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Water boarding, Whistle blowing and Water gate

As I reflect on the state of my current Whistle blowing campaign related to Costa Coffee, Moore Stephens and Protiviti Member Firm (Middle East) I recall several interesting recent incidents. The first is my assistance to some of my former colleagues at Protiviti with some contact information which they requested and which I provided to them to assist with a professional audit project. My email, with full details, was neither acknowledged nor apparently appreciated, in spite of its helpful nature. This is in a way not surprising as a Whistle blower is normally considered a pariah of society and fair game until resoundingly proven to be correct after a lengthy campaign. This will be one of the topics discussed in my book which I am currently writing in between reviewing high school trigonometry, irrational fractions and checking literary reviews on the topics of Antigone and a Doll's House, amongst others. This is all part and parcel of being at home with a wide ranging age group of our children who need to continue their international studies in spite of the upheavals created by our early departure from Kuwait recently.

The absolute lack of responses from any of my former colleagues, no doubt cajoled into silence by way of threats to their livelihoods, or simply an uneasy sense of impending doom, reminded me today of Valerie Plame and her husband. You may recall that Valerie Plame was an undercover CIA operative with an 18 year track record, looking for WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction), while her husband was Joseph C Wilson, a US Ambassador. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valerie_Plame . Valerie was exposed in the media through a leak authorized by the Vice President of the USA, Richard Cheney. The leak was handled by Lewis "Scooter" Libby, in a case known as Plamegate. Plamegate, notably homophonous to Watergate, came about in order to silence Joseph C Wilson, a critic of Bush's war in Iraq, who had been publicly discrediting the existence of nuclear weapons production in Iraq. It's interesting to note that Joseph Wilson was apparently told by a reporter on 21 July 2003 that his wife was "fair game". Valerie Wilson ultimately wrote a book called Fair Game, My life as a Spy, my Betrayal by the White House, available on www.amazon.com

This example of an attempt at muzzling a whistle blower (fortunately unsuccessfully) naturally takes us to the next incident, the fact that President Obama has recently released secret documents related to the use of torture during the war on terror, and former Vice President Cheney's counter attack today to prove that the techniques were actually very effective. Although Plamegate, on the face of it, in no way relates to these techniques, the type of underhanded tactics deployed through disinformation and other unconscionable acts well describes the normal modus operandi of those in positions of power bent on retaining their grip in spite of being wrong. Let us review briefly which torture techniques were cleared for usage by the White House under former President Bush and Cheney.

These ten techniques are: (l) attention grasp, (2) walling, (3) facial hold, (4) facial slap (insult slap), (5) cramped confinement, (6) wall standing, (7) stress positions, (8) sleep deprivation, (9) insects placed in a confinement box, and (10) the waterboard. Refer to http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6111109.ece
Following is a comment from Dick Cheney in the media: "I haven't talked about it, but I know specifically of reports that I read, that I saw, that lay out what we learned through the interrogation process and what the consequences were for the country."

By Mike Lukovich. (Source: www.truthdig.com )

I wonder exactly what was learnt during the extensive application of torture techniques, apparently not always following the detailed instructions prescribed in the instructions such as that water boarding "involved strapping a prisoner to a gurney inclined at an angle of "10 to 15 degrees" and pouring water over a cloth covering his nose and mouth "from a height of approximately 6 to 18 inches" for no more than 40 seconds at a time. How many of us would not agree that the earth is flat after an extended period of torture following the sustained application of the above? I remember reading a book on the origins of the NKVD and Stalin's insistence that there were major spy rings in the USSR and his inclusion of the intelligence reports during weekly meetings with his inner circle. The book confirmed that most of the spy reports from the USA prior to World War II were pure fiction, out of fear of repercussions from Stalin by the NKVD spies stationed in the field if they didn't report "what the Chairman wanted to hear". It's not hard to imagine the fate of any US interrogators not supplying Dick Cheney with information in line with his thinking, especially should any such person blow the whistle, combined with the fact that virtually all subjects of such extended torture will in the end agree with your point of view.

It appears that the Watergate scandal, which brought down one Richard but put another Richard firmly on track, does have a lot to do with unfortunate journey into Water Boarding. The aftermath of Watergate confirmed Dick Cheney's modus operandi very early on in his career, when he, together with Donald Rumsfeld, persuaded President Gerald Ford to veto the passing of the Privacy Act of 1974. (www.historycommons.org) The Act was drafted as a response to a need to bring under control the type of privacy related abuses committed by the Nixon Administration, and passed into law by Congress in spite of President Ford's veto. Imagine what the world would look like today if this had not been the case and Dick Cheney & Co had succeeded?

The past decade has seen a substantial improvement in whistle blowing protection legislation, albeit with some resistance from the legislators and the politicians, not unlike the case of the Privacy Act 1974. See http://www.primetimecrime.com/Recent/Investigative/whistleblowers.htm for more articles on whistle blowing legislation and recent cases in the news. However, very little substantial legal protection may exist in other jurisdictions outside of the USA, Europe and Canada. Even US legislation provides limited protection, as I found out when whistle blowing on a foreign issuer in Asia with ADR listed on the NYSE. According to my understanding, the Sarbanes Oxley Act provides protection to whistleblowers, but to my concern it turned out that this only applies to US citizens and employees, not those employed at foreign SEC registrants. See http://www.law.com/jsp/ihc/PubArticleIHC.jsp?id=1137492308702 and http://www.duanemorris.com/alerts/alert2752.html

My forthcoming book will contain a chapter on the state of play of whistle blowing legislation around the world, with helpful tips to ascertain and confirm your legal rights and constraints before getting embroiled in any whistle blowing activities. One hopes that the current groundswell of opinion, resulting in President Obama's decision to treat the unconscionable for what it really is, will result in an absence of Water boarding, greater protection of Whistle blowers universally and the putting to pasture of a generation of Water gaters. If we wish to make real change I guess we need to start at the top of the food chain first.