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.