List of whistleblowers
2000s
Table:
2000s

Karen Kwiatkowski

United States Air Force

Retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force who worked as a desk officer in The Pentagon and in a number of roles in the National Security Agency. She has written a number of essays on corrupting political influences of military intelligence leading up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and has said that she was the anonymous source for Seymour Hersh and Warren Strobel on their exposés of pre-war intelligence.[85]

2000s

Stefan P. Kruszewski

Pharmaceutical companies

Kruszewski is a whistleblower, with settlements from suits brought against Southwood Psychiatric Hospital, Pfizer, Inc., and AstraZeneca. Kruszewski became aware of inadequate care and the exploiting of state-committed mentally ill children through overmedication and physical and chemical restraints while working for the Department of Public Welfare, Bureau of Program Integrity for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. When he refused to keep silent about his discoveries, he was fired from his position at the state.[86] Kruszewski won settlements for both a First Amendment case against the state of Pennsylvania[87] as well as his first Qui tam lawsuit against the hospital.[88] In the cases against pharmaceutical giants, Pfizer[89] and AstraZeneca,[90] Kruszewski highlighted clinical science that was misrepresented by the defendants in their marketing and promotion of certain drugs. He also demonstrated problems with off-label marketing (marketing that promotes uses, patients or doses that are not approved by the US FDA) which resulted in heightened, but often non-transparent, risk to the health of patients and exceptional costs to taxpayers and state and federal governments.[91][92][93]

2000s

Guy Pearse

Large fossil fuel companies in Australia

According to the research of Pearse, lobby groups representing the largest fossil fuel producing or consuming industries in Australia referred to themselves as the Greenhouse Mafia. These groups are represented in Canberra by the Australian Industry Greenhouse Network (AIGN). AIGN members boasted to Pearse in recorded interviews how they routinely gained access to what should be confidential information concerning government policy on energy and transport. Pearse cited recorded interviews with AIGN members and said that lobbyists had written cabinet submissions, ministerial briefings, and costings in two departments on at least half a dozen occasions over a decade.[94] According to Pearse, those within groups lobbying for unrestricted greenhouse gas emissions have been able to ensure that government ministers hear mostly matching advice from their own departmental officials. Pearse says that this influence is entrenched to such an extent that fossil fuel industry lobby groups have actually been writing Australia's greenhouse policy at least since the Kyoto Protocol in 1998, and probably even before John Howard became Prime Minister in 1996.[94] Disillusioned, Pearse became a whistleblower, and in July 2007, Pearse released his book on the subject, High & Dry: John Howard, Climate Change and the Selling of Australia's Future. In early 2007, Clive Hamilton wrote his book titled Scorcher: The Dirty Politics of Climate Change, drawing heavily on Pearse's research.

2000

Marsha Coleman-Adebayo

United States Environmental Protection Agency

Marsha Coleman-Adebayo was a Senior Policy Analyst in the Office of the Administrator at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). She blew the whistle on the EPA for racial and gender discrimination in violation of Civil Rights Act of 1964 which began after she was removed from her position in South Africa where her "job was to essentially help the South African government to work on issues that impact public health".[95] In South Africa she brought to the attention of the EPA the dangerous conditions an American company was exposing African workers who were mining to vanadium, a dangerous substance. Her case eventually led to the passing of the No-FEAR Act in 2002 that makes federal agencies more accountable for employee complaints.[95]

2001

Joseph Nacchio

Qwest /National Security Agency

Nacchio was chairperson and CEO of Qwest when it refused to participate in NSA spying on its customers in February 2001. Qwest was the only telecommunications company to require FISA court orders. Nacchio claims that in retaliation, Qwest subsequently was denied government contracts.[96]

2001

Pascal Diethelm (see French Wikipedia), Jean-Charles Rielle (see French Wikipedia)

Philip Morris USA and University of Geneva

Swiss tobacco control advocates and alumni from the University of Geneva who revealed the secret ties of Ragnar Rylander (see French Wikipedia), professor of environmental health, to the tobacco industry. In a public statement made in 2001, Pascal Diethelm and Jean-Charles Rielle accused Rylander of being "secretly employed by Philip Morris" and qualified of "scientific fraud without precedent" the concealment of his links with the tobacco industry for a period of 30 years, during which he publicly presented himself as an independent scientist, while obeying orders given by Philip Morris executives and lawyers, publishing articles and organizing symposia which denied or trivialized the toxicity of secondhand smoke. After a long trial, which went up to the supreme court of Switzerland, all accusations were found to be true.[97] Following this judgment, the University of Geneva prohibited its members from soliciting research subsidies or direct or indirect consultancies with the tobacco industry.[98]

2001

File:J.Radack.jpg

Jesselyn Radack

United States Department of Justice

Radack, a DOJ lawyer, told Newsweek that the DOJ both lied about and destroyed documents regarding John Walker Lindh's interrogation and his parent's attempts to get him a lawyer. The DOJ retaliated by pushing her out of the Department, getting her fired from her next job, trying to get her law licence revoked, and other means.

2002

Richard Maok Riaño Botina AKA "@hackerFiscalia"

Attorney General's Office - Technical Investigation Unit (CTI)

"A former computer expert in the attorney general's office, Richard Maok, has been transferred from his job after compiling data documenting that phone calls from inside the attorney general's office had been made to the phones of presumed paramilitary members in northeast Colombia."[99] "He took all the captured cell phones of the paramilitaries in the legal proceedings, made the crossing and discovered a huge amount of coincidences, that is, paramilitaries and many prosecutorial officials communicated permanently. Congressman Gustavo Petro presented that debate to Congress introduced Mr. Riaño and it was made public."[100] In addition to the Attorney General's Office, that infiltration would reach the national police, the army, the prison system, the intelligence agency, the Supreme Court of Justice and the Colombian Congress itself. The investigation took as a starting point the crossing of information referring to facts in which the violation of human rights occurred, which contained the names of the leaders of the most important paramilitary groups of the moment. That infiltration and the paramilitary actions were aimed at eliminating the political opposition, in order to definitely install the Uribe as the family in power. The hacker of the Prosecutor's Office directly holds former president Álvaro Uribe responsible for that situation. The reprisals against the “Hacker” were swift: house raids and home searches, telephone interception, 24-hour surveillance, judicial complaint, and dismissal, took the situation to a limit that led to the request of refuge in Canada, where Maok Riaño resides 15 years ago." [101]

2002

Kathryn Bolkovac

United Nations International Police

Originally hired by the U.S. company DynCorp as part of a $15 million UN contract to hire and train police officers for duty in Bosnia. She eventually reported that such officers were paying for prostitutes and participating in sex-trafficking.[102] Many of these were forced to resign under suspicion of illegal activity, but none have been prosecuted, as they also enjoy immunity from prosecution in Bosnia.[103] Bolkovac filed a lawsuit[104] in Great Britain against DynCorp for unfair dismissal due to a protected disclosure (whistleblowing), and on August 2, 2002, the tribunal unanimously found in her favor.[105]

2002

Cynthia Cooper

Worldcom

Exposed corporate financial scandal. Jointly named Time's People of the Year in 2002.

2002

Sherron Watkins

Enron

Exposed corporate financial scandal. Jointly named Time's People of the Year in 2002.

2002

Diann Shipione

San Diego

Diann Shipione, a former trustee of the San Diego City retirement board,[106] is credited with exposing unlawful underfunding of the city's pension fund[107] and the omission of multiple billions of dollars of pension and retiree healthcare debt in the City of San Diego municipal bond offering[108] sales documents.[109]

She was, in her professional life, formerly a vice president at UBS Financial Services.[110]

City officials and pension board trustees created a multi-year smear campaign,[111] including filing ethics charges against her[112] and plotting to have her arrested by the San Diego City Police.[113]

The scandal caused widespread fallout in the city's political and financial sectors.[114] Several city officials resigned, including the City Auditor, City Manager, City Treasurer[115] and the Mayor. The City became the target of two federal investigations[116] and in November 2006, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission entered an order sanctioning the City of San Diego for committing securities fraud.[116]

Shipione was eventually proven right about her concerns[117] and received public recognition for her pension system related services from many civic organizations in San Diego.

