Latest News and Efforts from the Government Accountability ProjectUSDA's Linda Lewis returns to work
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27 Jan 2003 21:45:01 -0000
USDA's Linda Lewis returns to work
Martin Edwin Andersen
<b><i>USDA whistleblower on terrorist risk<br>
against U.S. food supply returned to job</b></i>
<i>For Immediate Release For further information, please contact:</i><br>
Tom Devine or Martin Edwin Andersen<br>
(202) 408-0034, or<br>
Don Soeken (301) 776-2223<br>
<br>
<br>
A U.S. Department of Agriculture emergency planning specialist who blew the whistle on the USDA's failure to protect Americans from terrorist attack on our nation’s food supply returned to work today, January 27. Linda Lewis was placed on home leave for two years and lost her security clearance in reprisal for her disclosures about vulnerabilities of the U.S. food supply in the advent of a terrorist strike. “I have not been given an official explanation for the sudden decision to request my return to work,” Lewis declared. “I am happy to know that the proposal to remove me has been withdrawn after two years. However, I cannot be certain they will not try again to remove me.” Whistleblower advocates say they will be carefully monitoring Lewis’ work conditions, including her job assignments, to ensure that the return to work order will not serve as a pretext for her eventual back-door dismissal.
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“The jury is out whether USDA will let this public servant start defending the taxpayers again,” said Tom Devine, legal director of the Government Accountability Project (GAP), a Washington, D.C. based whistleblower support organization. GAP recently voted to join Lewis' counsel team headed by attorney David Nolan. Added Devine: "Under the circumstances I think we should be cautiously optimistic but also wary—because the jury's out whether USDA is going to stop wasting one of nation's premier emergency planning experts and let her help defend safety of nation's food supply, or whether this is just the latest tactic in over three years of Kafkaesque harassment.”
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“Linda's return is fraught with danger since the Department of Agriculture ignored their own physician's evaluation and forced Linda to take a psychiatric fitness for duty exam from a ‘hired gun’ psychologist, added Don Soeken, president of Integrity International, another public interest group. “Linda is one of a few federal employees trained as an emergency management specialist. During these times of national emergency it is a monumental blunder for the Department of Agriculture to ignore her warnings about the food supply related to attacks on nuclear facilities.”
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Lewis’s new job will be working as one of a team of four in a new USDA office of scientific and technical support in the Office of External Relations and Emergency Planning. However, the activities and structure of the new office reportedly are "still being worked out” and both Lewis’s new supervisor and her new timekeeper work in a building different from hers. Lewis said that even before returning to her new job, she learned that several of the people who had abused her in the past were working nearby or even in her new office. Her treatment by these individuals, Lewis recalled, which ranged from extreme verbal abuse and being forced, without cause, to seek psychiatric evaluation, “left me feeling frustrated, depressed, humiliated and victimized.”
<br>
<br>
The decision to put Lewis back to work represented an about-face by USDA senior management. On Wednesday, June 19, USDA held secret hearing for Lewis where she was required to defend herself from unspecified charges. Although no classified information was involved, USDA would not allow observers and would not allow Lewis to present or cross-examine witnesses, nor was she allowed to appear before the judges who made a decision on her top secret security clearance. A single USDA official decided how much of her defense was allowed into the official record for review by the unidentified judges. Lewis was also required to be present her defense in writing before she learned of the details of the charges against her.
<br>
<br>
“Now, I'm about to go walk back into that place, with no more protection that I had the first time,” Lewis said. “If anything, USDA officials will be more hostile as a result of my public activism over the last three years. But, I know I must go back, to send the message that leaving Americans vulnerable to harm and attacking their protectors is not acceptable, and will not be easy. I must go back, because there is a tiny chance that I might be able to make a difference, as I hoped to do when I became a federal employee.”
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USDA's Linda Lewis returns to work
Martin Edwin Andersen
<b><i>USDA whistleblower on terrorist risk<br>
against U.S. food supply returned to job</b></i>
<i>For Immediate Release For further information, please contact:</i><br>
Tom Devine or Martin Edwin Andersen<br>
(202) 408-0034, or<br>
Don Soeken (301) 776-2223<br>
<br>
<br>
A U.S. Department of Agriculture emergency planning specialist who blew the whistle on the USDA's failure to protect Americans from terrorist attack on our nation’s food supply returned to work today, January 27. Linda Lewis was placed on home leave for two years and lost her security clearance in reprisal for her disclosures about vulnerabilities of the U.S. food supply in the advent of a terrorist strike. “I have not been given an official explanation for the sudden decision to request my return to work,” Lewis declared. “I am happy to know that the proposal to remove me has been withdrawn after two years. However, I cannot be certain they will not try again to remove me.” Whistleblower advocates say they will be carefully monitoring Lewis’ work conditions, including her job assignments, to ensure that the return to work order will not serve as a pretext for her eventual back-door dismissal.
<br>
<br>
“The jury is out whether USDA will let this public servant start defending the taxpayers again,” said Tom Devine, legal director of the Government Accountability Project (GAP), a Washington, D.C. based whistleblower support organization. GAP recently voted to join Lewis' counsel team headed by attorney David Nolan. Added Devine: "Under the circumstances I think we should be cautiously optimistic but also wary—because the jury's out whether USDA is going to stop wasting one of nation's premier emergency planning experts and let her help defend safety of nation's food supply, or whether this is just the latest tactic in over three years of Kafkaesque harassment.”
<br>
<br>
“Linda's return is fraught with danger since the Department of Agriculture ignored their own physician's evaluation and forced Linda to take a psychiatric fitness for duty exam from a ‘hired gun’ psychologist, added Don Soeken, president of Integrity International, another public interest group. “Linda is one of a few federal employees trained as an emergency management specialist. During these times of national emergency it is a monumental blunder for the Department of Agriculture to ignore her warnings about the food supply related to attacks on nuclear facilities.”
<br>
<br>
Lewis’s new job will be working as one of a team of four in a new USDA office of scientific and technical support in the Office of External Relations and Emergency Planning. However, the activities and structure of the new office reportedly are "still being worked out” and both Lewis’s new supervisor and her new timekeeper work in a building different from hers. Lewis said that even before returning to her new job, she learned that several of the people who had abused her in the past were working nearby or even in her new office. Her treatment by these individuals, Lewis recalled, which ranged from extreme verbal abuse and being forced, without cause, to seek psychiatric evaluation, “left me feeling frustrated, depressed, humiliated and victimized.”
<br>
<br>
The decision to put Lewis back to work represented an about-face by USDA senior management. On Wednesday, June 19, USDA held secret hearing for Lewis where she was required to defend herself from unspecified charges. Although no classified information was involved, USDA would not allow observers and would not allow Lewis to present or cross-examine witnesses, nor was she allowed to appear before the judges who made a decision on her top secret security clearance. A single USDA official decided how much of her defense was allowed into the official record for review by the unidentified judges. Lewis was also required to be present her defense in writing before she learned of the details of the charges against her.
<br>
<br>
“Now, I'm about to go walk back into that place, with no more protection that I had the first time,” Lewis said. “If anything, USDA officials will be more hostile as a result of my public activism over the last three years. But, I know I must go back, to send the message that leaving Americans vulnerable to harm and attacking their protectors is not acceptable, and will not be easy. I must go back, because there is a tiny chance that I might be able to make a difference, as I hoped to do when I became a federal employee.”
<br>
<br>
--30--
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