The objectives of OSC Watch are to expose US Office of Special Counsel lawbreaking since 1989 in failing to protect, as required by 5 USC 1214, the 10,000 or more federal employees who sought its protection from prohibited personnel practices (PPP’s) - not limited to whistleblower reprisal type PPP, but including the 11 (of 12) types of PPP for which OSC has jurisdiction - particularly the 3000 or so who subsequently filed whistleblower appeals at MSPB; along with MSPB’s enabling lawbreaking failure since 1989, per 5 USC 1204, to conduct oversight of OSC’s compliance with 5 USC 1214;

Petition to Congress to conduct oversight of OSC and MSPB

March 2008

Dear Advocate for Merit-Based Federal Civil Service,

OSC Watch is a group of concerned current or former federal employees who claim that the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) has failed to comply with aspects of its non-discretionary duties as an investigatory agency to the 10,000 or more federal employees who sought its protection from prohibited personnel practices (PPP’s), particularly the whistleblower reprisal type PPP, since being created as an independent agency in 1989.

OSC Watch has 3 objectives:

1) expose OSC’s lawbreaking, 2 stop it, and 3) obtain some measure of justice for the direct victims of OSC’s lawbreaking since 1989. To advance those ends, OSC Watch has prepared the attached petition to Congress, which already has an impressive list of names on it. OSC Watch has decided to keep the petition open until COB on March 31, 2008 so more parties - people or organizations can join it. Following that, it will be sent to Congress.Additional parties will be able to join following March 31, 2008 and subsequent revisions of the petition will show the parties who joined after March 31, 2008.

OSC Watch accepts that some of the petition’s claims could be dispelled via Congressional oversight and that some parties might want to qualify their endorsement of the entire petition.It is fine for a party to add qualifying language as “agrees in principle, but not necessarily with every particular claim” in joining the petition.

The petition is just that - a petition - intended to spur the Congressional oversight necessary to substantiate or dispel its claims and, if substantiated (in whole or part), to spur additional appropriate Congressional action.Parties that wish to join the petition can do so via the OSC Watch website or by sending an email to Traci Hallstrom, the Communication Director for OSC Watch traci.hallstrom@gmail.com.

OSC Watch much appreciates GAP’s support of the principles of this petition and its objectives and the interest POGO has shown in it too.

Respectfully,

Traci Hallstrom
Communication Director, OSC Watch.org

**********************************************

December 2007
PETITION TO CONGRESS TO CONDUCT OVERSIGHT OF OFFICE OF SPECIAL
COUNSEL (OSC) AND MERIT SYSTEMS PROTECTION BOARD (MSPB) COMPLIANCE
WITH LAW TO PROTECT FEDERAL EMPLOYEES FROM PROHIBITED PERSONNEL
PRACTICES (PPP’S)

The undersigned organizations and individuals respectfully request
Congress discharge its oversight authority, per 5 USC 1217, of OSC’s
compliance with aspects of its statutory duties to protect federal
employees from PPP’s, particularly whistleblower reprisal, and to
conduct oversight, per 5 USC 1205, the compliance of the Merit
Systems Protection Board (MSPB) with its statutory duty to conduct
oversight of OSC’s performance in protecting federal employees from PPP’s.

This petition is largely about OSC’s compliance with a single
subsection of law, 5 USC 1214(e), by which OSC is to report to the
involved agency head, for any investigation it conducts per 1214 or
1216, its determination of “reasonable cause to believe” there has
been a violation of any law, rule, or regulation. We understand OSC
claims that 1214(e) does not apply to the laws by which it conducts
investigations per 1214 and 1216 and that OSC has complete discretion
in reporting its determinations of violation of any law, rule, or
regulation not under its enforcement jurisdiction. The incontestable
fact is that OSC has not, since this law was created in 1989, made a
single 1214(e) report, not in about 8000 field investigations
conducted, based on a review of its Annual Reports to Congress and
its public records maintained at its Washington, DC office.

