Gag Orders: When Government Employees Are Denied Their Constitutional Right to Petition Their Elected Representives

… People need to keep things in perspective I thought as far as what things are important enough to care about, and which are in the scheme of things irrelevant.

    With that in mind and my self-image of not wanting to generally give a **** about such things, I had to do a lot of soul searching on why I wanted to risk everything on talking about similar things, minor corruption, that even I would not care about, at least if I did not see it or was not aware of it? …

    It was a huge question to me I wrestled with on why to pretend to care about such minor things in the scheme of things. If I was lucky enough to have avoided huge blowback from bigger much more important things I talked about previously, why would I be willing to go down over things so seemingly inconsequential as these? Was it for spite or revenge? I had to finally admit, though none might believe it, but personalities had nothing to do with it this time. As with the political asylum thing, time simply ran out. The whole thing was about to be buried, servers and data purged, and the whole thing probably could never had been exposed ever again. As hard as I tried not to care, and believe me I tried really, really hard, it was to me a micro-version of the wiping of Hillary Clinton’s email servers or the destruction of the torture tapes, though with far lesser consequences (not that those had any particularly consequences for those involved) and of far far less importance. But it was too in my face to ignore it.

    And also with time being a factor, I was currently not under a gag order about revealing it.

On Whistleblowing and the Law, Here and There, Now and Then
January 14th, 2006

   The previous article about whistleblowing, “Whistleblowing and the Law: Here and There, Now and Then,” was written in only a few hours, (thus the many spelling errors) a few days ago, which included hours of having to retype several paragraphs from the email which was deleted from the county servers 2 and 1/2 years ago. I only excerpted relevant parts which I thought should not be lost to the memory hole which covered why I do what I do as far as putting up with things I would not normally put up with so helplessly, because eventually I thought I might need to publish something important and I liked having somewhat a protected job, at least minimally and if only in the near term.

    The ever increasing indignation and sometimes outright humiliation at work was always an issue. If I seemed belligerent and a bit bitter in the previous post, it was due to the fact that those higher up, as Karl Rove once famously said, “create their own reality” which is often at odds with what those who have not such power would ever consider “reality.” The panopticon only sees one way and despite all the talk of “transparency” those in power are completely shielded from any meaningful exposure or investigation into their own wrongdoings, yet have complete control over any facts about and knowledge of anyone lower in position.

    I wanted to convey in that article, that I at least, as usual, was not happy about being the only one who realistically would ever have attempted to make such things public. Though I had an idea of how to do so which might have assured that it would not have been completely in vain to do so, (meaning the letter to the council) there still is absolutely no guarantee anyone higher up will seriously look into it.

    In addition to the County Council, I became aware of a State of Hawaii Ombudsman Office and similar office which could conceivably look into such matters and hopefully change or lessen what might otherwise have gone or been wrong, so I forwarded the initial email to them as well.

    I would never had done such things if I was not confident that there was enough email evidence over the years to back up what I was saying and knowing that if the emails were not deleted or wiped from the servers as I knew that they could be, violation of law or not, any FOIA requests of several relevant officials would put out quite a lot of backup to what I had said.

    The fact that the original email of 2 and 1/2 years ago went to many county employees mistakenly probably was the only reason any of the corruption came to light at all, and I knew that this time though I added every relevant agency that would have the power to look into such things, and that for now the evidence probably still exists that would prove such assertions, that regardless, coming forward will still most likely seem to have proven to have been a waste of time and eventually might prove to have cost me my job, sooner or later.

    One thing that I left out in that article which I wished I had covered was the monitoring of employees as well as the gagging of them to prevent anything from being made public that might prove embarrassing or illegal in regards to the behavior of those at the top, mostly elected or appointed officials.

Reversing the Flow of the Panopticon if Only Momentarily and Destined to Be Forgotten
January 18th, 2016

    It was not entirely factual when I stated on January 14th that I was not currently under a gag order. As I have been recently advised internally, the Mayor’s office had issued a (not my term this time) “gag” about reporting any wrongdoing to the County Council. When one of the council members emailed me in response to what I chose to tell them, which I have been advised is counter to the “gag” order on reporting any malfeasance to them about what may be going on illegally or otherwise wrong, I was not able to reply to the reply sent to me by the council member. Though is not yet proven, it was a valid assumption that it was due to the fact the Mayor’s office had an outstanding prohibition for any county employee to contact the County Council over wrongdoings or improprieties, criminal, or just plain seemingly criminal behavior, on those who answer pretty much only to the Mayor.

    Though now that I think about it, I remember vaguely hearing about such an order being given, though I seriously doubted at the time whether or not it was legal. To think that every employee of the county was to forgo the right to be able to raise concerns about impropriety or illegality in all cases except explicitly told to the department heads eventually answerable only to political appointees or the Mayor him or herself. What that implies is that every single employee of the county is an employee directly under the mayor personally, and when the problems one has is with the people appointed by the Mayor, still one can only complain about it to the mayor alone.

    It seemed dubious at the time that any city or county mayor could give himself that much power by proclamation but that was the policy put out, rightly or wrongly, legally or illegally, which may now become tested. The county is on the surface going to look into the allegations I put forth before the council, in an open letter to them, but more-so and perhaps instead, is actually going to consider job action against me for having attempted to bring the matter to the light of the council, due to the policy or proclamation that that doing so would not be permitted.

    This is where it gets far more interesting than just petty or significant corruption, misuse of facilities for gain, or favoritism. This may be the first significant testing of that proclamation that all county employees, unlike any other citizen of the county, are solely prohibited from letting the county council know of wrongdoing or impropriety and that all such matters must be first and exclusively directed only to the mayor’s appointees eventually, as they are the ones above and able to fire, the highest civil service employees.

