The drama of of Scott Bloch’s tenure at OSC
By Joe Carson - whsknox.blogs.com/osc_watch
The drama of Scott Bloch’s tenure at OSC, somewhat described in
the following Wall St. Journal story, occurs in a context of OSC’s
failure, since it was created as an independent agency in 1989, to
comply with its fundamental duty as an investigatory agency - 1) to
investigate allegations of violations of laws under its jurisdiction,
including Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), Hatch Act, and federal
agency engaging in prohibited personnel practices (PPP’s),
particularly whistleblower reprisal, against federal employees, 2) to
determine “whether there is reasonable grounds (or cause) to believe”
violations of these laws occurred, and 3) if so, report its positive
determinations to the involved agency head, obtain an agency-head
certified response, and make its report and the agency’s response
publicly available.
OSC, since 1989, has conducted about 8000 field investigations and
has not, contrary to law, created public records when its
investigations result in determinations of “reasonable grounds
(cause) to believe” there were violations of the laws authorizing its
investigation. That is the context in which Scott Bloch apparently
perceives he does not have to provide information about OSC
operations to anyone else.
OSC Watch consists of victims of OSC’s failure to
comply with its statutory duty to protect federal employees from
agency PPP’s and their advocates. Its three objective are: 1) expose
OSC’s lawbreaking, 2) stop OSC’s lawbreaking, and 3) obtain some
measure of justice for the 10,000 or more direct victims of OSC’s
lawbreaking since 1989. OSC Watch was co-founded by Joe Carson, PE,
the current “dean” of federal whistleblowers, who has prevailed in
numerous whistleblower related litigation as a nuclear safety
engineer at Dept. of Energy (DOE)
years ago, he realized that the reason DOE could slap him around,
with apparent impunity, for doing his duty to protect public health
and safety, was the same reason other federal agencies can slap
around their concerned employees - OSC fails to comply with its
fundamental obligation to concerned federal employees who seeks its
protection by failing to make and appropriately report its
determinations of “reasonable grounds to believe” agency PPP’s have
occurred, leaving everyone in the dark, enabling agency lawbreaking
against their concerned employees.
He thinks OSC’s failure to comply with its duties to protect
concerned federal employees contributed at least, to 9/11, loss of
space shuttle Columbia, failure of levees in New Orleans, inept FEMA
response to Katrina, and countless other instances of federal
incompetence or malfeasance since 1989. He fears it could contribute
to a nuclear 9/11 if not exposed and stopped.
As the following story implies, there is no Inspector General with
jurisdiction over OSC. It is a mole-like, small (110 employee),
agency that has created bizarre interpretations of the law it is
charged to implement. Mole-like, it has issued no regulations
describing its implementation of those laws and why it does not have
to report its determination of their violation. This has remained
“under the radar” from 1989 to now.
The attached files show some of the bases of his claims and that his
claims have the support of the leading whistleblower protection
advocacy group in the Country, the Government Accountability Project
(GAP). In a FOIA response about its investigations of possible
Hatch Act violations since 1989, OSC admits it made 1181
determinations of Hatch Act violations without once issuing the
required report to the involved agency head. In a recent ruling a
Federal Judge found OSC failed to provide statutory required
information about its investigation and determinations of a PPP
complaint to the federal employee who sought its protection.
For OSC Watch
Joe Carson, PE
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