Instead, it appears to be OSC’s position that the only time it must
report its determination of a violation of a law under its
enforcement authority is when it makes the discretionary decision
to prosecute it at MSPB per 1215. We do not believe the law gives
OSC this discretion to limit its reporting its determinations of
violations of law to the (few) cases it decides to prosecute at MSPB
per 1215. We petition Congress to conduct oversight over this OSC
interpretation of 1214(e), some of its other statutory obligations,
and the compliance of MSPB with its responsibilities to conduct
oversight of OSC as described in the following:

1. OSC fails to comply with its fundamental statutory duty to
the approximately 1800 federal employees who annually seek its
protection from prohibited personnel practices (PPP’s), particularly
whistleblower reprisal - it fails to make and appropriately report,
per 5 USC 1214(a)(1)(A), (a)(2)(A), (b)(2)(A), (b)(2)(B), (e), 1218,
and/or 1219(a)(3), its required PPP determination “whether there are
reasonable grounds to believe a PPP has occurred, exists, or is to be
taken.” No one, including the complainants, Congress, the public, the
Merit Systems Protection Board, the heads of involved agencies, and
the Office of Personnel Management know the facts about OSC’s
implementation of its fundamental statutory duty as an investigatory
agency - to make and appropriately report its PPP determinations.
Among other things, OSC’s failure to comply with its statutory duties
make it impossible for heads of agencies to comply with their duty,
per 2302( c), to “prevent PPP’s” in their agencies.

2. As demonstrated in a recent federal court decision (Carson v.
OSC, docket no. 06-1833, Federal District Court for the District of
Columbia), OSC fails to provide the federal employees who seek its
protection the statutory required information, per 5 USC
1214(a)(2)(A), and the “termination statement” found in the notes of
1214, particularly prejudicing the ability of complainants alleging
whistleblower reprisal to obtain subsequent relief from the MSPB via
whistleblower appeals.

3. OSC unlawfully suspends its investigation of whistleblower
reprisal PPP complaints if the complaint files a whistleblower appeal
with MSPB per 5 USC 1214(a)(3)(B) and 1221, contrary to the interests
of the complainant and contrary to 1214(a)(4).

4. OSC, when it fails to make its required PPP determination
within the 240 day limit of 1214(b)(2)(A), unlawfully threatens to
close its PPP investigation unless the complainant agrees to an
open-ended extension of time, it will not agreed to complete its
investigation and make its PPP determination within a specified time.

5. OSC’s non-compliance with its aspects of its duties to
protect federal employees from PPP’s is enabled by the failure of
MSPB to conduct oversight of OSC’s performance of this function, its
primary one. By 1204(a)(3) and (e)(3) MSPB is authorized and
required to conduct oversight of OSC and other agencies necessary to
determine and report to Congress and the President “whether the
public interest in a civil service free of PPP’s is being adequately
protected.” Given that OSC is the agency specifically charged to
protect federal employees from PPP’s, MSPB cannot comply with its
duties and make its required determination and report unless it
regularly conducts oversight of OSC’s performance in this area,
something it has not done since this requirement was created in 1989.

6. OSC, for reasons described above, fails to report its
determinations of apparent Hatch Act violations per 5 USC 1214(e),
1218, and 1219(a)(3). According to an recent OSC FOIA response, it
has made 1,181 such determinations, based on investigations conducted
per 1216, since 1989.

7. OSC fails to investigate the findings of Federal Judges of
possible agency FOIA malfeasance, made per 5 USC 552(a)(4)(F) and
reported to OSC per 5 USC 1216(a)(3), per 552 and 1216. It fails to
report the findings and determinations of these investigations per
552, 1214(e), 1218, and/or 1219(a)(3). According to the limited
information provided in its Annual Reports to Congress, OSC has
conducted at least 40 such field investigations since 1989

8. Finally, Special Counsel Bloch, in writing, has repeatedly
claimed to Congress that OSC’s Annual Report to Congress comply with
1218, but when those claims are challenged in Court (Carson v. OSC,
docket no. 07-443, Federal District Court for the District of
Columbia), instead of defending the completeness and accuracy of its
Annual Reports to Congress, OSC claims its compliance with 1218 is
now a matter of its discretion, so that it can apparently claim
whatever it wants in this report.

Respectfully,

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