2002

Coleen Rowley

Federal Bureau of Investigation

Outlined the FBI's slow action before the September 11, 2001 attacks. Jointly named Time's People of the Year in 2002.

2002

William Binney
J. Kirke Wiebe
Edward Loomis

National Security Agency

NSA officials initially joined House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence staffer Diane Roark in asking U.S. Department of Defense inspector general to investigate wasteful spending on the Trailblazer Project and the NSA officials eventually went public when they were ignored and retaliated upon. They claim that Thinthread was more focused thus more effective and lower cost than Trailblazer and subsequent programs, which automatically collected trillions of domestic communications of Americans in deliberate violation of the U.S. Constitution.

2002

Marta Andreasen

European Commission

Argentine-born Spanish accountant, employed by the European Commission as Chief Accountant, and notable for raising concerns about fraud potential within EU, neglected by the Commission.

2002

Glenn Walp
Steven L. Doran

University of California
Los Alamos National Laboratory

Glenn Walp and Steven L. Doran were hired to investigate allegations of fraud at the University of California's Los Alamos National Laboratory. They were fired after they exposed breaches of security as well as fraud and mismanagement to the Department of Energy. Their investigation resulted in congressional hearings. Walpo received a $930,000 settlement from the University of California (UC) for wrongful termination.[118] Doran accepted UC's offer of a position as security consultant.[119]

2002

Sibel Edmonds

Federal Bureau of Investigation

Former FBI translator naturalized American citizen of Turkish descent who was fired in 2002 by the FBI for attempting to report coverups of security issues, potential espionage, and incompetence. She has been gagged by the State Secrets Privilege in her efforts to go to court on these issues, including a rejection recently by the Supreme Court of the United States to hear her case without comment. She is now founder of the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC) that is looking to lobby congress and help other whistleblowers with legal and other forms of assistance.[120]

2003

Sgt. Frank "Greg" Ford

U.S. Army

Sgt. Frank "Greg" Ford is a retired counterintelligence agent with over 30 years of military service. He was stationed in Samarra, Iraq in June 2003 with the California National Guard's 223rd Military Intelligence (M.I.) Battalion. After reporting to superiors systematic abuse of Iraqi detainees at Samarra, Sgt. Ford was judged mentally unstable by an Army psychiatrist and renditioned to Landstuhl, Germany to receive further psychological evaluation. In all following psychiatric assessments, Ford was determined to be of sound mind. In later interviews and press appearances, Ford also alleges he witnessed the diversion of U.S.-made weapons of mass destruction from Iraq to Syria and suggests these munitions were deployed by the Syrian military against rebels and civilians during the Syrian civil war.

[121]

2003

Courtland Kelley

General Motors

Courtland Kelley was the head of the General Motors inspection and quality assurance program for many years. He found faults in the Chevrolet Cavalier and the Chevrolet Cobalt, and repeatedly reported them, with little response. He thought his supervisors were more interested in maintaining sales and their own positions than with expensive recalls. In 2003, Kelley sued GM alleging that the company had been slow to address the dangers in its cars and trucks. Even though he lost the court case, Kelley thought that by blowing the whistle he had done the right and proper thing. Faulty ignition switches in the Cobalts, which cut power to the car while in motion, were eventually linked to many crashes resulting in fatalities, starting with a teenager in 2005 who drove her new Cobalt into a tree.[122] In May 2014 the NHTSA fined the company $35 million for failing to recall cars with faulty ignition switches for a decade, despite knowing there was a problem with the switches. Thirteen deaths were attributed to the faulty switches during the time the company failed to recall the cars.[123]

2003

Diane Urquhart

Canadian Government

Former senior securities industry executive who revealed to the Canadian House of Commons's finance committee that Canadian frozen non-bank asset-backed commercial paper caused a loss of $7–$13 billion held primarily by government, corporation pension funds and treasuries.[124]

2003

Katharine Gun

United Kingdom GCHQ

Leaked top-secret information to the press concerning alleged illegal activities by the United States and the United Kingdom in their push for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Using the following table as well as the context snippets provided at the end.

Respond to the question below: What is the name of the individual that won a general election against the whistleblower involved with exposing activity regarding a terrorist attack responsible for 2,977 fatalities ? Provide just your answer in a JSON object {"answer": "YOUR ANSWER"}. Do not introduce information beyond the provided sources.