    Thus, when the concerns are about those appointed employees or the mayors office in general, people can be understandably confused on where to go, other than the police, who are also county employees under the same prohibitions. Like I said previously, I have referenced any other state or county agencies which I thought might have oversight capabilities.

    After the time 2 1/2 years ago when I felt pressured to quit, I began keeping cleaning reports for usage of county facilities in which no permits were issued or paid for but which were held under the director’s office, who is appointed by and answerable only to the mayor’s office. After sufficient indignation and possible verifiably unusual and indignant treatment by that office, I no longer decided that it was correct to “lose” reports which pointed to possible misuse of the facilities. I filed these reports as I would have any other reports that were not for “ghost parties” as I referred to them to myself. Twice the halls were in such a mess that I was instructed to withhold the deposits due to large events which left the halls with extreme clutters of trash.

    I had kept these reports separated in the file cabinets in a way which I could access them if I was ever asked about such behavior, though it remained doubtful I would have ever brought it up due to the unclear nature of how one would go about reporting such things without risk to ones job.

    When the sexual comments and other comments made to me, wrong, way legally wrong,  were said, and it became clear that I was not going to be transferred as just about anyone would think I would have been entitled to, I decided to actually see if it would be possible to try to let such things out. To wait until there was a job action against me, as it seemed would be the case as it seemed the intent was to have me quit, I would have to find a way to make such things public and still conceivably not lose my job. There were other factors as well which seemed odd and possibly illegal but these were written reports in addition to back up files on the server which supposedly were not to be erased, hard evidence so to speak. It was not clear that any use of these facilities was improper as they could have been proven to had been for official functions only, but that seemed quite possible to have not been the case.

    Indignation made me think of running against the Mayor and I took public steps to do so. Though I would not have liked the idea of a negative campaign, it was reassuring to have had this evidence while running against the mayor if a campaign would have continued past the primaries and into November. At the very least, I figured if I was able to get to 2nd place, at least my job would have been secure enough to not have such obvious things done to pressure me to feel like quitting. That would had been the most job security I would had felt for a long time. And eventually I might had though of a way to get the issue of those usages legality correctly addressed without having me standing to gain in any way. It seemed tricky as it was not exactly clear to me how that could be accomplished if at all, but it seemed somehow preferable to ignoring it all.

    But the idea of not wanting to have these things brought up in a way which would likely devolve into personal animosity or grudges, made me feel that even if I went that route, I would not had been about to make such things public, even in a somewhat protected venue such as running for the same office. It might had gotten personal, nasty, and been very negative toward an office I really did not have any interest in winning, even if it had been possible, which it seemingly would not have. Its not like I did not have opinions or felt strongly about county issues. Its just that my interests and knowledge were always more trained toward state and national issues. Eventually thus I decided on running for state office instead, again at least hoping that my job might be relative free from the kinds of things I had experienced in the year up to that point. I was wrong but it seemed like a logical assumption to have made.

    Also, it made no sense to run as the field was crowded in a way that I had not known about previously, which would have made getting to 2nd place doubtful. Without that assurance and without the longer election cycle, there would had been no point to going to all that trouble for a campaign that would had been over in a few weeks.

    The physical cleaning report files had long been thrown out when I was transferred to a different office and most older files were thrown out, however the electronic versions of the bookings which had more detail, though lacking the proof that the facilities were used without payment, were still intact on the county servers and only at risk for complete erasure or mothballing only recently.

    From what I have written above, it would seem to some I harbored some negative feelings toward the director or even the mayor, while that is not the case. The director could had been told to pressure me to quit, or have others make me feel pressured to quit, by order of the mayor’s office. Also it would be conceivable that the mayor could had been asked to do so. All I knew for sure was extremely unusual things were going on such as the hiding of overages, comments made to me which were inexplicable as to not be followed up on to any significant extent, at the very least, by transferring me away from that situation.

    Really, I doubt I would care that much if any of that would lead to or prove significant corruption, never mind having been involved in being one to have brought up. However, as I had stated, I was willing to ride this train to the very end. To be pressured to quit, voluntarily submitting to such pressure or staying quiet about things I had direct knowledge of, on a long term basis, I could not see happening. I could defer and wait to see if things resolved themselves without anything being done by me, which often happens and is almost always my personal preference. But that is not the same as committing to keeping things covered up, regardless of how it might negative affect me otherwise if I did not stay silent. I did not wish to come forward, but did not wish to think that I would never would have done so either.

    So when the time was running out, I had to decide something I would not had been happy to decide about no matter which way it went. But add on top of that the idea that I would have actively been prohibited from mentioning such potential wrongdoings by a person appointed by the mayor, to anyone other than the mayor, that is a bigger deal to me than any other wrongdoings which are or may be real or significant in their own right, but seem to me to be of less disturbing than that.

    I mentioned matters which were brought directly to the mayor’s office 2 years ago, with no action since then before bringing them to the council’s attention. Also, there were direct examples of what I believed to be such possible corruption made as well, which were not followed up on after months of inaction, to those in the executive branch of the county.

    Should such any gag order against talking to the county council be upheld and used against my job, that alone would, to me, justify any risk or negative action coming forward incurs toward my job or supposed future with the county because for these reasons and ones not mentioned yet, that any potential future finally seemed quite unlikely to exist or be pleasant if there were any at all. Meaning that if that were to be gag were to be invoked or to be used and then found to be not valid, I could be happy that at least I might had contributed to such an odious order being voided and rescinded.

    Should that prohibition not be tested by instead going a different route, that it was permissible to have gone to the council under these circumstances given the inaction and length of time the mayor’s office could have acted, but instead that such concerns should not have been made publicly, that is another part of the equation. Any statement that the prohibition of county employees talking with the council could even partially be reverse or admitted as wrong would still to me be an improvement, though the other aspect of that might remain.

