For six months, the Intelligence Community Inspector General office
investigated the cases of 190 whistleblowers who went through US spy
agency channels to report corruption, waste, fraud, abuse and
criminality, discovering that the overwhelming majority had faced some
combination of indefinite delays and retaliation (being fired, facing
paycuts and demotions, being passed over for promotions, etc) – only
one of the 190 whistleblowers had their case upheld, and that took 742
days.
The investigation was part of the aftermath of the Edward Snowden leaks,
in which establishment figures repeatedly claimed that Snowden should
have taken his concerns through the internal complaints process (Snowden
did, in fact, do this) – from Obama to the DNI to innumerable
bloviators from the Democratic and Republican talkingheadoverse,
everyone was dead certain that the US spy agencies had excellent
internal watchdogs that took complaints seriously.
The same claims have been made about other whistleblowers since, like Reality Winner.
Back in April, the Inspector General’s office stopped work on their
investigation and nearly completed report and canceled the project,
something the IG’s office blamed on its discovery that one of its own
investigators was a whistleblower who was suing the CIA in federal
court.
The spy agencies are in the midst of a cold war with the President, who
has repeatedly disparaged them and their work, and are struggling to
recruit and retain their top talent (many top spies are moving to
military contractors who bill out their services to their former
employers at a significant markup, while also renting them out to do
work spying on behalf of corporations and other governments).
The collapse of the whistleblower retaliation report is sure to further
demoralize and undermine spy-agency staff, exacerbating this problem. It
also virtually guarantees more leaks, as spies who worry that their
bosses are crooked, or incompetent, or both, take their documents to the
press rather than their superiors, who keep demonstrating that they
will do nothing to act on these reports or protect the people who make
them.