Karen U. Kwiatkowski , née Unger , ( born September 24 , 1960 ) is an American activist and commentator . She is a retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel whose assignments included duties as a Pentagon desk officer and a variety of roles for the National Security Agency . Since retiring , she has become a noted critic of the U.S. government 's involvement in Iraq . Kwiatkowski is primarily known for her insider essays which denounce a corrupting political influence on the course of military intelligence leading up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 . In 2012 , she challenged incumbent Bob Goodlatte , in the Republican primary for Virginia 's 6th congressional district seat in the United States House of Representatives and garnered 34% of the Republican vote on a constitutional and limited government platform . While in the Air Force , she wrote two books about U.S. policy towards Africa : African Crisis Response Initiative : Past Present and Future ( US Army Peacekeeping Institute , 2000 ) and Expeditionary Air Operations in Africa : Challenges and Solutions ( Air University Press , 2001 ) . She contributed to Ron Paul : A Life of Ideas , ( Variant Press , 2008 ) and Why Liberty : Personal Journeys Toward Peace and Freedom , ( Cobden Press , 2010 ) . She has been featured in a number of documentaries , including Why We Fight , in 2005 . She has written for LewRockwell.com since 2003 .
The United States Air Force ( USAF ) is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces . It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services . Initially formed as a part of the United States Army on 1 August 1907 , the USAF was established as a separate branch of the U.S. Armed Forces on 18 September 1947 with the passing of the National Security Act of 1947 . It is the second youngest branch of the U.S. Armed Forces , [ a ] and the fourth in order of precedence . The U.S. Air Force articulates its core missions as air superiority , global integrated intelligence , surveillance , and reconnaissance , rapid global mobility , global strike , and command and control . The U.S. Air Force is a military service branch organized within the Department of the Air Force , one of the three military departments of the Department of Defense . The Air Force , through the Department of the Air Force , is headed by the civilian Secretary of the Air Force , who reports to the Secretary of Defense , and is appointed by the President with Senate confirmation . The highest-ranking military officer in the Air Force is the Chief of Staff of the Air Force , who exercises supervision over Air Force units and serves as one of the Joint Chiefs of Staff . Certain Air Force components are assigned , as directed by the Secretary of Defense and Secretary of the Air Force , to unified combatant commands . Combatant commanders are delegated operational authority of the forces assigned to them , while the Secretary of the Air Force and the Chief of Staff of the Air Force retain administrative authority over their members . Along with conducting independent air operations , the U.S. Air Force provides air support for land and naval forces and aids in the recovery of troops in the field . As of 2017 [ update ] , the service operates more than 5,369 military aircraft , 406 ICBMs and 170 military satellites .
The Pentagon is the headquarters building of the United States Department of Defense . As a symbol of the U.S. military , the phrase The Pentagon is also often used as a metonym for the Department of Defense and its leadership . Located in Arlington County , Virginia , across the Potomac River from Washington , D.C. , the building was designed by American architect George Bergstrom and built by contractor John McShain . Ground was broken on September 11 , 1941 , and the building was dedicated on January 15 , 1943 . General Brehon Somervell provided the major motivating power behind the project ; Colonel Leslie Groves was responsible for overseeing the project for the U.S. Army . The Pentagon is the world 's largest office building , with about 6,500,000 sq ft ( 600,000 m2 ) of space , of which 3,700,000 sq ft ( 340,000 m2 ) are used as offices . Some 23,000 military and civilian employees , and another 3,000 non-defense support personnel , work in the Pentagon . It has five sides , five floors above ground , two basement levels , and five ring corridors per floor with a total of 17.5 mi ( 28.2 km ) of corridors . The central five-acre ( 20,000 m2 ) pentagonal plaza is nicknamed ground zero on the presumption that it would be a prime target in a nuclear war . On September 11 , 2001 , exactly 60 years after the building 's construction began , American Airlines Flight 77 was hijacked and flown into the western side of the building , killing 189 people ( 59 victims and the five perpetrators on board the airliner , as well as 125 victims in the building ) , according to the 9/11 Commission Report . It was the first significant foreign attack on Washington 's governmental facilities since the city was burned by the British during the War of 1812 . The Pentagon is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is a National Historic Landmark .
The National Security Agency ( NSA ) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense , under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence . The NSA is responsible for global monitoring , collection , and processing of information and data for foreign and domestic intelligence and counterintelligence purposes , specializing in a discipline known as signals intelligence ( SIGINT ) . The NSA is also tasked with the protection of U.S. communications networks and information systems . The NSA relies on a variety of measures to accomplish its mission , the majority of which are clandestine . Originating as a unit to decipher coded communications in World War II , it was officially formed as the NSA by President Harry S. Truman in 1952 . Since then , it has become the largest of the U.S. intelligence organizations in terms of personnel and budget . The NSA currently conducts worldwide mass data collection and has been known to physically bug electronic systems as one method to this end . The NSA is also alleged to have been behind such attack software as Stuxnet , which severely damaged Iran 's nuclear program . The NSA , alongside the Central Intelligence Agency ( CIA ) , maintains a physical presence in many countries across the globe ; the CIA/NSA joint Special Collection Service ( a highly classified intelligence team ) inserts eavesdropping devices in high value targets ( such as Presidential palaces or embassies ) . SCS collection tactics allegedly encompass close surveillance , burglary , wiretapping , [ and ] breaking and entering . Unlike the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency ( DIA ) , both of which specialize primarily in foreign human espionage , the NSA does not publicly conduct human-source intelligence gathering . The NSA is entrusted with providing assistance to , and the coordination of , SIGINT elements for other government organizations - which are prevented by law from engaging in such activities on their own .
Military intelligence is a military discipline that uses information collection and analysis approaches to provide guidance and direction to assist commanders in their decisions . This aim is achieved by providing an assessment of data from a range of sources , directed towards the commanders ' mission requirements or responding to questions as part of operational or campaign planning . To provide an analysis , the commander 's information requirements are first identified , which are then incorporated into intelligence collection , analysis , and dissemination . Areas of study may include the operational environment , hostile , friendly and neutral forces , the civilian population in an area of combat operations , and other broader areas of interest . Intelligence activities are conducted at all levels , from tactical to strategic , in peacetime , the period of transition to war , and during a war itself . Most governments maintain a military intelligence capability to provide analytical and information collection personnel in both specialist units and from other arms and services . The military and civilian intelligence capabilities collaborate to inform the spectrum of political and military activities . Personnel performing intelligence duties may be selected for their analytical abilities and personal intelligence before receiving formal training .
The 2003 invasion of Iraq was the first stage of the Iraq War . The invasion phase began on 19 March 2003 and lasted just over one month , including 26 days of major combat operations , in which a combined force of troops from the United States , the United Kingdom , Australia and Poland invaded Iraq . This early stage of the war formally ended on 1 May 2003 when U.S. President George W. Bush declared the End of major combat operations , after which the Coalition Provisional Authority ( CPA ) was established as the first of several successive transitional governments leading up to the first Iraqi parliamentary election in January 2005 . U.S. military forces later remained in Iraq until the withdrawal in 2011 . The U.S.-led coalition sent 177,194 troops into Iraq during the initial invasion phase , which lasted from 19 March to 1 May 2003 . About 130,000 arrived from the U.S. alone , with about 45,000 British soldiers , 2,000 Australian soldiers , and 194 Polish soldiers . 36 other countries were involved in its aftermath . In preparation for the invasion , 100,000 U.S. troops assembled in Kuwait by 18 February . The coalition forces also received support from the Peshmerga in Iraqi Kurdistan . According to U.S. President George W. Bush and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair , the coalition aimed to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction , to end Saddam Hussein 's support for terrorism , and to free the Iraqi people . Others place a much greater emphasis on the impact of the September 11 attacks , on the role this played in changing U.S. strategic calculations , and the rise of the freedom agenda . According to Blair , the trigger was Iraq 's failure to take a final opportunity to disarm itself of alleged nuclear , chemical , and biological weapons that U.S. and British officials called an immediate and intolerable threat to world peace .
