We Will Guard the Guards
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Translation: "The Guards will guard us, but who will guard the Guards?"
From Satires by Juvenal, Roman poet and satirist (55 AD - 127 AD)
The answer to that time-honored question is probably more important than ever today, with all of the scandals that are sprouting up in our nation's capital.
In theory, the FBI, the Justice Department (especially U.S. Attorneys), departmental Inspector Generals, the Office of Government Ethics, Congressional oversight committees, the Office of Special Counsel, the General Accounting Office, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and other agencies and departments all guard our government's operation by investigating unethical and unlawful activities and prosecuting those involved in fraud and corruption.
That's the theory. In practice, however, the objectivity and integrity of these "guards" is often compromised these days by political pressure (especially from this White House, which I believe will likely go down as by far the most corrupt in our history). For example, it's been well documented how political considerations drove former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales -- an incompetent and amoral sycophant, if there ever was one -- to fire a number of top-notch U.S. Attorneys for purely political reasons because they would not do the political bidding of Karl Rove and other political operatives in the White House.
Another "guard" -- Scott Bloch, the head of the Office of Special Counsel -- just recently got exposed by the Wall Street Journal destroying evidence on his computer and two subordinates' laptops by hiring "Geeks on Call" to completely wipe out the content of the hard drives on all of these machines. According to a recent article in the Journal (Head of Rove Inquiry in Hot Seat Himself), Block claims that he wiped out those hard drives to such a level that the data could never be reconstituted to get rid of a pesky virus. You don't have to be a geek yourself (and I are one) to know that his stated reason is a bunch of bullshit, there's just no other way to accurately describe it.
John Wilke, the Wall Street Journal investigative reporter who filed that story, is in fact one of the guards who are guarding the guards, and he does a pretty good job of it. From what I can see, he is entirely apolitical -- he has broken stories about both Republicans and Democrats. He's particularly known for his efforts to "out" suspicious earmarks (see this blog item, as well as this story about Cong. Murtha's earmarking largess), as well as stories about legislators who use favoritism and earmarks to end up filthy rich. He knows fraud and corruption when he sees it.
I met John over coffee during my trip to DC last January, and have continued to communicate with him and send him information about the Traffic.com scandal as I have unearthed it. I know that he's swamped with all kinds of fraud and corruption story leads and only has a certain amount of time to investigate each lead, but I suspect that he'll be writing about this one soon. He's particularly interested in the recent developments in this story, particularly the pending IG investigation.
As long as we have reporters who are driven by the belief that exposing fraud and corruption in our government can help make things better -- and it can -- there's at least a chance that some of that corruption can be stymied.
Over the past 2+ years I've talked and worked with a number of these "guardians of the guards," including:
- Investigative reporters, not only with the "established press" but "new age" Internet publications and bloggers, too.
- Other whistleblowers, rabblerousers, and muckrakers (like me).
- Elected officials with a combination of courage and integrity, particularly Senator Orrin Hatch and Congressman Anthony Weiner, who put doing what's right ahead of political expediency.
- Non-profit government watchdog organizations, like the Sunlight Foundation, Project on Government Oversight, National Legal and Policy Center, Center for Responsive Politics, and on and on.
New technology -- particularly the Internet -- is making it much easier for anyone to uncover wrongdoing. Much of what I have learned over the past two years about the Traffic.com scandal -- including my first inkling that DHS/DOT Deputy Secretary Jackson is up to his neck in it, the extent of Bud Shuster's connections to it, and Traffic.com's widespread "influence peddling" through lobbying and political donations -- I've learned from searching the Internet.
The Sunlight Foundation, which has continued to assist me in digging into this scam, is spearheading the development of new Internet tools that will make it even easier for "John Q. Public" to investigate and impact the business of our nation's policymakers. One of the most interesting projects they're sponsoring is called EarmarkWatch, which lets anyone comment on pending congressional earmarks. In a real sense, this tool lets anyone become an investigative reporter for an issue they feel is important to themselves and/or our country. The recent ethics law changes mandating earlier disclosure of intended earmarks make the EarmarkWatch concept potentially even more powerful.
My bottom line is that the "official guards" -- FBI, OIGs, SEC, oversight committees, etc. -- could investigate and expose the seemingly runaway corruption in both Congress and the Executive Branch, but often don't and won't instigate those investigations because of political influence -- unless and until there's sufficient public pressure so that they have no choice.
That means that the rest of us -- "we," including all the groups I mentioned above -- need to drag these so-called "guards" into these matters, "kicking and screaming" if necessary.
Jerry
Translation: "The Guards will guard us, but who will guard the Guards?"
