In followup to my post of Jan. 30, 2012 "Can You Sue the Government? FDA Whistleblowers Sue Over Surveillance of Personal e-Mail" I provide a link to a probing letter from Darrell Issa, Chairman, US House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to Margaret Hamburg MD, Commissioner of the FDA.
The letter raises the issue that FDA's email monitoring of "whistleblowers" communicating with Congress was illegal ("unlawful, and will not be tolerated"), and the illegality was further compounded by harassment and retaliation against the "whistleblowers."
Many probing "who? why? when?" questions are asked of FDA.
I do not have free text of this letter, just a link to images of the letter. I cannot post the text (no access to OCR of a PDF at the moment), but the letter images are here:
http://www.whistleblowers.org/storage/whistleblowers/documents/FDAComplaint/issaletter.fdaspying.pdf
Worth reading in its entirety.
-- SS
It has already been settled that employers can look at what employees write on company-, or agency-, owned devices at will.
ReplyDeleteSo, is Rep. Issa saying that there's some kind of exception to this if the employees are communicating with Congress? How does that work in practice, and where in the law can I read of this exception?
Bob
So, is Rep. Issa saying that there's some kind of exception to this if the [federal] employees are communicating with Congress?
ReplyDeleteYes indeed. See the letter.
-- SS
Specifically, see paragraph 2 and footnote.
ReplyDelete-- SS
Well, let's hope those guilty of breaking the law are punished instead of those trying to protect patients.
ReplyDeleteI have one issue with Rep. Issa's letter. Even though he helpks write the laws, he is not the arbiter of the laws, the courts are. Unless aa judge says it, you are not in violation of any law not matter what the law says on its face.
Good luck with that, lawyers stick together.
Unless a judge says it, you are not in violation of any law not matter what the law says on its face.
ReplyDeleteAgreed, but again, and hopefully a judge will realize, these are not employees of a private company.
They are government employees (i.e., they work for *us* - the public), and their reporting of 'anomalies' to Congress is in reality intra-governmental reporting that the public (served by that government) expects.
-- SS
It behooves Rep. Issa to investigate the deception and fraud of the HIT industry.
ReplyDeleteSimply follow the money and ask, why is the FDA not regulating the devices produced by the HIT industry and what did the Secretary of HHS say to the leadership of the FDA on same issue?