Seymour Myron Sy Hersh ( born April 8 , 1937 ) is an American investigative journalist and political writer . He is a longtime contributor to The New Yorker magazine on national security matters and has also written for the London Review of Books since 2013 . Hersh first gained recognition in 1969 for exposing the My Lai Massacre and its cover-up during the Vietnam War , for which he received the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting . During the 1970s , Hersh covered the Watergate scandal for The New York Times and revealed the clandestine bombing of Cambodia . In 2004 , he reported on the U.S. military 's mistreatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison . He has also won two National Magazine Awards and five George Polk Awards . In 2004 , he received the George Orwell Award . In recent years , Hersh has accused the Obama administration of lying about the death of Osama bin Laden and disputed the claim that the Assad regime used chemical weapons on civilians in the Syrian Civil War . Both assertions have stirred controversy .
Stefan Philip Kruszewski is an American clinical and forensic psychiatrist , active as a whistleblower in medically related cases . He is principal in the company which bears his name , Stefan P. Kruszewski , M.D . & Associates , P.C . in Harrisburg , Pennsylvania .
A chemical restraint is a form of medical restraint in which a drug is used to restrict the freedom or movement of a patient or in some cases to sedate a patient . These are used in emergency , acute , and psychiatric settings to control unruly patients who are interfering with their care or who are otherwise harmful to themselves or others in their vicinity . Chemical restraints are also referred to as a Psychopharmacologic Agent , Psychotropic Drug or Therapeutic Restraints in certain legal writing . Drugs that are often used as chemical restraints include benzodiazepines , antipsychotics , and dissociative anesthetics . In the United States , no drugs are presently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ( FDA ) for use as chemical restraints . According to the Nursing Home Reform Act , individuals have the right to be free from physical or chemical restraints imposed for purposes of discipline or convenience and not required to treat the residents medical symptoms . However , they are still used , and the FDA estimates 15,000 elderly individuals die each year by use of unnecessary anti-psychotics in nursing homes . The use of chemical restraint has been criticized . It has been found to be mismanaged by health care workers for the convenience of the staff rather than the benefit of the patient , as workers use them to prevent patients from resisting care rather than improving the health of the patient . This has been found to cause more confusion in patients , thereby slowing their recovery .
The Food and Drug Administration ( FDA or USFDA ) is a federal agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services , one of the United States federal executive departments . The FDA is responsible for protecting and promoting public health through the control and supervision of food safety , tobacco products , dietary supplements , prescription and over-the-counter pharmaceutical drugs ( medications ) , vaccines , biopharmaceuticals , blood transfusions , medical devices , electromagnetic radiation emitting devices ( ERED ) , cosmetics , animal foods & feed and veterinary products . The FDA was empowered by the United States Congress to enforce the Federal Food , Drug , and Cosmetic Act , which serves as the primary focus for the Agency ; the FDA also enforces other laws , notably Section 361 of the Public Health Service Act and associated regulations , many of which are not directly related to food or drugs . These include regulating lasers , cellular phones , condoms and control of disease on products ranging from certain household pets to sperm donation for assisted reproduction . The FDA is led by the Commissioner of Food and Drugs , appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate . The Commissioner reports to the Secretary of Health and Human Services . Stephen M. Hahn , MD is the acting commissioner , as of December 2019 [ update ] . The FDA has its headquarters in unincorporated White Oak , Maryland . The agency also has 223 field offices and 13 laboratories located throughout the 50 states , the United States Virgin Islands , and Puerto Rico . In 2008 , the FDA began to post employees to foreign countries , including China , India , Costa Rica , Chile , Belgium , and the United Kingdom .
Guy Pearse is an Australian author and former Research Fellow at the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland . His first book titled High & Dry : John Howard , climate change and the selling of Australia 's future was published in 2007 . In 2009 , Pearse published a critique of the Rudd government 's response to climate change in Quarterly Essay 33 : Quarry Vision : Coal , Climate Change and the End of the Resources Boom . In 2012 , he published Greenwash : Big Brands and Carbon Scams - an analysis of whether the climate-friendly revolution being advertised by large multinationals is real .
Advocacy groups , also known as special interest groups , use various forms of advocacy in order to influence public opinion and ultimately policy . They play an important role in the development of political and social systems . Motives for action may be based on political , religious , moral , or commercial positions . Groups use varied methods to try to achieve their aims including lobbying , media campaigns , publicity stunts , polls , research , and policy briefings . Some groups are supported or backed by powerful business or political interests and exert considerable influence on the political process , while others have few or no such resources . Some have developed into important social , political institutions or social movements . Some powerful advocacy groups have been accused of manipulating the democratic system for narrow commercial gain and in some instances have been found guilty of corruption , fraud , bribery , and other serious crimes ; lobbying has become increasingly regulated as a result citation needed [ citation needed ] . Some groups , generally ones with less financial resources , may use direct action and civil disobedience and in some cases are accused of being a threat to the social order or 'domestic extremists ' . Research is beginning to explore how advocacy groups use social media to facilitate civic engagement and collective action .
A fossil fuel is a fuel formed by natural processes , such as anaerobic decomposition of buried dead organisms , containing energy originating in ancient photosynthesis . Such organisms and their resulting fossil fuels typically have an age of millions of years , and sometimes more than 650 million years . Fossil fuels contain high percentages of carbon and include petroleum , coal , and natural gas . Commonly used derivatives of fossil fuels include kerosene and propane . Fossil fuels range from volatile materials with low carbon-to-hydrogen ratios ( like methane ) , to liquids ( like petroleum ) , to nonvolatile materials composed of almost pure carbon , like anthracite coal . Methane can be found in hydrocarbon fields either alone , associated with oil , or in the form of methane clathrates . As of 2018 , the world 's primary energy sources consisted of petroleum ( 34% ) , coal ( 27% ) , natural gas ( 24% ) , amounting to an 85% share for fossil fuels in primary energy-consumption in the world . Non-fossil sources included nuclear ( 4.4% ) , hydroelectric ( 6.8% ) , and other renewables ( 4.0% , including geothermal , solar , tidal , wind , wood , waste ) . According to another source , world renewable energy-consumption was 18% in 2018 . When compared with the previous year , world energy-consumption grew at a rate of 2.9% , almost double its 10-year average of 1.5% per year , and the fastest since 2010 . Although natural processes continually form fossil fuels , such fuels are generally classified as non-renewable resources because they take millions of years to form and the known viable reserves are being depleted much faster than new ones are being made . Most air pollution deaths are due to fossil fuels , and fossil fuel phase-out would save 3.6 million lives each year .
Greenhouse Mafia is the title of a TV program aired by the ABC on the 13 February 2006 episode of its weekly current affairs program Four Corners . The program says the term greenhouse mafia is the in house name used by Australias carbon lobby for itself . The program featured former Liberal Party member Guy Pearse and Four Corners host Janine Cohen , while others concerned about the influence exerted by the fossil fuel lobby also participated . The report was based on a thesis Pearse wrote at the Australian National University between 1999 and 2005 regarding the response of Australian business to global warming . According to the program , lobby groups representing the coal , car , oil , and aluminium industries have wielded their power to prevent Australia from reducing its greenhouse gas emissions , which were already among the highest per capita in the world in 1990 .
A greenhouse gas ( sometimes abbreviated GHG ) is a gas that absorbs and emits radiant energy within the thermal infrared range . Greenhouse gases cause the greenhouse effect on planets . The primary greenhouse gases in Earth 's atmosphere are water vapor ( H2O ) , carbon dioxide ( CO2 ) , methane ( CH4 ) , nitrous oxide ( N2O ) , and ozone ( O3 ) . Without greenhouse gases , the average temperature of Earth 's surface would be about −18 °C ( 0 °F ) , rather than the present average of 15 °C ( 59 °F ) . The atmospheres of Venus , Mars and Titan also contain greenhouse gases . Human activities since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution ( around 1750 ) have produced a 45% increase in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide , from 280 ppm in 1750 to 415 ppm in 2019 . This increase has occurred despite the uptake of more than half of the emissions by various natural sinks involved in the carbon cycle . The vast majority of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions come from combustion of fossil fuels , principally coal , oil , and natural gas , with additional contributions coming from deforestation , changes in land use , soil erosion and agriculture ( including livestock ) . The leading source of anthropogenic methane emissions is animal agriculture , followed by fugitive emissions from gas , oil , coal and other industry , solid waste , wastewater and rice production . At current emission rates , temperatures could increase by 2 °C , which the United Nations ' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ( IPCC ) designated as the upper limit to avoid dangerous levels , by 2036 .
