House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) launched a new website this week soliciting government whistleblowers. The site is looking for anonymous tips to locate government waste, abuse, and fraud.
Meanwhile, Issa has also promised to investigate Wikileaks, which has been the largest source of whistleblown tips for government waste, abuse, and fraud in recent history.
Issa said his committee would investigate WikiLeaks because it wanted "to get that right so the diplomats can do their job with confidence and people can talk to our government with confidence".
However, in recognition of the probable lack of any existing laws with which to prosecute a foreign news organization for publishing leaked government information, he suggested the new Congress would have to pass legislation to try to prevent "similar acts of whistleblowing". Issa even calls it whistleblowing in both contexts.
This is not a case of one Congressional hand not knowing what the other is doing. Both of these plans came from the same office within a couple weeks of each other. Apparently, with absolutely no recognition of the inherent irony.
Comments
You're equivocating in the use of the word whistleblowing. WikiLeaks is not about revealing waste, fraud and abuse. It's about revealing confidential government records with the intent of doing harm to America's foreign policy. You can solicit information indicating waste, fraud or abuse and at the same time attempt to safeguard State Department internal information not related to waste, fraud or abuse without contradicting yourself.
Hey there Paul, I'm with you - much different.
First, Issa himself used the term "whistleblowing" to describe both situations.
Second, whistleblowing, by definition, is telling a secret that someone is going to find harmful.
Third, there's no evidence I've seen that Wikileaks had an intent to harm our foreign policy. On the contrary, they have worked to redact sensitive information that might compromise anyone's safety. They didn't just toss it all up on the web.
Hi Tim, I added this to my comments after you were kind enough to point out my spelling error.
BTW, Tim, I caught your story : Congressional hypocrites investigate WikiLeaks while soliciting whistle blowers. Got a chuckle from it. Not one I would have written, but *WINK* you did spell the names right.
Again, thanks.
Dev
http://www.examiner.com/independent-in-national/congressional-hypocrites...
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