    The reason for publicly, not that any significant in any respect number of people have seen such articles, putting out that letter and the reasons for it, though names were omitted, was due to the fact that I am aware that by only using email, that would not have guaranteed that even after going out on a limb by mentioning such concerns, that anyone at all would have read them at the county councils office. Such emails, if they went through at all, I have seen could had been deleted on purpose for the reasons stated because of how it had been done before.

     If even the best means of provable communication by correspondence could be made to disappear as the previous email had, it seemed only making the matter even superficially public might prompt investigation since with the investigation 2 years ago, I was not asked any questions despite one would have thought that I would have much to say since I might had inadvertently contributed to there having been an investigation by mentioning the overages in the first place.

    And even if that were not to be the case, since my office handled the money which I said was not properly being reported, that alone would have been reason to have asked me if I knew of such potential impropriety going on. Since that had obviously not been the case despite that more people may had know about that than will know about what I have mentioned this month, an open letter to the council seemed the only thing to me worth it to justify whatever risk mentioning these things might prove to have been the case toward my current or future potential jobs with the county or otherwise.

    If the blanket gag order for all employees about never being able to talk to the council falls, it might make it possible for even more disfunctionality to be solved by coming to the attention of those elected to represent us, who we have been forbidden to contact to let them know what they need to know, to help us or to do their jobs properly.

Reversing the Flow of the Panopticon if Only Momentarily and Destined to Be Forgotten

    The previous article about whistleblowing, “Whistleblowing and the Law: Here and There, Now and Then,” was written in only a few hours, (thus the many spelling errors) a few days ago, which included hours of having to retype several paragraphs from the email which was deleted from the county servers 2 and 1/2 years ago. I only excerpted relevant parts which I thought should not be lost to the memory hole which covered why I do what I do as far as putting up with things I would not normally put up with so helplessly, because eventually I thought I might need to publish something important and I liked having somewhat a protected job, at least minimally and if only in the near term.

    The ever increasing indignation and sometimes outright humiliation at work was always an issue. If I seemed belligerent and a bit bitter in the previous post, it was due to the fact that those higher up, as Karl Rove once famously said, “create their own reality” which is often at odds with what those who have not such power would ever consider “reality.” The panopticon only sees one way and despite all the talk of “transparency” those in power are completely shielded from any meaningful exposure or investigation into their own wrongdoings, yet have complete control over any facts about and knowledge of anyone lower in position.

    I wanted to convey in that article, that I at least, as usual, was not happy about being the only one who realistically would ever have attempted to make such things public. Though I had an idea of how to do so which might have assured that it would not have been completely in vain to do so, there still is absolutely no guarantee anyone higher up will seriously look into it.

    In addition to the County Council, I became aware of a State of Hawaii Ombudsman Office and similar office which could conceivably look into such matters and hopefully change or lessen what might otherwise have gone or been wrong, so I forwarded the initial email to them as well.

    I would never had done such things if I was not confident that there was enough email evidence over the years to back up what I was saying and knowing that if the emails were not deleted or wiped from the servers as I knew that they could be, violation of law or not, any FOIA requests of several relevant officials would put out quite a lot of backup to what I had said.

    The fact that the original email of 2 and 1/2 years ago went to many county employees mistakenly probably was the only reason any of the corruption came to light at all, and I knew that this time though I added every relevant agency that would have the power to look into such things, and that for now the evidence probably still exists that would prove such assertions, that regardless, coming forward will still most likely seem to have proven to have been a waste of time and eventually might prove to have cost me my job, sooner or later.

    One thing that I left out in that article which I wished I had covered was the monitoring of employees as well as the gagging of them to prevent anything from being made public that might prove embarrassing or illegal in regards to the behavior of those at the top, mostly elected or appointed officials.

    I have seen, though it is not on any notices to employees which I have been aware of, of people for nontechnical support reasons being able to monitor any employee below them’s computer screens at any time. Not that I had done anything wrong, but that is something one would think would have been limited to the private sector, being able to secretly monitor employees computer screens at any time, watch them on their webcams secretly at any time, and what I found most egregious of all, secretly monitor their movements 24/7 through their government mobile phones.

    I had been shown how all employees in our department were being monitored on a Google maps type software which showed all their locations and speeds in real time. Not only that but the software was capable of storing this information for all other off-duty times as well. Meaning you could rewind it to any other time you chose to see where the person was, or where their phone was, at that time.

    There was a big blowup about Apple iPhones secretly saving a persons location at all times since they had purchased the phones, and that was a secrecy issue. However, those who are monitored by their employers in such a fashion without being told is even worse.

    Should a person frequent an adult motel instead of going home to their wife, go to bars or gambling places while on probation, all of these things can be known by such surveillance by their employers, and eventually be used against them to blackmail them or hold it over them, and again without prior notification that they were at risk of having that happen to them.

    The gagging of employees to talk publicly about such things I mentioned in that the last article about whistleblowing. It is doubtful I would be able to write another one like that or like this because that is what will most likely soon be the case. I was similarly gagged while running for State Senate about talking about any wrongdoing in my department just before the election, not that I was inclined or wanting to talk about such things once I had ruled it out, but that showed nothing of that type of behavior no matter how egregious it may be in regards to the political process, would still be the first response to talking about illegal things the department does now.

    As I said, I have gotten lazy in how I view myself as only doing any significant writing at all except when I think I am out of time to do so, or to try to make a difference. A lot of that I can chalk up to never really having been in any way confident that anything I write anymore will be read by anyone in a position to make a difference, or that doing so for any reason less than of critical importance would simply cost me the ability to do so in the future if I thought that then I might have had something important to say.

    When things most seemed at risk of coming apart previously, in the summer of 2012, I then wrote what I most wanted to say at that time in the post, “Real Men Fear Nuclear War, Not in Kansas Anymore.” This time what I wanted to speak of the most is that the protections of whistleblowers are hindered if there is not enough protection of them should they be forced out of their jobs.

