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Veterans Affairs Human Resources (HR) Fabricates
Outrageous Claims of Employee "Sedition"
Actions Highlight Myth of HR as Employee "Advocates"
Outrageous Claims of Employee "Sedition"
Actions Highlight Myth of HR as Employee "Advocates"
Here is a chilling tale that illustrates post-9/11 threats to free speech in the U.S., the power of an overreaching federal employer, and the role played by an obsequious HR department that can spontaneously launch unwarranted attacks on loyal, veteran employees. -- WBI
Event 1: Laura Berg, a 15 year veteran clinical nurse specialist who works in the New Mexico Veterans Administration (VA) Hospital system, wrote a letter to the editor of the Albuquerque weekly newspaper Alibi published on September 15, 2005. It was titled "Wake Up, Get Real." Berg signed the letter as a private citizen, without citing her VA employer. Her essay criticized how the administration handled Hurricane Katrina and the Iraq War. Read the letter itself.
Event 2: A few days after the letter was published, VA Information Security employees seized Berg's computer at the local VA hospital where she works. At the time, she was told this action occurred because of suspicions that she'd composed the letter to the Alibi on government time, on government premises, using government equipment. The computer was returned the next day.
Event 3: On Sept. 19, Berg's AFGE union representative, Thomas Driber, told Berg that her Alibi letter had been sent through "VA channels" to the FBI in Washington, D.C.
Event 4: Inquiries by AFGE lawyers led to a Nov 9 memo from VA Chief of Human Resources, Mel R. Hooker in which Hooker allegedly admitted that the VA had no evidence the letter was written on Berg's office computer. Despite this, Hooker claimed the investigation was justified because the "Agency is bound by law to investigate and pursue any act which potentially represents sedition." HR makes clear its distrust of employees here.
Event 5: Sonja Brown, the head of the VA's Public Affairs Operations, forwarded the following statement via e-mail to Alibi reporter Steven Robert Allen: "While VA does not prohibit employees from exercising their freedom of speech, we do ask that such activity occurs outside government premises and not during their official tour of duty. When we have reason to believe that this policy is not being adhered to, we have the obligation to review an individual's computer activity." An unapologetic tone.
Fact: According to Norman Cairns, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney's office in Albuquerque, "Sedition is only mentioned in one section of the United States Code and the sedition that's listed there is basically a plot to violently overthrow the United States government by force. Based on the plain statutory language, sedition always seems to imply the use of force or a conspiracy to use force. The penalty is a $250,000 fine and up to 20 years in prison."
Event 6: Albuquerque ACLU attorneys George Bach and Larry Kronen represent Laura Berg.They both believe the letter is protected speech under the First Amendment. They have filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the VA for all documents pertaining to this bizarre investigation. They demand an explanation for the department's investigation of this federal employee. They have asked (HR Chief) Hooker for a public apology "to remedy the unconstitutional chilling effect on the speech of VA employees that has resulted from these intimidating tactics." Laura Berg is not talking to the press, but reportedly fears losing her job.
Event 7: On Feb. 11, 2006, it was reported that U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) asked Veterans Affairs Secretary James Nicholson for a thorough inquiry of his agency's investigation into the "sedition" threat posed by the publication of Laura Berg's Sept. 15, 2005 letter to the editor and subsequent VA-FBI tactics.
The "seditious" letter to the editor that spawned the draconian VA response.
Sept. 15, 2005
Wake Up, Get Real
Dear Alibi,
I am furious with the tragically misplaced priorities and criminal negligence of this government. The Katrina tragedy in the U.S. shows that the emperor has no clothes! Bush and his team partied and delayed while millions of people were displaced, hundreds of thousands were abandoned to a living hell. Thousands more died of drowning, dehydration, hunger and exposure; most bodies remain unburied and rotting in attics and floodwater. Is this America the beautiful?
The risk of hurricane disaster was clearly predicted, yet funds for repair work for the Gulf States barrier islands and levee system were unconscionably diverted to the Iraq War. Money and manpower and ethics have been diverted to fight a war based on absolute lies!
As a VA nurse working with returning OIF vets, I know the public has no sense of the additional devastating human and financial costs of post-traumatic stress disorder; now we will have hundreds of thousands of our civilian citizens with PTSD as well as far too many young soldiers, maimed physically or psychologically -- or both --spreading their pain, anger and isolation through family and communities for generations. And most of this natural disaster and war tragedy has been preventable ... how very, very sad!
In the meantime, our war-fueled federal deficit mushrooms -- and whither this debt now, as we care for the displaced and destroyed?
Bush, Cheney, Chertoff, Brown and Rice should be tried for criminal negligence. This country needs to get out of Iraq now and return to our original vision and priorities of caring for land and people and resources rather than killing for oil.
Katrina itself was the size of New Mexico. Denials of global warming are ludicrous and patently irrational at this point. We can anticipate more wild, destructive weather to occur as a response stress of the planet. We need to wake up and get real here, and act forcefully to remove a government administration playing games of smoke and mirrors and vicious deceit. Otherwise, many more of us will be facing living hell in these times.
Laura Berg
Albuquerque
In case, you think nurse Berg is overstating PTSD and its impact on veterans, read The Struggle to Gauge a War's Psychological Cost by Benedict Carey, New York Times, Nov. 26, 2005
The VA vs. Berg story details were culled from these sources:
Big brother is watching by Steven Robert Allen, Albuquerque Alibi, Feb. 9-15, 2006
Nurse investigated for 'sedition' after writing letter to editor, Editor & Publisher, Feb. 11, 2006
ACLU protests investigation of VA employee for 'sedition' Jan. 31, 2006 press release by Peter Simonson, Executive Director, ACLU of New Mexico
Wake up, get real by Laura Berg, Albuquerque Alibi, Sept. 15, 2005