Policy Fellow Matt Rumsey wrote this post.

The Senate Homeland Security Committee held a business meeting yesterday morning where they discussed a number of measures, including S. 743, the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2011. The Act is intended to renew and strengthen previous whistleblower protection legislation passed in 1989.

According to the Project on Government Oversight, the bill has 14 cosponsors and support from more than 400 groups and 50 members of the Make it Safe coalition.

According to Senator Daniel Akaka (D-HI), who sponsored the bill, federal courts have interpreted the original act in a way that is inconsistent with congressional intent. These interpretations have proved harmful for whistleblowers. Akaka introduced his bill in order to solve these issues.

Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) noted that a similar bill had been passed by the Senate last year, but the House of Representatives had stripped it of provisions protecting intelligence community personnel. The bill ultimately failed. This year, according to Collins, the two chambers "worked to achieve a consensus on how intelligence commuity personnel should be handled" that is now reflected in the bill.

Before voting on the bill, Senator Akaka introduced an amendment to clarify provisions on nondisclosure agreements, give the Government Accountability Office more time to review the bill, and provide the Defense Department with access to information and consultation rights in some of the intelligence provisions. The amended bill was passed by the committee via a voice vote and will now advance to the full Senate.

The committee also considered and passed S. 1409, the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act of 2011 and S. 237, the Government Accountability Office Improvement Act of 2011, in addition to a number of other measures.

A webcast of the entire hearing is available here.

Thanks to PopVox, you can view and search the bill text below.

Here are some of the more interesting media mentions of Sunlight and our friends and allies over the past week:

National Journal's Eliza Newlin Carney wrote about how the health care industry is unleashing big money as the health care debate in Congress intensifies. She notes the blog post from Paul Blumenthal, Sunlight's senior writer, about how five of Sen. Max Baucus' (Mont.) former staff members now work for a total of 27 different organizations that either represent the health care or insurance industries, or have a vested interest in the debate. She also quotes Paul, "We thought it was important to show the public that the senators aren't crafting the policy by themselves. They have all these other connections, through relationships, that have a huge stake in this legislation." Trudy Lieberman with the Columbia Journalism Review also highlighted and linked to Paul's post and the graphic he and Kerry Mitchell, Sunlight's creative director, produced. The "study shows exactly what advocates of real and substantive health reform are up against," Lieberman wrote, adding that Sunlight provides clarity on just who has the senator’s ear.

Speaking of Kerry's graphic art skills, The New York Times' "First Look" blog includes one of his illustrations in a post highlighting great visualizations created by designers using the Times APIs that "both beautify and clarify information." Kerry's graphic illustrates the Times' usage of the word "transparency" since 1990.

David Talbot at MIT's Technology Review, in an article how volunteers are using the Web to help make the U.S. government more accountable, highlighted Transparency Corps. Talbot quoted Clay Johnson, director of Sunlight Labs, "Government puts out a ton of data that is really interesting about what it does, but people can't understand it." Transparency Corps launch roughly coincided with the launch earlier this month of the White House's IT Dashboard, the administration's effort to chart the progress of information-technology projects in various federal agencies. The article quotes Andrew Rasiej, Sunlight's senior technology advisor and co-founder of Personal Democracy Forum, saying the dashboard may be just the tip of the iceberg heralding a new age of transparency regarding federal spending. "Once people get used to this type of information being so readily accessible, they will demand to see (it) for all other federal spending too, and then the genie will be completely out of the bottle."

Dan Eggen at The Washington Post wrote how the debate about health-care reform has been a boon to the political fortunes of the 52 members of the Blue Dog Coalition, who have become key brokers in shaping legislation in the House. Eggan used Party Time data to show show U.S. Rep. Mike Ross (Ark.), a leader of the Blue Dogs, has had a steady schedule of fundraising events sponsored by the health industry or lobbying firms that represent health-care companies. Eggen used data from the Center for Responsive Politics that showed Ross had received nearly $1 million in contributions from the health-care sector and insurance industry during his five terms in Congress. On the topic of Party Time, be sure not to miss National Journal's interview with Party Time's director Nancy Watzman.

The (Riverside, Calif.) Press-Enterprise quotes data from Taxpayers for Common Sense that shows the $636 billion military spending bill passed Thursday by the House contains 1,100 earmarks totaling roughly $2.75 billion. Rep. Jerry Lewis (Calif.) inserted 19 earmarks worth more than $70 million for defense firms with Inland Southern California branches and other area institutions, according to Taxpayers.

Joe Davidson, "Federal Diary" columnist for The Washington Post, wrote about how 10 years of work paid off Wednesday when the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs advanced S. 372, the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2009, meant to further protect federal whistleblowers. Because of important differences between the House and the Senate on the bill, there was real concern that the legislation would flounder. But "shuttle diplomacy" conducted by the Obama White House "left those involved feeling as if they gained more than they gave up," Davidson wrote. He quoted Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, "There were genuine concerns that people worked through. It's the way you want government to work."