    In other words, the gap between public sector benefits and private sector benefits means that most would never risk losing their jobs by coming forward if it meant losing their health care, sick time, and other benefits they would never likely be able to receive again if banned from working in the public sector due to whistleblowing or giving evidence in support of investigation of such crimes once they become at risk to be exposed.

    So once again, having said what I thought was most important to say at that this time, come what may, at least I can feel better that I did not hold back what I should have said long ago anymore. The feeling of having a protected job was nice for awhile while it lasted, and though I still feel that I ought to have used that power to write whatever I wanted, and fought very hard to keep, when I wanted should have been used to a greater degree, I can say that keeping the option of that open for the future if needed was a valid consideration as well.

    Doing too much in the present robs one of the chances of doing good in the future, but also if you always think that way, you often will get very little done. I have not found the perfect balance yet, if there is one, which is why I try to leave myself free in every moment as much as possible to decide where I think it is, or should be, today.

GINI & Corruption: Democratic Socialist Protection for Government Workers Only Isn't Nearly Enough

"We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered."

"We must honestly admit that capitalism has often left a gulf between superfluous wealth and abject poverty, has created conditions permitting necessities to be taken from the many to give luxuries to the few, and has encouraged small hearted men to become cold and conscienceless so that, like Dives before Lazarus, they are unmoved by suffering, poverty-stricken humanity. The profit motive, when it is the sole basis of an economic system, encourages a cutthroat competition and selfish ambition that inspire men to be more I-centered than thou-centered."

Martin Luther King Quotes

http://shetterly.blogspot.com/p/martin-luther-king-quotes_4.html

There is a feeling like the clenching of a fist
There is a hunger in the center of the chest
There is a passage through the darkness
And the mist
And though the body sleeps
The heart will never rest

Shed a little light, oh Lord,
So that we can see

Excerpt from “Shed a Little Light” by James Taylor

Source: http://stats.areppim.com/stats/stats_corrxginix06.htm

     It has been known and accepted for some time that government workers need to have at least a living wage to keep corruption to a minimum, or at least have the hope of containing it even slightly. From my university studies of Eastern Europe and Russia, it is a common maxim that if you do not pay public workers enough, they will have to supplement their income other ways, often through accepting bribes in relation to their public duties.

     But also having studied in and about countries with extremely low corruption, such as Sweden, in addition to insights I have gained while working in government here in the United States, it began to seem obvious that there is a correlation between social equality in pay and corruption. In researching briefly when about to write this, it seems there have been some research studies done and this is hardly and unknown or never-thought-of-before concept. But I think that from what I have seen, they are looking at it from not the best angle. It is not just that greater corruption leads to higher disparity in incomes and wealth, whether it is classical corruption or governments run by the elite few which makes their elections and democratic processes more of a sideshow than any significant threat of any real changing of power, or that greater and more fair social policies will ever have any chance of being implemented.

    I look at it from the other direction. Simply paying government workers a living wage and their getting benefits the same as most or all people get in countries with low corruption and low inequality, like Norway, Sweden, or Denmark, is meaningless if those benefits are not shared by non-government workers alike.

    I wrote here a few years ago that public unions and unions in general in the United States are under attack because the general public at large, have long been shut out of such protections such as I have been fortunate enough to have had at least up until now, 4 weeks of vacation and 4 weeks of sick leave every year. As private sector unions have been decimated, public sector unions have been increasingly at odds in how their members have been treated compared to the rest of society. As I said then, the United States, in comparison to every other industrial country has virtually no protection or guarantee of sick leave or vacation time for any of its workers at all. Most every citizen in all other industrialized countries have benefits roughly in line with how U.S. government workers are treated.

    Hawaii, where I have been fortunate enough to have lived and worked for quite some time, is somewhat different in some ways in that many lower end government workers in white collar clerical jobs are well underpaid in comparison to similar private sector jobs. However, it is similar to most government jobs across the country in that benefits such as paid sick leave and vacations, affordable medical, dental, and prescription insurance, are reasons why many who can afford to take the cut in pay to work in the government sector compared to the private sector, will often gladly do so to get those benefits increasingly limited to government employees, at least at lower salary levels. For those with family members with chronic or serious illness, or if they themselves have such needs, losing their government jobs with these for them necessary benefits would be catastrophic for them and force them into bankruptcy, insolvency, homeless, and other such harsh realities they are painfully aware of every single day.

    As I have written in regards to whistleblowing, how it is most never effective, almost always leads to horrific consequences for those who stand up against corruption and illegal policies or bureaucratic malpractice, the added concern that doing so will cost a person their job will shut up nearly every person with evidence to give more than anything else. But in countries where their health insurance, sick leave, vacation time, and all other benefits are not “privileges” due to having a “generous” or “magnanimous” employer/benefactor, but are instead a right of all citizens, they have far less to fear about coming forward and giving testimony about corruption.

    From what I have found, yes, they are also still likely to be punished for doing the right thing, will most probably often still lose their jobs or status, because corruption does not exist without being protected itself by the very system that supposedly “does not tolerate it.” If they had to worry about being caught, they would not do half the illegal things that corrupt officials do on a day to day basis.

    But as I said, those who lose their government jobs for exposing corruption in those societies such as Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, for them it is not the catastrophic event that it would be for those whose government benefits, with good reason, need to be at a living wage to lessen the corruption of lower level employees, but for whom these benefits would be lost forever to them if they should lose their government jobs. Paying them better or having far higher job benefits and job protection, when not shared by most in society, does not exactly lessen the potential for corruption. It serves as another protection or safety valve in keeping governmental malfeasance from every being exposed to the light of day, when losing their positions would literally destroy their lives.

