FederalDaily - February 16, 2007
Panel Blocks Biggs Nomination to SSA Post
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., said his panel will not consider the nomination
of Andrew Biggs to the No. 2 position at the Social Security Administration (SSA). An advocate of privatizing
Social Security, Biggs was nominated by President Bush to a six-year term as deputy commissioner of
SSA. Biggs’ essential failing, Baucus said, was his outspoken enthusiasm for Bush’s unsuccessful
plan two years ago to let people divert some of their Social Security taxes into private investment
accounts. “Mr. Biggs has championed Social Security privatization in the past, and he continues
to think it’s a good idea today,” said Baucus on Feb. 14. “It’s a bad idea
to give the No. 2 position at the Social Security Administration to someone who still supports that
failed proposal,” he said. Biggs is now the associate commissioner for retirement policy at SSA.
Previously, Biggs served as assistant director of the Cato Institute’s Project on Social Security
Choice. To see more, go to: www.senate.gov/~finance/press/Bpress/2007press/prb0201407a.pdf
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Committee Approves Whistleblower Law Overhaul
By a unanimous 28-0 vote, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee approved legislation
to overhaul whistleblower law and strengthen protections for federal government employees who disclose
agency misdeeds. The Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2007, H.R. 985, introduced by Reps.
Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and Tom Davis, R-Va., would shield from retribution federal employees who disclose “any” waste,
fraud or abuse. The bill would restore whistleblower protections that were stripped from the law in
a Supreme Court decision last year, said Tom Devine, legal director for Government Accountability Project
(GAP), a whistleblower advocacy group. Notably, Devine said, the legislation would strengthen the due-process
enforcement structure. The bill would grant whistleblowers the right to challenge reprisals in federal
district court if the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) does not take action on their claims within
180 days. Also, GAP said, it would make permanent the anti-gag statute—a rider in the Treasury
Postal Appropriations bill for the past 17 years—that bans illegal agency gag orders. “If
this legislation becomes law, it will create a gold standard for public employee free speech rights,
and a breakthrough for government accountability,” Devine said on Feb. 14. To see more, go to: www.whistleblower.org
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Army Translator Pleads Guilty to Secrets Charges
An U.S. Army contract translator pleaded guilty to illegally possessing national defense documents,
which included details of the 82nd Airborne Division’s mission in Iraq in regard to combating
insurgent activity. The defendant, whose true name and identity remains unknown, admitted to using
a false identity to procure his U.S. citizenship and to gain access to classified military materials,
the Department of Justice (DOJ) said on Feb. 14. In August 2003, the defendant used a false identity
to gain a position as an Arabic translator for the L-3 Titan Corp., which provides translation services
in Iraq for U.S. military personnel. The defendant then used the same false identity fraudulently to
obtain “Secret” and then “Top Secret” security clearances, later using those
clearances to take secret documents, DOJ said. While assigned to an intelligence group in the 82nd
Airborne at Al Taqqadam Air Base, the defendant downloaded a classified document and took hard copies
of several other classified documents, DOJ said. The defendant faces a maximum sentence of 60 years
in prison. To see more, go to: www.usdoj.gov/usao/nye/pr/2007/2007Feb14.htm
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