PC World reports on a call from the Center for Democracy and Technology to the Obama administration to answer several questions about the privacy implications of a new version of a computer intrusion detection system that can reportedly read email. On Tuesday, CDT released a report (PDF) calling on the administration to provide information about the legal authority for the so-called Einstein intrusion detection system currently being employed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Resource Shelf, a daily newsletter with resources of interest to information professionals, educators and journalists, highlighted OpenCongress' redesign. "If you or those you work with have any interest in the workings of the U.S. Congress and related matters, OpenCongress is one impressive (and free) resource," the post says. "We strongly recommend taking a look at it."

This morning a letter was sent by numerous organization recommending Whistleblower protection initiatives to enhance accountability Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008.

Here is the letter in full.

Dear Inspector General Barofsky,

As Congress considers whether and how to release the second $350 billion tranche under the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (EESA), we write to share our perspective as the nation's largest and oldest whistleblower protection organizations, government watchdogs, scientists, taxpayer advocates, and on behalf of small property owners across the country.  We congratulate you on your appointment as Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and offer our enthusiastic support for your efforts to ensure that any tax dollars allocated to the TARP program be spent transparently, according to the law and the intent of Congress, as outlined in your January 23 letter to Senator Charles Grassley. We also wish to share our recommendations for carrying out this vital task.

Whistleblowers, those who risk their careers and livelihoods to challenge betrayals of the public trust, can play a vital role in allowing your office to effectively hold the Administration and the financial services industry accountable for expenditures of the TARP money.  However, a paper accountability mandate will prove impossible to enforce without cooperation from those who can bear witness to past and potential misconduct.  We encourage you to send a loud and clear signal to would-be witnesses that you will protect courageous individuals who are willing to speak out in defense of the taxpayers. The environment that caused the economic collapse was sustained by failing to heed the warnings of whistleblowers at all levels of the financial industry and in the government-from loan origination to the bundling, rating, and insuring of mortgage backed securities.  As the Justice Department has frequently recognized in the context of contracting fraud, an effective whistleblower system acts as an early warning system to prevent far more misconduct than it reveals. As you likely know, the House version of the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009" wisely includes whistleblower protections for employees of contractors and grantees who receive stimulus funds. As Congress considers policy prescriptions to prevent a recurrence of the economic nightmare, if your input is sought, we ask that you indicate the importance of "best practices" whistleblower protections for employees in the industry and in government who identify violations of law and who challenge conduct that places excessive risk on the integrity of financial institutions. However, with the Administration and Congress currently focused on an economic stimulus plan, efforts to reform the financial services industry may be many months away.  We encourage you in the short term to consider the following concrete steps to provide interim whistleblower and accountability measures that are possible to implement within the structure of the already-passed EESA: As an initial step, the web site for the office of the TARP Special IG should signal that it will have a zero tolerance policy for retaliation against witnesses who make disclosures in the course of IG audits and investigations, including private citizens who inform your office of wrongdoing.  The web site should remind industry and government audiences of potential criminal liability and referrals to the Attorney General for any efforts to obstruct justice by threatening or harassing witnesses. Second, all TARP IG staff should be trained to recognize, respond to, and investigate cases of reprisal. Counsel with subject matter expertise from our coalition will volunteer to share our accumulated knowledge however helpful. Next, we believe financial institutions should be encouraged to adopt internal whistleblower protection and disclosure programs through a "corporate compliance" program, modeled on a similar Department of Justice initiative that has been in existence for decades.  The IG should inform institutions participating in the bailout that whether the institution has adopted a legitimate, internal whistleblower program will be one of the criteria in determining if any misconduct discovered through IG audits and investigations is considered a good faith aberration capable of self-correction, or should be investigated and referred to the AG for prosecution. Consistent with this, companies should be encouraged to implement a "best practices" whistleblower hotline to the Audit committee of their Board of Directors for disclosures of misconduct. We also encourage you to construe the IG's duties and reporting requirements to include a section on whistleblower activity and any efforts to control waste, fraud and abuse in bailout spending by implementing any whistleblower protection measures. Lastly, your office should insist that the Financial Stability Oversight Board carry out its duty of (3) reporting any suspected fraud, misrepresentation, or malfeasance to the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Assets Relief Program or the Attorney General of the United States..." While the Oversight Board has met at least five times since the law passed, it has yet to address how it will carry out its responsibility to report fraud, waste or abuse to your office or the Attorney General.  We encourage you to brief the inter-agency Oversight Board on any structures in place to facilitate such reporting. We appreciate your consideration of these recommendations and the important positive impact they can have on the spending program.  We would be pleased to offer additional information or details if requested.  We encourage you to follow up with Tom Devine, tomd@whistleblower.org, or Adam Miles, adamm@whistleblower.org, of the Government Accountability Project, at 202-547-0034. Sincerely, Tom Devine Government Accountability Project F. Patricia Callahan American Association of Small Property Owners Pete Sepp National Taxpayers Union Patrice McDermott OpenTheGovernment.org Ellen Miller Sunlight Foundation Celia Wexler Union of Concerned Scientists Sean Moulton OMB Watch Steve Kohn National Whistleblower Center Terry Francke Californians Aware Mark Zaid James Madison Project