The Kyoto Protocol is an international treaty which extends the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change ( UNFCCC ) that commits state parties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions , based on the scientific consensus that ( part one ) global warming is occurring and ( part two ) it is extremely likely that human-made CO2 emissions have predominantly caused it . The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in Kyoto , Japan , on 11 December 1997 and entered into force on 16 February 2005 . There are currently 192 parties ( Canada withdrew from the protocol , effective December 2012 ) to the Protocol . The Kyoto Protocol implemented the objective of the UNFCCC to reduce the onset of global warming by reducing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere to a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system ( Article 2 ) . The Kyoto Protocol applies to the six greenhouse gases listed in Annex A : Carbon dioxide ( CO2 ) , Methane ( CH4 ) , Nitrous oxide ( N2O ) , Hydrofluorocarbons ( HFCs ) , Perfluorocarbons ( PFCs ) , and Sulphur hexafluoride ( SF6 ) . The Protocol is based on the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities : it acknowledges that individual countries have different capabilities in combating climate change , owing to economic development , and therefore puts the obligation to reduce current emissions on developed countries on the basis that they are historically responsible for the current levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere . The Protocol 's first commitment period started in 2008 and ended in 2012 . All 36 countries that fully participated in the first commitment period complied with the Protocol . However , nine countries had to resort to the flexibility mechanisms by funding emission reductions in other countries because their national emissions were slightly greater than their targets . The financial crisis of 2007-08 helped reduce the emissions . The greatest emission reductions were seen in the former Eastern Bloc countries because the dissolution of the Soviet Union reduced their emissions in the early 1990s . Even though the 36 developed countries reduced their emissions , the global emissions increased by 32% from 1990 to 2010 .
John Winston Howard , OM , AC ( born 26 July 1939 ) is an Australian former politician who served as the 25th Prime Minister of Australia from 1996 to 2007 . He is the second-longest serving Australian Prime Minister , behind only Sir Robert Menzies , who was in office for over 18 years . He is also the oldest living former Australian Prime Minister , having been so since the death of Bob Hawke on 16 May 2019 . Howard was leader of the Liberal Party from 1985 to 1989 and from 1995 to 2007 . Howard was born in Sydney and studied law at the University of Sydney . He was a commercial lawyer before entering parliament . A former federal president of the Young Liberals , he first stood for office at the 1968 New South Wales state election , but lost narrowly . At the 1974 federal election , Howard was elected to the Division of Bennelong , which he would go on to represent until 2007 . He was promoted to cabinet in 1977 , and later in the year replaced Phillip Lynch as Treasurer of Australia , remaining in that position until the defeat of Malcolm Fraser 's government in 1983 . In 1985 , Howard was elected leader of the Liberal Party for the first time , thus replacing Andrew Peacock as Leader of the Opposition . He led the Liberal-National coalition to the 1987 federal election , but lost to Bob Hawke 's Labor government , and was removed from the leadership in 1989 . Remaining a key figure in the party , Howard was re-elected leader in 1995 ( replacing Alexander Downer ) , and subsequently led the Coalition to victory at the 1996 federal election .
The Prime Minister of Australia is the head of government of the Commonwealth of Australia . The individual who holds the office is the most senior minister of state , and the leader of the federal Cabinet . The prime minister also has the responsibility of administering the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet , and is the chair of the National Security Committee and the Council of Australian Governments . The office of prime minister is not mentioned in the Constitution of Australia but exists through Westminster political convention . The individual who holds the office is commissioned by the governor-general of Australia and at the governor-general 's pleasure subject to the Constitution of Australia and constitutional conventions . Scott Morrison has held the office of prime minister since 24 August 2018 . He received his commission after replacing Malcolm Turnbull as the leader of the Liberal Party , the largest party in the Coalition government , following the Liberal Party leadership spill earlier the same day .
High and Dry : John Howard , Climate Change and the Selling of Australia 's Future is a 2007 book written by Guy Pearse . In the book , Pearse accuses Prime Minister John Howard of wilful blindness on the issue of global warming . According to the book , the Prime Minister and several of his key ministers were captured by a group of industries and their lobbyists , known as the greenhouse mafia . Guy Pearse was a longtime member of the Liberal Party and was speechwriter for Robert Hill , Australia 's Environment Minister from 1997-2000 .
Clive Charles Hamilton AM FRSA ( born 12 March 1953 ) is an Australian public intellectual and Professor of Public Ethics at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics ( CAPPE ) and the Vice-Chancellor 's Chair in Public Ethics at Charles Sturt University . He is a member of the Board of the Climate Change Authority of the Australian Government , and is the Founder and former Executive Director of The Australia Institute . He regularly appears in the Australian media and contributes to public policy debates . Hamilton was granted the award of Member of the Order of Australia on 8 June 2009 for service to public debate and policy development , particularly in the fields of climate change , sustainability and societal trends .
Scorcher : The Dirty Politics of Climate Change is a 2007 book by Clive Hamilton which contends that Australia rather than the United States is the major stumbling block to a more effective Kyoto Protocol . In the final chapter of the book Hamilton argues that the Howard Government has been actively working to destroy the Kyoto Protocol . Scorcher is an updated version of Hamilton 's 2001 book , Running from the Storm . Other books by Clive Hamilton include Requiem for a Species , Silencing Dissent , Growth Fetish , Affluenza and The Freedom Paradox .
Marsha Coleman-Adebayo is an American former senior policy analyst for the United States Environmental Protection Agency ( EPA ) . Beginning in 1996 , she filed complaints alleging that a company from the United States was mining vanadium in South Africa and harming the environment and human health . The EPA did not respond , and Coleman-Adebayo reported her concerns to other organizations . When the EPA subsequently did not promote Coleman-Adebayo at her request , she filed suit against the agency , alleging racial and gender discrimination . On August 18 , 2000 , a federal jury found EPA guilty of violating the civil rights of Coleman-Adebayo on the basis of race , sex , color and a hostile work environment , under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 . Her experience inspired passage of the Notification and Federal Employee Anti-discrimination and Retaliation Act of 2002 ( No FEAR Act ) . During the legal proceedings , Coleman-Adebayo remained employed at the EPA . When she was diagnosed with hypertension , the agency agreed to let her work from home . After five years of telecommuting and another lawsuit , the EPA ordered Coleman-Adebayo to return to the office , placing her on unpaid leave when she did not comply . Coleman-Adebayo is a founder and leader of the No FEAR Coalition and EPA Employees Against Racial Discrimination . [ citation needed ] Through her leadership the No FEAR Coalition , working closely with Representative James Sensenbrenner , organized a successful grass-roots campaign and secured passage of the Notification of Federal Employees Anti-discrimination and Retaliation Act , the first Civil Rights Law of the 21st Century . The Act was signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2002 .
The Environmental Protection Agency ( EPA ) is an independent agency of the United States federal government for environmental protection . President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9 , 1970 ; it began operation on December 2 , 1970 , after Nixon signed an executive order . The order establishing the EPA was ratified by committee hearings in the House and Senate . The agency is led by its Administrator , who is appointed by the President and approved by Congress . The current Administrator is former Deputy Administrator Andrew R. Wheeler , who had been acting administrator since July 2018 . The EPA is not a Cabinet department , but the Administrator is normally given cabinet rank . The EPA has its headquarters in Washington , D.C. , regional offices for each of the agency 's ten regions , and 27 laboratories . The agency conducts environmental assessment , research , and education . It has the responsibility of maintaining and enforcing national standards under a variety of environmental laws , in consultation with state , tribal , and local governments . It delegates some permitting , monitoring , and enforcement responsibility to U.S. states and the federally recognized tribes . EPA enforcement powers include fines , sanctions , and other measures . The agency also works with industries and all levels of government in a wide variety of voluntary pollution prevention programs and energy conservation efforts .
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 ( Pub.L . 88-352 , 78 Stat . 241 , enacted July 2 , 1964 ) is a landmark civil rights and labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on race , color , religion , sex , or national origin . It prohibits unequal application of voter registration requirements , and racial segregation in schools , employment , and public accommodations . Initially , powers given to enforce the act were weak , but these were supplemented during later years . Congress asserted its authority to legislate under several different parts of the United States Constitution , principally its power to regulate interstate commerce under Article One ( section 8 ) , its duty to guarantee all citizens equal protection of the laws under the Fourteenth Amendment , and its duty to protect voting rights under the Fifteenth Amendment . The legislation had been proposed by President John F. Kennedy in June 1963 , but opposed by filibuster in the Senate . After Kennedy was assassinated on November 22 , 1963 , President Lyndon B. Johnson pushed the bill forward , which in its final form was passed in the U.S. Congress by a Senate vote of 73-27 and House vote of 289-126 . The Act was signed into law by President Johnson on July 2 , 1964 , at the White House .
