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