    That last bastion of such protection and guaranteed benefits in the United States may well fall, government unions, due to removing their source of influence, money, by making it optional for workers to pay union dues. As with the private sector, this will cripple what little influence they have and those who are against this state that those who chose not to make the payment will still benefit from the contracts and greater benefits as those who do pay the union fees. However, the benefits are likely to slide, influence will be lost, and those benefits will be lessened so much as to eventually make paying the union fees a waste of money. And this breaking of the influence of these unions is the whole point, so it would succeed.

    But as I stated before, keeping these benefits as something out of the ordinary, increasingly exclusive to the public sector, lessens public support because they no longer see those unions, any political parties, or the government itself making any meaningful, not to mention successful, attempts at making sure these job protections and benefits will be shared by all. The increasingly seeming “privilege” of having benefits which should be taken for granted and available for all, means that they would eventually be lost or lessened anyway simply because they increasingly will make for a easy target for those who have not such benefits.

    And as I stated, when the chasm between public sector workers and private sector workers benefits is growing, providing a higher wage or living wage only for public workers will increase corruption since they will become more fearful of being shut out and losing them, so they most always will tolerate higher up or official wrongdoing in their offices out of fear of losing their positions and benefits.

     In “Bladerunner,” by Phillip K. Dick, Rick Deckard (played by Harrison Ford) was persuaded to go back to the police force with the threat, “Remember, if you are not one of us, you are ‘little people’.” The threat was that he would not be “protected” should anything go wrong, or that if he ever needed help, or could be killed. That sentiment of “special protection”, especially for those high in office of being exempt from the law and having little to fear of accountability for their corruption, favors, bribes and so on, is not helped to be battled when lower level workers who almost solely are the ones who could give evidence of and fight this, are themselves increasingly “specially protected” in comparison to those outside the government completely. Who really would be willing to risk losing that if doing so meant medical bankruptcy, no sick leave, no paid vacations or 2 weeks if you are very lucky but only after a year, a complete loss of necessary medical insurance or medicine, and so on?

     Martin Luther King said, “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.” Without those who had such benefits fighting to make them the norm, it is no wonder they will come under increasing fire and eventually be lost. The same goes for those countries which languished having them but not fighting to make them universally available in all other countries as well. They too are increasingly becoming seen as “privileges” there, and no longer “rights” which now must be shed to make their economies “competitive” again.

    Perishing together as fools seems to be the only plate on the menu increasingly across the world and at home these days.

On Whistleblowing and the Law, Here and There, Now and Then

>>The three things mentioned below, I would have been flat out fired if I was the one who did those things. The ability for me for having been set up as was mentioned in two of those three things, seriously makes me concerned about being set up for the third, the hundreds of dollars in money that should not be here and cannot be accounted for. During the audit period we were told every single dollar must be accounted for. Now suddenly 6 weeks can go by and no one will acknowledge hundreds of dollars which should not be here? And what if it suddenly goes missing? How is that to be explained when no one has even acknowledged in a report or writing that this money was ever here to begin with?

I can take being treated badly at work. I can take being accused of losing papers and getting in trouble for doing things that I was told to do and having it denied that I was told to do those things. These things happen in many peoples lives, but these overages have the potential for criminal overtones, and that is something a hell of a lot worse to worry about than simply losing my job and not getting a good recommendation from my immediate supervisor.

The harder I pushed to get this matter resolved, the odder it seems that it has been shelved, and the more strange this has appeared month after month now. … there is not much chance I will make it 6 weeks longer, never mind 6 months before something is made up, like the items below, or exaggerated to be a reason to let me go. This probably is my last chance to document this before that happens.

When I first started working for the county 6 years ago, I would have been happy to have made it through the first 6 months. At the time I had just started a web site encouraging people to come forward about crimes the government was doing as I had done, and really did not hope to have a long career here so I have been grateful the way it turned out. I had assumed working for the government, it would not be so easy to be fired with just a phone call, so it emboldened me a bit to tell the truth as best I could for awhile, at least in 2007 anyway. I had assumed getting fired from this job would be a gradual process that I would see coming for awhile before it happened, though this has a been telegraphed way further in advance than I would have imaged. Working for the county enabled me to prove myself in many ways, taking about 3 - 4 tests a year for jobs in many different departments, and most often getting all the way up to the interviews. I have interviewed for everything from Information Systems Analyst jobs and the planning department, to clerk, secretary, computer repair and typist, and taking tests and being on lists for housing specialist and human resources. At least I was able to show I was still fairly intelligent and enjoyed learning about all the departments. Working in Parks I have learned much about how the county works as well as what it is like to be a government worker. Little did I know you much goes through this department, everything from emergency shelters to political events and fundraisers. I even got to interview for Special Events Coordinator.

As someone who studied government much of my life, it was great to learn so much about it firsthand, and getting paid to do so at the same time was a great plus. So it is sad to see that involuntarily coming to an end but like I said, I never tried to expect that it would last. As someone who was returned to this country under armed guard (at my request actually) after a political asylum attempt in Sweden in 2006, I simply decided to then do the best I could at whatever I was asked to do from that point on, and I was glad these were not things I would have otherwise not wanted to do. How many people get to say that and mean it? If it ever lead to a good or better county job, I would have been better paid but not necessarily happier or more grateful as I was pretty happy and grateful here (though being able to afford a car might had been nice too).

Because of things mentioned in the last paragraph, I have a pretty thin skin toward the idea of being set up for things that may involve criminal activity or taking money, or not reporting money which should not be here. In my case, it is not being paranoid, just being careful, remembering who I am, and trying to make sure everything going on around me is as it should be, at least keeping-the-books-wise. And that such things might be covered up, I know that while the whole world may not revolve around me, for things that don’t make sense, and things being swept under the rug which I know will come up later, I choose to to be the one in a position to be the fall guy when that happens. Pretty good so far, though it tends to get trickier from here on no matter what job I might have. Working for the county [should have been “of”] Maui in general, I have considered a bit of an oasis. But all good things as they say.