The Notification and Federal Employee Antidiscrimination and Retaliation Act of 2002 is a United States federal law that seeks to discourage federal managers and supervisors from engaging in unlawful discrimination and retaliation . It is popularly called the No-FEAR Act , and is also known as Public Law 107-174 .
Joseph P. Nacchio ( born June 22 , 1949 in Brooklyn , New York ) is an American executive who was chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Qwest Communications International from 1997 to 2002 . Nacchio was convicted of insider trading during his time heading Qwest . He claimed in court , with documentation , that his was the only company to demand legal authority for surreptitious mass surveillance demanded by the NSA which began prior to the 11 September 2001 attacks . He was convicted of 19 counts of insider trading in Qwest stock on April 19 , 2007 - charges his defense team claimed were U.S. government retaliation for his refusal to give customer data to the National Security Agency in February , 2001 . This defense was not admissible in court because the U.S. Department of Justice filed an in limine motion , which is often used in national security cases , to exclude information which may reveal state secrets . Information from the Classified Information Procedures Act hearings in Nacchio 's case was likewise ruled inadmissible . On July 27 , 2007 , he was sentenced to six years in federal prison , and after appeals failed he reported to Federal Correctional Institution , Schuylkill in Schuylkill County , Pennsylvania on April 14 , 2009 to serve his sentence . Nacchio finished serving his sentence on September 20 , 2013 .
Qwest Communications International , Inc. was a large United States telecommunications carrier . Qwest provided local service in 14 western and midwestern U.S. states : Arizona , Colorado , Idaho , Iowa , Minnesota , Montana , Nebraska , New Mexico , North Dakota , Oregon , South Dakota , Utah , Washington , and Wyoming . On April 22 , 2010 , CenturyLink announced it would acquire Qwest in a stock transaction . The merger closed on April 1 , 2011 . Qwest began doing business as CenturyLink in August 2011 . Qwest provided voice , Internet backbone data services , and digital television in some areas . It operated in three segments : Wireline Services , Wireless Services , and Other Services . The Wireline Services segment provided local voice , long distance voice , and data and Internet ( DSL ) services to consumers , businesses , and wholesale customers , as well as access services to wholesale customers . The Wireless Services segment was achieved by a partnership with Verizon Wireless . Qwest also partnered with DirecTV to provide digital television service to its customers . In Phoenix , Denver , Salt Lake City , Boise , and Omaha , Qwest offered Qwest Choice TV ( later also known as Qwest Digital Television ) , an IPTV service over DSL . This service was retired in October 2008 ( after being no longer available to new customers in May 2008 ) , leaving DirecTV as the only TV service Qwest provided .
The United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ( FISC , also called the FISA Court ) is a U.S. federal court established and authorized under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 ( FISA ) to oversee requests for surveillance warrants against foreign spies inside the United States by federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies . Such requests are made most often by the National Security Agency ( NSA ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation ( FBI ) . Congress created FISA and its court as a result of the recommendations by the U.S. Senate 's Church Committee . From its opening in 1978 until 2009 , the court was housed on the sixth floor of the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building . Since 2009 , the court has been relocated to the E. Barrett Prettyman United States Courthouse in Washington , D.C . In 2013 , a top-secret order issued by the court , which was later leaked to the media from documents culled by Edward Snowden , required a subsidiary of Verizon to provide a daily , on-going feed of all call detail records - including those for domestic calls - to the NSA .
Pascal Diethelm ( born 1 December 1944 ) is a Swiss econometrician and tobacco control activist who is the president of the anti-smoking organization OxyRomandie . He formerly worked at the World Health Organization ( WHO ) from 1970 until his retirement in 1999 .
Philip Morris USA is the United States tobacco division of Altria Group .
The University of Geneva ( French : Université de Genève ) is a public research university located in Geneva , Switzerland . It was founded in 1559 by John Calvin as a theological seminary and law school . It remained focused on theology until the 17th century , when it became a center for Enlightenment scholarship . In 1873 , it dropped its religious affiliations and became officially secular . Today , the university is the third largest university in Switzerland by number of students . In 2009 , the University of Geneva celebrated the 450th anniversary of its founding . Almost 40% of the students come from foreign countries . The university holds and actively pursues teaching , research , and community service as its primary objectives . In 2016 , it was ranked 53rd worldwide by the Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities , 89th by the QS World University Rankings , and 131st in the TIMES Higher Education World University Ranking . UNIGE is a member of the League of European Research Universities ( including academic institutions such as Amsterdam , Cambridge , Heidelberg , Helsinki and Milan ) the Coimbra Group and the European University Association .
Ragnar Rylander ( 12 September 1935 - 13 April 2016 ) was a Swedish environmental health scholar who served as professor and chair of Environmental Medicine at the University of Gothenburg . He was active in researching the health effects of tobacco while secretly serving as a consultant to Philip Morris for many years .
Passive smoking is the inhalation of smoke , called secondhand smoke ( SHS ) , or environmental tobacco smoke ( ETS ) , by persons other than the intended active smoker . It occurs when tobacco smoke enters an environment , causing its inhalation by people within that environment . Exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke causes disease , disability , and death . The health risks of secondhand smoke are a matter of scientific consensus . These risks have been a major motivation for smoke-free laws in workplaces and indoor public places , including restaurants , bars and night clubs , as well as some open public spaces . Concerns around secondhand smoke have played a central role in the debate over the harms and regulation of tobacco products . Since the early 1970s , the tobacco industry has viewed public concern over secondhand smoke as a serious threat to its business interests . Harm to bystanders was perceived as a motivator for stricter regulation of tobacco products . Despite the industry 's awareness of the harms of secondhand smoke as early as the 1980s , the tobacco industry coordinated a scientific controversy with the purpose of stopping regulation of their products . :1242
Jesselyn Radack ( born December 12 , 1970 ) is an American national security and human rights attorney known for her defense of whistleblowers , journalists , and hacktivists , including National Security Agency whistleblowers Edward Snowden and Thomas Drake , each of whom was charged under the Espionage Act of 1917 . While at the Justice Department , she disclosed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation ( FBI ) committed an ethics violation in their interrogation of John Walker Lindh ( the American Taliban captured during the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan ) without an attorney present , and alleged that the Department of Justice attempted to suppress that information . The Lindh case was the first major terrorism prosecution after 9/11 . Her experience is chronicled in her memoir , TRAITOR : The Whistleblower and the American Taliban and the documentary Silenced . Radack has been widely published and quoted regarding whistleblower , surveillance , Internet freedom and privacy . Her writing has appeared in the New York Times , L.A. Times , Washington Post , Guardian , The Nation , Legal Times , and numerous law journals . She frequently appears in the press , including all the major television networks , NPR , PBS , CNN , Al jazeera and the BBC . Radack is the director of National Security & Human Rights at ExposeFacts ' Whistleblower and Source Protection Program . She was named one of Foreign Policy magazine 's 100 Leading Global Thinkers of 2013 , was one of 100 figures pictured in Justice : Faces of the Human Rights Revolution , and was a visiting Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow from 2014 to 2016 . She has received the Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award ( 2011 ) and the Sam Adams Award for Integrity in Intelligence ( 2009 ) . She graduated from Brown University and Yale Law School and began her career as an Honors Program attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice .
The United States Department of Justice ( DOJ ) , also known as the Justice Department , is a federal executive department of the United States government , responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice in the United States , equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries . The department was formed in 1870 during the Ulysses S. Grant administration , and administers several federal law enforcement agencies , including the Federal Bureau of Investigation ( FBI ) , the United States Marshals Service ( USMS ) , the Bureau of Alcohol , Tobacco , Firearms and Explosives ( ATF ) , and the Drug Enforcement Administration ( DEA ) . The department is responsible for investigating instances of financial fraud , representing the United States government in legal matters ( such as in cases before the Supreme Court ) , and running the federal prison system . The department is also responsible for reviewing the conduct of local law enforcement as directed by the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 . The department is headed by the United States Attorney General , who is nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate and is a member of the Cabinet . As of February 2019 , the Attorney General is William Barr .