From Satires by Juvenal, Roman poet and satirist (55 AD - 127 AD)
The answer to that time-honored question is probably more important than ever today, with all of the scandals that are sprouting up in our nation's capital.
In theory, the FBI, the Justice Department (especially U.S. Attorneys), departmental Inspector Generals, the Office of Government Ethics, Congressional oversight committees, the Office of Special Counsel, the General Accounting Office, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and other agencies and departments all guard our government's operation by investigating unethical and unlawful activities and prosecuting those involved in fraud and corruption.
That's the theory. In practice, however, the objectivity and integrity of these "guards" is often compromised these days by political pressure (especially from this White House, which I believe will likely go down as by far the most corrupt in our history). For example, it's been well documented how political considerations drove former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales -- an incompetent and amoral sycophant, if there ever was one -- to fire a number of top-notch U.S. Attorneys for purely political reasons because they would not do the political bidding of Karl Rove and other political operatives in the White House.
Another "guard" -- Scott Bloch, the head of the Office of Special Counsel -- just recently got exposed by the Wall Street Journal destroying evidence on his computer and two subordinates' laptops by hiring "Geeks on Call" to completely wipe out the content of the hard drives on all of these machines. According to a recent article in the Journal (Head of Rove Inquiry in Hot Seat Himself), Block claims that he wiped out those hard drives to such a level that the data could never be reconstituted to get rid of a pesky virus. You don't have to be a geek yourself (and I are one) to know that his stated reason is a bunch of bullshit, there's just no other way to accurately describe it.
John Wilke, the Wall Street Journal investigative reporter who filed that story, is in fact one of the guards who are guarding the guards, and he does a pretty good job of it. From what I can see, he is entirely apolitical -- he has broken stories about both Republicans and Democrats. He's particularly known for his efforts to "out" suspicious earmarks (see this blog item, as well as this story about Cong. Murtha's earmarking largess), as well as stories about legislators who use favoritism and earmarks to end up filthy rich. He knows fraud and corruption when he sees it.
I met John over coffee during my trip to DC last January, and have continued to communicate with him and send him information about the Traffic.com scandal as I have unearthed it. I know that he's swamped with all kinds of fraud and corruption story leads and only has a certain amount of time to investigate each lead, but I suspect that he'll be writing about this one soon. He's particularly interested in the recent developments in this story, particularly the pending IG investigation.
As long as we have reporters who are driven by the belief that exposing fraud and corruption in our government can help make things better -- and it can -- there's at least a chance that some of that corruption can be stymied.
Over the past 2+ years I've talked and worked with a number of these "guardians of the guards," including:
- Investigative reporters, not only with the "established press" but "new age" Internet publications and bloggers, too.
- Other whistleblowers, rabblerousers, and muckrakers (like me).
- Elected officials with a combination of courage and integrity, particularly Senator Orrin Hatch and Congressman Anthony Weiner, who put doing what's right ahead of political expediency.
- Non-profit government watchdog organizations, like the Sunlight Foundation, Project on Government Oversight, National Legal and Policy Center, Center for Responsive Politics, and on and on.
New technology -- particularly the Internet -- is making it much easier for anyone to uncover wrongdoing. Much of what I have learned over the past two years about the Traffic.com scandal -- including my first inkling that DHS/DOT Deputy Secretary Jackson is up to his neck in it, the extent of Bud Shuster's connections to it, and Traffic.com's widespread "influence peddling" through lobbying and political donations -- I've learned from searching the Internet.
The Sunlight Foundation, which has continued to assist me in digging into this scam, is spearheading the development of new Internet tools that will make it even easier for "John Q. Public" to investigate and impact the business of our nation's policymakers. One of the most interesting projects they're sponsoring is called EarmarkWatch, which lets anyone comment on pending congressional earmarks. In a real sense, this tool lets anyone become an investigative reporter for an issue they feel is important to themselves and/or our country. The recent ethics law changes mandating earlier disclosure of intended earmarks make the EarmarkWatch concept potentially even more powerful.
My bottom line is that the "official guards" -- FBI, OIGs, SEC, oversight committees, etc. -- could investigate and expose the seemingly runaway corruption in both Congress and the Executive Branch, but often don't and won't instigate those investigations because of political influence -- unless and until there's sufficient public pressure so that they have no choice.
That means that the rest of us -- "we," including all the groups I mentioned above -- need to drag these so-called "guards" into these matters, "kicking and screaming" if necessary.
Jerry
posted by Jerry Werner | 1:46 PM
1 Comments:
Hi Jerry,
check out www.oscwatch.org and whsknox.blogs.com/osc
I've been in touch with John Wilke and know GAP, POGO, etc
Joe Carson
jpcarson@tds.net
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