Jared. <<<

Edited preface to wiped email sent 5/9/2013   4:15 PM (4:38 PM)

    I have a lot of knowledge about whistleblowing though despite the somewhat erroneous email excerpted above, I never considered myself a whistleblower. As I mentioned later and again recently, certain things were added to the preface above of that email which were not entirely correct simply to get the Federal government or state agencies to look into what was going on in my department, thinking by putting those in there, the matter would eventually get attention. Those phrases not entirely correct which I have long since wanted to correct or at least put into context were, “started a web site encouraging people to come forward about crimes the government was doing as I had done,” and “As someone who was returned to this country under armed guard (at my request actually) after a political asylum attempt in Sweden in 2006…” were purposely added to make sure the email was looked at by higher up agencies than the ones which could and were covering these things up, and making my life at the time stressful to say the least.

    Technically those things were true but it was seemingly putting much more than my job at risk for mentioning these things so flippantly and in a way most likely to draw negative attention to myself by the Federal government. After taking what I could get as far as accepting what could be accomplished then, and being resettled where obviously I always stated I would have preferred to be, it was to show that as I stated, I was seriously considering that I was possibly being set up for something worse. It was to show I was being stressed enough to speak of such things that I normally would have preferred not to mention in context of my job. It was true that this web site, Truthrevival.org, did sometimes take a position that serious then-ongoing crimes should be talked about, and I did praise real whistleblowers occasionally but stating that was the website’s purpose was not entirely truthful. Also, that I was returned “under armed guard,” which i did attempt to clarify even at the time, was obviously a way to put it in the worst way possible purposely for effect.

    Despite that pretty much a year after that (2007) everything had on the surface blown over and I was working at the County of Maui, there was never any deal. I was never told what I could say, what would be permitted versus what might get me in serious trouble like I seemingly had avoided, so I pretty much had to feel my way as far as where the limits were on what I would be able to get alway with talking about. Without money or a job, I was freer to talk about anything but obviously not for long. As I said working for the county would have given me protection from clearly being punished for something I said online, or at least I would have time when seeing it coming to at least say what I thought should be said before that time came.

    At least that was the thinking at the beginning in 2006. I would go on writing about torture, the wrongness and self-destructiveness of the War in Iraq, and other related topics in very strong terms, at least in 2007. Since so many things were changing quickly, I took a pause from writing in 2008 for various reasons before writing strongly about the “legalization” and “rehabilitation” of torture in 2009 under Obama, now in full bloom with the recent comments about torture by Donald Trump. As I said at the time by framing the debate about torture in any way whatsoever to its effectiveness, one simply is making the case for better and more effective torture to be developed in the future. And the argument that it “doesn’t work” is false, but not for the reasons Trump maintains. More respected people than me have stated over and over again it works by providing the fake confessions and falsified intelligence that is desired, on demand.

    Did I take that much advantage of my fairly protected ability to write about such things without fear of losing my job. Hell no. I pride myself of being lazy and hopefully that image I try to project helped me get this far. Throughout the political asylum thing I implied that if given a choice I would much rather “be a beach bum on Maui and learn to surf.” I did not even manage to accomplish that even having been here for almost ten years after that now, such is my inherent laziness. But partially it was not wanting to move too far beyond what I originally wanted to do, talk about the things that were being covered up which I thought were detrimental and dangerous, and a good portion of nearly every post was warning about the dangers of a war with Iran. Torture was eventually admitted to, the CIA worked to reduce the (overt) politicizing of intelligence (for awhile), came clean about things, and despite our “sunshine and lightness” President’s attempt to publicly crucify and charge with espionage practically every notable whistleblower, more came to light publicly than I would have expected.

    War with Iran, which very well might had gone nuclear, in may senses of the word, was put off, for awhile anyway. I originally set about to talk about certain things and I did until I thought it was no longer necessary to risk my neck in obviously a more dangerous environment than even the Bush Administration for talking about such things, protected in my job or not.

    And as the excerpt above states, I did not exactly feel safe in my job. The protection from higher ups to have me fired possibly for political reasons, is not clear when you are trying or seemingly constantly being tried to be pushed out for other reasons, though those reasons to were not exactly clear.

    Positioning is the best word for what I tried to accomplish. Since I had less control over my life for the last 12 years than I ever had before, given I had been free previously to that to just about work anywhere or do anything I was capable of doing, I was always trying to increase the options I had available. Should I have wanted to risk everything if I thought a major war was imminent or close, I wanted to have a way to put out pretty much anything up to the point of whatever I thought might need to be said to lessen the potential of that happening, thus the Truthrevival.org, in addition to the Polsci.com web site. If I thought time was running out and the rug was about to be pulled out from under me I would put as much out or say what I thought should be said most at that time while I was still able to. Most notably and for those reasons were the writing I did in the summer of 2012 and again in May of 2013 when time indeed seemed running out. Without feeling pressured of feeling things needed to be said which weren’t being said, though much I did not like about what Obama was doing nor things going on in the world, at least things seemed not to be heading toward as quick a dead end as some things previously were going.

    When Wikileaks published a “major expose” about corruption in a small village in France I thought, correctly I think, who the f*** give a **** about corruption in an insignificant village in France. Even if I did get political asylum in France, which was the intent in 2003, unless I lived in that particular village, that would still probably have been my attitude. People need to keep things in perspective I thought as far as what things are important enough to care about, and which are in the scheme of things irrelevant.

    With that in mind and my self-image of not wanting to generally give a **** about such things, I had to do a lot of soul searching on why I wanted to risk everything on talking about similar things, minor corruption, that even I would not care about, at least if I did not see it or was not aware of it?

