crimes. As a civilian, you can "blow the whistle" and not expect to go to prison for it. But you cannot do that as an member of the armed services of any country in the world.

You can receive big bucks and feel good about yourself to by reporting financial fraud. This whistle blower program awards 30 percent of the amount recouped once the Securities and Exchange Commission undertakes an enforcement action against the bad actor. To receive an award, however, the fraud must involve sanctions worth more than $1 million. The SEC announced today that it awarded its first payout - nearly $50,000 - to an unidentified whistle blower who provided documents and other information that helped the SEC with one of its ongoing investigations and prevented further fraud.

Any notion that The Sun is not liberally biased has been completely dispelled by this ludicrous editorial that portends to put a positive "spin" on an economy teetering on the precipice of financial Armageddon ("Doing better than 'fine,'" June 12). With soaring deficits, chronic high unemployment, unsustainable entitlements, more Americans on food stamps than at any time in our history, a downgrading of the nation's credit rating for the first time in history with another downgrade looming, just to name a few issues, implying that the U.S. economy is "doing better than fine" is simply delusional!

The Rocky Gorge Rugby Football Club, of Columbia, mounted a second-half comeback to win the Emirates Airline USA Rugby DII Men's Club National Championship on its first crack at the title. The club had made an appearance in the round of 16 last year before elimination. Having topped Santa Rosa in a lightning-delayed match on the first day of the championships, Rocky Gorge was out to prove a point on the second day. Rocky Gorge faced off against a Wisconsin club that was riding high of a last-second victory in the semifinals.

A federal judge in Baltimore has awarded $462,500 to a low-level merchant marine officer who alerted Coast Guard inspectors that his cargo ship was intentionally polluting the high seas. In his ruling Monday, U.S. District Judge Marvin Garbis also left open the possibility of giving Salvador Lopez, a former ship's engineer from the Philippines, an additional $462,500 in reward money, depending on the outcome of another portion of the case. Lopez gave Coast Guard inspectors in Baltimore a handwritten note tipping them off to the illegal dumping of oily waste and garbage during the M/V Aquarosa's first visit to the port of Baltimore in February 2011.

Washington. -- One of the cheerier delusions of good government is that big federal departments can be forced to tolerate in their ranks those righteous, pesky people known as whistle-blowers. Might as well expect them to welcome their worst enemies to their most secret connivings.That's the lesson to be had from a congressional study of how government agencies have responded to the Whistle-blower Protection Act of 1989, a law designed to protect federal employees who expose wrong-doing on the job.The study, by the watchdog General Accounting Office (GAO)

WASHINGTON -- To hear Hughes Electronics Corp. tell it, there's only one thing worse than a tattletale -- and that's a tattletale with borrowed information.Now, the Supreme Court may be ready to hear Hughes' complaint that it was tagged with a fraud suit by a whistle-blower who made claims that the government already knew about.The federal law that protects whistle-blowers was supposed to encourage workers to point out secret misdeeds by their employers. Instead, some legal expert say, whistle-blowers are spurred by the prospect of getting rich and simply reporting what is already public or about to be voluntarily disclosed.

Last summer, when the paving trucks showed up, fans of the Maryland & Pennsylvania Railroad deservedly got a little nervous. The object of their veneration is a sliver of railroad track that bisects North Charles Street in the Woodbrook neighborhood of Baltimore County. Thousands of drivers who pass over the track every day probably have no idea what it was and where it went. It is left over from the days when the Ma & Pa zigzagged for 77.2 miles across the Maryland countryside from Baltimore to York, Pa. That track, which was left unpaved, is where a head-on collision shattered the tranquillity of a late-spring Saturday afternoon.

Looking to shake those winter blahs? One sure way is to "whistle a happy tune. " That's the prescription, anyway, once provided by Oscar Hammerstein II and being filled again now by "The King and I" at Toby's Dinner Theatre of Columbia. Whatever your concerns going in, you're guaranteed to go out singing, humming or whistling some of Broadway's most indelible melodies. This is the third rendition of the "King and I" by the Columbia dinner theater and, if not the best, the third time is definitely a charmer.