John Philip Walker Lindh ( born February 9 , 1981 ) is an American who was captured as an enemy combatant during the United States ' invasion of Afghanistan in November 2001 . He was captured and detained at Qala-i-Jangi fortress , used as a prison . He took part in the Battle of Qala-i-Jangi , a violent uprising of the Taliban prisoners , during which all but 86 of the estimated 300-500 prisoners were killed , along with CIA officer Johnny Mike Spann . Brought to trial in United States federal court in February 2002 , Lindh accepted a plea bargain ; he pleaded guilty to two charges and was sentenced to 20 years in prison . He was released on supervision on May 23 , 2019 , for a three-year period of supervised release . A convert to Sunni Islam in California at age 16 , Lindh traveled to Yemen in 1998 to study Arabic and stayed there for 10 months . He later returned in 2000 , then went to Afghanistan to aid the Taliban . He received training at Al-Farouq , a training camp associated with al-Qaeda , designated a terrorist organization by the United States and other countries . While at the camp , he attended a lecture by Osama bin Laden . After the 9/11 attacks , he remained there to join opposing military forces after he learned that the U.S. was allied with the Afghan Northern Alliance . Lindh had previously received training with Harkat-ul-Mujahideen , an internationally designated terrorist organization based in Pakistan . Lindh went by the name Sulayman al-Faris during his time in Afghanistan , but prefers the name Abu Sulayman al-Irlandi today .
An admission to practice law is acquired when a lawyer receives a license to practice law . In jurisdictions with two types of lawyer , as with barristers and solicitors , barristers must gain admission to the bar whereas for solicitors there are distinct practising certificates . Becoming a lawyer is a widely varied process around the world . Common to all jurisdictions are requirements of age and competence ; some jurisdictions also require documentation of citizenship or immigration status . However , the most varied requirements are those surrounding the preparation for the license , whether it includes obtaining a law degree , passing an exam , or serving in an apprenticeship . In English , admission is also called a law license . Basic requirements vary from country to country , as described below . In some jurisdictions , after admission the lawyer needs to maintain a current practising certificate to be permitted to offer services to the public .
Kathryn Bolkovac is a human rights advocate , consultant , former police investigator with the Lincoln Police Department , and former monitor with United Nations International Police Task Force in Bosnia and Herzegovina ( Bosnia ) . She came to prominence when she sued her employers for unfair dismissal after she lost her job following her attempts to expose sex trafficking in Bosnia . Her story was shown in the film The Whistleblower and told in the nonfiction book , The Whistleblower , with journalist Cari Lynn .
The International Criminal Police Organization ( ICPO-INTERPOL ; French : Organisation internationale de police criminelle ) , more commonly known as INTERPOL ( UK : /ˈɪnt.ə.pɒl/ INT-ə-pol , US : /-ər.poʊl/ -⁠ər-pohl ) , is an international organization that facilitates worldwide police cooperation and crime control . Headquartered in Lyon , France , it was founded in 1923 as the International Criminal Police Commission ( ICPC ) ; the name INTERPOL served as the agency 's telegraphic address in 1946 , and was chosen as its common name in 1956 . INTERPOL provides investigative support , expertise , and training to law enforcement worldwide in battling three major areas of transnational crime : terrorism , cybercrime , and organized crime . Its broad mandate covers virtually every kind of crime , including crimes against humanity , child pornography , drug trafficking and production , political corruption , copyright infringement , and white-collar crime . The agency also helps coordinate cooperation among the world 's law enforcement institutions through criminal databases and communications networks . INTERPOL has an annual budget of around €113 million ( US $ 131 million ) , most of which is provided through annual contributions by its membership of police forces in 181 countries . Its day-to-day operations are carried out by the General Secretariat , which is staffed by both police and civilians and led by the Secretary General , currently Jürgen Stock , the former deputy head of Germany 's Federal Criminal Police Office . As of 2013 , the General Secretariat employed a staff of 756 , representing 100 member countries . The General Assembly , composed of all member countries , is the governing body , electing the Executive Committee and its President - currently Kim Jong Yang of South Korea - to supervise the implementation of INTERPOL 's policies and administration . INTERPOL seeks to remain as politically neutral as possible so as to fulfill its mandate ; hence its charter bars the organization from undertaking interventions or activities of a political , military , religious , or racial nature or involving itself in disputes over such matters .
DynCorp ( /ˈdaɪnkɔːrp/ ) , most recently DynCorp International , is an American global service provider . Started as an aviation company , the company also provides flight operations support , training and mentoring , international development , intelligence training and support , contingency operations , security , and operations and maintenance of land vehicles . DynCorp receives more than 96% of its more than $ 3 billion in annual revenue from the U.S. federal government . The corporate headquarters are in an unincorporated part of Fairfax County near Falls Church , Virginia . The company 's contracts are managed from its office at Alliance Airport in Fort Worth , Texas . DynCorp has provided services for the U.S. military in several theaters , including Bolivia , Bosnia , Somalia , Angola , Haiti , Colombia , Kosovo and Kuwait . DynCorp International also provided much of the security for Afghan interim president Hamid Karzai 's presidential guard and trains much of Afghanistan 's and Iraq 's fledgling police force . DynCorp was also hired to assist recovery in Louisiana and neighboring areas after Hurricane Katrina . DynCorp has held one contract on every round of competition since receiving the first Contract Field Teams contract in 1951 . DynCorp won the LOGCAP II contract and is one of three contract holders on the current LOGCAP IV contract . [ clarification needed ] [ jargon ]
Bosnia and Herzegovina , [ a ] abbreviated BiH or B & H , [ b ] sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina and often known informally as Bosnia , is a country of South and Southeast Europe , located within the Balkans . Sarajevo is the capital and largest city . Bosnia and Herzegovina is an almost landlocked country - to the south it has a narrow coast on the Adriatic Sea , about 20 kilometres ( 12 miles ) long and surrounding the town of Neum . It is bordered by Serbia to the east , Montenegro to the southeast , and Croatia surrounding north and southwest . In the central and eastern interior of the country the geography is mountainous , in the northwest moderately hilly , and the northeast predominantly flatland . The inland , Bosnia , is a geographically larger region and has a moderate continental climate , with hot summers and cold and snowy winters . The southern tip , Herzegovina , has a Mediterranean climate and mostly mountainous topography . Bosnia and Herzegovina traces permanent human settlement back to the Neolithic age , during and after which it was populated by several Illyrian and Celtic civilizations . Culturally , politically , and socially , the country has a rich history , having been first settled by the Slavic peoples that populate the area today from the 6th through to the 9th centuries . In the 12th century the Banate of Bosnia was established , which evolved into the Kingdom of Bosnia in the 14th century , after which it was annexed into the Ottoman Empire , under whose rule it remained from the mid-15th to the late 19th centuries . The Ottomans brought Islam to the region , and altered much of the cultural and social outlook of the country . This was followed by annexation into the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy , which lasted up until World War I .
Sex trafficking is human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation , including sexual slavery . A victim is forced , in one of a variety of ways , into a situation of dependency on their trafficker ( s ) and then used by said trafficker ( s ) to give sexual services to customers . There are three types of activities defined as sex trafficking crimes : acquisition , transportation and exploitation ; this includes child sex tourism ( CST ) , domestic minor sex trafficking ( DMST ) or other kinds of commercial sexual exploitation of children , and prostitution . Sex trafficking is one of the biggest criminal businesses in the world . In 2012 the International Labour Organization , reported 20.9 million people were subjected to forced labour , and 22% ( 4.5 million ) are victims of forced sexual exploitation . The same organization reported in 2016 that of the estimated 25 million persons in forced labor , 5 million were victims of sexual exploitation . However , due to the covertness of sex trafficking , obtaining accurate , reliable statistics is difficult for researchers . The global commercial profits for sexual slavery are estimated to be $ 99B according to this same source . In 2005 , the figure was given as $ 9B for the total human trafficking industry . Most victims find themselves in coercive or abusive situations from which escape is both difficult and dangerous . Locations where this practice occurs span the globe and reflect an intricate web between nations , making it very difficult to construct viable solutions to this human rights problem .
Legal immunity , or immunity from prosecution , is a legal status wherein an individual or entity can not be held liable for a violation of the law , in order to facilitate societal aims that outweigh the value of imposing liability in such cases . Such legal immunity may be from criminal prosecution , or from civil liability ( being subject of lawsuit ) , or both . The most notable forms of legal immunity are diplomatic immunity , judicial immunity , and witness immunity . One author has described legal immunity as the obverse of a legal power :