    It was wrong to imply that I thought anyone should ever “blow the whistle” on anything. It usually is never effective and almost always the person doing so will have their life ruined. The system is set up heavily in protecting corruption which is not even always labeled as corruption. Stories, excuses, or legal arguments will be immediately concocted, witnesses will be pressured to lie to keep their jobs, and one should know that those willing to stick their necks out to go down with you will always be practically none. And that illegality and corruption are accomplished the very real expectation that should anything be done in response, none of those most responsible for the wrongdoing will ever be held to account and lower level “fall guys” will be found to take the blame. And it is my experience that is the point in higher ups having lower level people do their dirty work, which is meant to seal their lips because if you do something you know is wrong for them to “keep your job” it is they that will have it over you, not the other way around, should it ever be discovered and revealed by some p********** whistleblower wanna be who puts these other’s jobs on the line for their own ego or self-aggrandizement, or conscience.

    As much as I ironically love to savage the idea and ideals of whistleblowers in general, given the constant pretty much unconscionable treatment of them in general in the press, that should know better and depends on them, I need to state the obvious now. The term whistleblower does not refer to criminals, though whistleblowing confusingly can sometimes violate regional laws in some instances. To talk about and report violations of the law, especially horrible and unconscionable crimes of governments, cannot be considered worse than the crimes they report on. When the whistleblowers are targeted but the crimes they exposed go unpunished, as said before, you are literally working for a criminal regime. Why is it only in government related crimes that covering things up is not a violation of the law, as it should be, but exposing the truth can be considered a crime? In regards to my recent need to cross that line I have been reading up about whistleblower protection and how it varies from state to state and country to country. The most important thing to keep in mind as well as how much the whistleblowers are punished to make sure no one ever again tries to be brave in the future, is whether it ever made a difference, was followed up on, and real crimes reported were actually prosecuted in the stead of the obvious need to attack the messenger. Data on those points is as important or more important than keeping track of blowback to whistleblowers, and it seems sorely lacking.

    It was a huge question to me I wrestled with on why to pretend to care about such minor things in the scheme of things. If I was lucky enough to have avoided huge blowback from bigger much more important things I talked about previously, why would I be willing to go down over things so seemingly inconsequential as these? Was it for spite or revenge? I had to finally admit, though none might believe it, but personalities had nothing to do with it this time. As with the political asylum thing, time simply ran out. The whole thing was about to be buried, servers and data purged, and the whole thing probably could never had been exposed ever again. As hard as I tried not to care, and believe me I tried really, really hard, it was to me a micro-version of the wiping of Hillary Clinton’s email servers or the destruction of the torture tapes, though with far lesser consequences (not that those had any particularly consequences for those involved) and of far far less importance. But it was too in my face to ignore it.

    And also with time being a factor, I was currently not under a gag order about revealing it. One thing that whistleblowers have to realize is that if you telegraph what you will do, you never will get to accomplish anything. Having someone written up on a what hopefully (if they are lucky) will be proven to be a bogus job complaint months later, gags you from saying anything publicly which could cast aspersions on anyone higher up, seemingly in retaliation for that job action. I have seen this play out, I know the timeframes involved and thus I knew the deadlines for when it would be too late to speak up, and seemingly inconsequential for most people as these items must be. Plus, since no one else was likely to do it, I assumed if anyone had a chance to make sure that something might be done about it, or it all would be buried, the only person likely to do anything was unfortunately me.



There has been no known response from the council but this was sent Monday January 11th,

 I sent this earlier to the Maui County Council. In case it might vanish from the county servers (it happened before) I forwarded it to a few local news orgs. I would prefer to think if I had been transferred that I would have come forward anyway once my job felt safer. Unfortunately I will never know for sure despite that it might have had negative consequences for many others to have stayed quiet. It is easy and tempting to say if no one else is going to do or say anything about it and take the heat, then why the h should I? And as usual I waited for what I thought was the last minute to enjoy what I have at the moment in case doing something, or trying to do something, makes it all go sideways. Anyway, its finally going to run what is hopefully what will be a better and maybe eventually a less stressful for me course. If not then at least I finally attempted to do something after years of waiting, stress, and feeling really shty about always staying silent about things like these. This is really a thumbnail version of much deeper b.s. Anyone know a good lawyer?  I kinda get the feeling I might need one soon.  ....

Date: Mon, 11 Jan 2016 16:28:15 -1000

Subject: Delayed response on pressing concerns in the Parks department

Hi. It has been 2 months since I requested to please be told who I can address
complaints in my office about my supervisor and issues I think need to be addressed.
I mentioned that due to the unusual promotion of my current supervisor from a
lower position than mine to be my supervisor which was highly unusual, without
competition, and that came after I was reassured that my supervisor would remain
under the usual chain of command for my position.

When I asked by email and in person who was that person's supervisor to whom
I could appeal and discuss problems with my office, I have not received any response
now for 2 months since the request was made to you November 12th. In every other
position I have worked in the county prior to your placement of me here, I as any
other county employee, had been told who my supervisor's supervisor would be if
I had any problems. No one seems to know this person's actual position or current
job classification, much less who she must report to in the civil service chain. Since I
mentioned my possible intent to file a complaint formally to you in writing it is unusual
that after 2 months I still would not have received an answer to these questions.

