Sam Smith
It is easy these days to give up on
Washington ever doing anything right. Which is one reason I've enjoyed
being on the board of the Fund for Constitutional Government for the
past quarter century. The fund, started by the late Stewart Mott, has
helped create and support groups that have blown whistles, gone to
court, raised hell, saved citizens and exasperated tormentors in an
extraordinary variety of ways.
Its board and its fundees are a
walking Wikipedia of what's wrong with Washington but also what to do
about it. To sit with these folks for four and a half hours several
times a year makes you feel that maybe there is still a chance for this
fair land. And it can make a difference. One day I picked up the New
York Times and found three articles and one editorial that cited the
groups FCG helps to the fund.
This week I was struck by
executive director Conrad Martin's description of the numerous legal
technicalities of accounting for different non-profits - some of which
we merely fund and others we parent. Wouldn't it be nice, I thought, if
those at the top of our government were as diligent at enforcing the
Constitution as the IRS was at enforcing minor details? But it's the way
Washington works: one form can get you in trouble, while, if you're
important enough, what happens to 55,000 emails is just another media
problem.
At our meetings there are always some
surprises. At the last FCG gathering we had talked about the work of the
Government Accountability Project in providing legal representation to
Edward Snowden. This time, however, GAP president Louis Clark spent more
time talking about its work in attempting to end the abuses at meat
processing operations. How many people do you know who can take on NSA
and Hormel all in the same day's work?
And that's far from all.
Back in 2011, with the help of GAP, the SEC established a whistleblower
program as part of the Dodd Frank law. Since then more than 6500
whistleblowers from 68 countries have approached the agency and scores
have received significant monetary awards from the money that the
government has recovered.
Of course, the bad guys can still get
worse. For example, corporations are now coming up with things like
draconian nondisclosure agreements to keep their wrongdoing secret and
some banks have threatened to bring criminal charges against employees
who release their documents, even if they reveal criminal activities.
Our
afternoon goes on. I learn that Open the Government, along with other
groups, got the Senate Committee on Intelligence to release a summary of
its investigation into the CIA torture program The Project on
Government Oversight revealed that a top Treasury nominee was going to
receive more than $20 million from his Wall Street firm if he took a
government job. The nominee, Antoni Weiss, eventually withdrew his
nomination albeit sadly taking a job with Treasury Secretary Jack Lew
that didn't require Senate confirmation.
The Tax Justice Network
continues to work on ways to reduce the amount of offshore tax
avoidance. And the Peace & Security Funders Group brings together
the backer of peace groups to discuss common problems and possible
solutions.
Finally, as I've come to expect, Marc Rotenberg of
the Electronic Privacy Information Center raises some issues I hadn't
expected. Like the possibility that the Siri lady and my Samsung TV
might be listening to me. As well as some issues that are sadly
familiar, like EPIC trying to find out what the unconstitutional FISA
intelligence court is really up to.
All the foregoing are just a
few examples that probably took up less than a third of the afternoon,
but it gives you the flavor and is a comforting reminder that there are
still some people in Washington working on your behalf.