It has also been 2 years since the harsh sexual comments and other related comments
regarding that I should not be expected to take sick leave "even if (you) have to spray
(disinfectant) around (you) to keep others from getting sick." were made by one
of my supervisors. According to what I was instructed to do by my union rep, I sent
I registered letter to the mayor's office stating what had happened, along with
my request for a transfer. Despite a supposedly zero tolerance policy for behavior of
that type, especially the sexual comments, not only have I not been transferred yet, even
though an identical position opened up in another district which I was allowed to do
only temporarily, which I had done before, but that my office old office then was shut down and
you relocated me to be in extreme close proximity to the supervisor who made the highly
offensive sexual comments, despite my request not to be moved there. I was also told that I would
not have to have regular contact with him and that my office was to be secluded by a door that
would never be opened. Not only has that person been a regular visitor to my office
several times per day, but saying that was not going to be the case turned out to be
exactly the opposite of what has been the case. There has been no movement that I am
aware of to transfer despite job openings similar to the one I was allowed to be transferred
to but only on a "temporary" basis, though I was complimented by service there, and
that the office I am in is currently highly staffed and in less need of me that the current
open and recently filled positions which came open after my request to transfer which
obvious has not seemed a priority or any serious attempts to transfer me unless I was
willing to take a lower position and a cut in pay.

Though I have been complimented by my finding double bookings due to the software change,
and un-refunded deposits, double bookings are still an issue, and no one has seemingly been
willing to listen to my concerns that automated searches cannot and will not ever find the bulk
of the 300,000 plus deposits which were not refunded because of the ways that those
deposits were entered into the system. It was disturbing to see someone from your office
joking that of those deposits that we are keeping,"if they can't remember they have the
deposits here after years, that is their problem." Most of the deposits I found were not
very far back, and would not have been discovered and refunded by me by the way
that the office was been handing making sure these monies are refunded to the people
who in many instances are probably unaware that we are keeping them due only to
a badly managed transition from one type of software to another. A change which would
have proven extremely costly to the county if it were not for the windfall of keeping these
deposits without the knowledge of those to who the money, at least for the moment
currently belongs. If my request to discuss issues coming out of these with an appropriate
supervisor had not been ignored for months, a good portion of those deposits would have
been able to possibly been refunded already but instead, a self-imposed cut off date
is being imposed for us to simply keep all their deposits is being done before you or anyone
would hear out my concerns on this.

Though there has been some improvement on treating all people fairly in regards to new
permits and deposits, I am still upset that since this administration, we have been told to
mislead or lie to people about what they must pay to hold a social hall. When I ran for office
and debated in the hall beside my office I mentioned that I began my service for the county
one room over. What I wanted to say is that how much money we tell you that you need to pay
depends on many things. If you are aware that you are not required to pay the full amount
we will tell you only need to pay the rent, roughly only 20% of the total cost to hold it, because
that is what the county code says. We have been told not to volunteer this information to generate
higher immediate revenues. Also, that your relationship or friendship with members of the
department meant many people did not need to pay anything and the dates still would be held
for them simply by a phone call from your office, the deputy director's, or the chief's office.
Sometimes these people would not have to pay just before using the halls instead of ahead of
time, and as I mentioned to you, on at least a few occasions did not end up having to pay
anything at all! But that is not the kind of thing I wanted to say at the same venue as the
soon-to-be governor and the mayor were also debating but I sincerely regret not having the balls
to say that. Beyond not wanting to say anything controversial, I did not want it to look like I
was taking sides in the mayor's race or in seeming to support his opponent by bringing that up.
But that has seriously affected my enjoyment of working for the county, being told to mislead
so many people while others pay less or nothing at all to hold dates, while those who don't
have the money continue to lose out to those who have connections, who don't have to pay
the same amounts upfront.

At the last time I was this upset at feeling pressured to quit to avoid ongoing mistreatment and
humiliation was 2 1/2 years ago under the previous director. I was very stressed as you may
remember at having all of my supervisors, plus the chief, plus the director's office ignoring my
emails concerning an ongoing overage in my office which I was not responsible for, and being
told to keep quiet about it, despite the fact that that was highly against the rules and I felt
could lead to my dismissal if the only proof that I was trying to have this looked into and
fixed which I had, those emails, were simply to disappear. You may remember that this was the
email which was mistakenly copied to a county mailing list. That mistake I did not foresee nor
was it the main point. By sending it to the union and including true but misleading statements
about having attempted political asylum and having started a web site "encouraging people
to blow the whistle as I did" made me particularly wary of being asked to conceal something
so important, I was hoping that those unusual things to add in the preface to the email might
get the attention of people in the federal government to look into the wrongdoings of this
department.

Though allegations of misdeeds within the department did get supposedly looked
into, and despite that that email may have brought attention to the possible illegality of
policies and procedures common at the department, it was very telling to me that the one
person 2nd most likely to be able to provide proof of impropriety, myself who handled the
majority, and sometimes nearly all, of the accounting and bookings and would be able to provide
plenty of evidence if asked, was not even asked any questions. I say "2nd most" because all
camping permits for one of our parks was taken over completely by the director's office and no
permit office was told who was being given permits for there nor how much they were paying
to use it, if at all. That campground was often the most variable of fees since it was primarily
allowed only at the discretion of the director for large groups or private parties, which
could owe or be charged upwards of $400 or $500 per event or have those charges waived
completely with simply the verbal word of the director's office not to charge them. The fact
that there was a investigation which seemingly did not look into any of these events definitely
told me to keep quiet about what I knew of getting cleaning reports to withhold deposits
for large events at our largest hall, but for which no permits were ever issued, but were held
only for "possible events" by request of the director's office.

Since my requests to meet with my supervisor's supervisor, you, or anyone to redress
my concerns about the way the refunds from the software changeover are being redressed,
guaranteed to miss the bulk of the money needed to be refunded, most likely by
hundreds of thousands of dollars, nor to transfer me out of this office where bulk of the
impropriety of this departments in-adherence to follow proper and legal procedures
is most manifest, and 2 year plus wait for any possible transfer out of this office or
situation, and given the Mayor's office also had ignored my request for transfer or
for looking into such things, I see little choice but to try the county council. It is nothing
personal but the years of inaction and the fact that nothing seems possible to be
changed without such action. I would be glad to speak with anyone on the council
on any of these matters.

Mahalo and aloha.

Jared DuBois
Maui Parks