A whistleblower ( also written as whistle-blower or whistle blower ) is a person who exposes secretive information or activity that is deemed illegal , unethical , or not correct within a private or public organization . The information of alleged wrongdoing can be classified in many ways : violation of company policy/rules , law , regulation , or threat to public interest/national security , as well as fraud , and corruption . Those who become whistleblowers can choose to bring information or allegations to surface either internally or externally . Internally , a whistleblower can bring his/her accusations to the attention of other people within the accused organization such as an immediate supervisor . Externally , a whistleblower can bring allegations to light by contacting a third party outside of an accused organization such as the media , government , law enforcement , or those who are concerned . Whistleblowers , however , take the risk of facing stiff reprisal and retaliation from those who are accused or alleged of wrongdoing . Because of this , a number of laws exist to protect whistleblowers . Some third-party groups even offer protection to whistleblowers , but that protection can only go so far . Whistleblowers face legal action , criminal charges , social stigma , and termination from any position , office , or job . Two other classifications of whistleblowing are private and public . The classifications relate to the type of organizations someone chooses to whistle-blow on : private sector , or public sector . Depending on many factors , both can have varying results .
Cynthia Cooper is an American accountant who formerly served as the Vice President of Internal Audit at WorldCom . In 2002 , Cooper and her team of auditors worked together and often at night and in secret to investigate and unearth $ 3.8 billion in fraud at WorldCom . At the time , this was the largest incident of accounting fraud in U.S. history . Since leaving MCI , Cooper started her own consulting firm . In addition , Cooper speaks to professionals as well as high school and college students to share her experiences and lessons learned . Cooper 's book about her life and the WorldCom fraud , Extraordinary Circumstances : The Journey of a Corporate Whistleblower , was published in 2008 . Profits from the book were given to universities for ethics education . Cooper previously worked for the Atlanta offices of public accounting firms PricewaterhouseCoopers and Deloitte & Touche . Cooper earned her Bachelor of Science in Accounting from Mississippi State University and a Master of Science in Accountancy from the University of Alabama . She is a Certified Fraud Examiner ( CFE ) . Cooper was named one of three People of the Year by Time magazine in 2002. Cooper maintains an office in Brandon , Mississippi . She married Lance Cooper in 1993 ; they have two children , Stephanie and Anna Katherine .
MCI , Inc. ( previously Worldcom and MCI WorldCom ) was a telecommunications company . For a time , it was the second largest long distance telephone company in the United States , after AT & T . The company grew largely by acquiring other telecommunications companies and filed bankruptcy in 2002 after an accounting scandal , in which several executives , including CEO Bernard Ebbers were convicted . In January 2006 , the company was acquired by Verizon Communications and was later integrated into Verizon Business . It was originally headquartered in Clinton , Mississippi before relocating to Ashburn , Virginia .
Person of the Year ( called Man of the Year or Woman of the Year until 1999 ) is an annual issue of the United States news magazine Time that features and profiles a person , a group , an idea , or an object that for better or for worse . has done the most to influence the events of the year .
Sherron Watkins ( born August 28 , 1959 ) is an American former Vice President of Corporate Development at the Enron Corporation . Watkins was called to testify before committees of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate at the beginning of 2002 , primarily about her warnings to Enron 's then-CEO Kenneth Lay about accounting irregularities in the financial statements . In August 2001 , Watkins alerted then-Enron CEO Kenneth Lay of accounting irregularities in financial reports . However , Watkins has been criticized for not reporting the fraud to government authorities and not speaking up publicly sooner about her concerns , as her memo did not reach the public until five months after it was written . Ms. Watkins was represented by Houston attorney Philip H. Hilder . Watkins was selected as one of three Persons of the Year 2002 by Time . ( The two other whistleblowers who joined her as People of the Year were Cynthia Cooper of WorldCom and Coleen Rowley of the FBI . )
Enron Corporation was an American energy , commodities , and services company based in Houston , Texas . It was founded in 1985 as a merger between Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth , both relatively small regional companies . Before its bankruptcy on December 3 , 2001 , Enron employed approximately 29,000 staff and was a major electricity , natural gas , communications and pulp and paper company , with claimed revenues of nearly $ 101 billion during 2000 . Fortune named Enron America 's Most Innovative Company for six consecutive years . At the end of 2001 , it was revealed that Enron 's reported financial condition was sustained by institutionalized , systematic , and creatively planned accounting fraud , known since as the Enron scandal . Enron has since become a well-known example of willful corporate fraud and corruption . The scandal also brought into question the accounting practices and activities of many corporations in the United States and was a factor in the enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 . The scandal also affected the greater business world by causing the dissolution of the Arthur Andersen accounting firm , which had been Enron 's main auditor for years . Enron filed for bankruptcy in the Southern District of New York in late 2001 and selected Weil , Gotshal & Manges as its bankruptcy counsel . It ended its bankruptcy during November 2004 , pursuant to a court-approved plan of reorganization . A new board of directors changed the name of Enron to Enron Creditors Recovery Corp. , and emphasized reorganizing and liquidating certain operations and assets of the pre-bankruptcy Enron . On September 7 , 2006 , Enron sold Prisma Energy International Inc. , its last remaining business , to Ashmore Energy International Ltd. ( now AEI ) .
Diann Shipione is a former trustee of the San Diego , California City Employees ' Retirement System pension board , credited with exposing unlawful underfunding of the pension fund and omissions in municipal bond sales documents . She was formerly a vice president at UBS Financial Services and is the wife of businessman Patrick C. Shea .
The San Diego City Employee 's Retirement Pension Fund was the source of a multi-year scandal and has been an ongoing financial concern for the city of San Diego , California .
UBS Group AG [ nb 1 ] is a Swiss multinational investment bank and financial services company founded and based in Switzerland . Co-headquartered in the cities of Zürich and Basel , it maintains a presence in all major financial centres as the largest Swiss banking institution in the world . UBS client services are known for their strict bank-client confidentiality and culture of banking secrecy . [ nb 2 ] The bank 's large positions in the Americas , EMEA , and Asia Pacific markets make it a global systemically important financial institution . UBS was founded in 1862 as the Bank in Winterthur alongside the advent of the Swiss banking industry . During the 1890s , the Swiss Bank Corporation ( SBC ) was founded , forming a private banking syndicate that expanded aided by Switzerland 's international neutrality . The Bank of Winterthur merged with Toggenburger Bank in 1912 to form the Union Bank of Switzerland ( UBS ) and grew rapidly after the Banking Law of 1934 codified Swiss banking secrecy . Following decades of market competition between the SBC and UBS , the two merged in 1998 to create a single company known solely as UBS . [ nb 3 ] Through mergers and acquisitions up to the early 2000s , UBS together with Credit Suisse held more than 50% of all deposits in Switzerland . After UBS managed heavy losses during the 2008 financial crisis with an asset relief recovery program , it was hit with the 2011 rogue trader scandal resulting in a US $ 2 billion trading loss . In 2012 the bank reoriented itself around wealth management and limited its sell side operations . In the years since , the company 's capital strength , security protocols , and reputation for discretion has yielded a substantial market share in banking and high level of brand loyalty .
Coleen Rowley ( born December 20 , 1954 ) is an American former FBI special agent and whistleblower , and was a Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party ( DFL ) candidate for Congress in Minnesota 's 2nd congressional district , one of eight congressional districts in Minnesota in 2006 . She lost the general election to Republican incumbent John Kline .
The Federal Bureau of Investigation ( FBI ) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency . Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice , the FBI is also a member of the U.S. Intelligence Community and reports to both the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence . A leading U.S. counter-terrorism , counterintelligence , and criminal investigative organization , the FBI has jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crimes . Although many of the FBI 's functions are unique , its activities in support of national security are comparable to those of the British MI5 and the Russian FSB . Unlike the Central Intelligence Agency ( CIA ) , which has no law enforcement authority and is focused on intelligence collection abroad , the FBI is primarily a domestic agency , maintaining 56 field offices in major cities throughout the United States , and more than 400 resident agencies in smaller cities and areas across the nation . At an FBI field office , a senior-level FBI officer concurrently serves as the representative of the Director of National Intelligence . Despite its domestic focus , the FBI also maintains a significant international footprint , operating 60 Legal Attache ( LEGAT ) offices and 15 sub-offices in U.S. embassies and consulates across the globe . These foreign offices exist primarily for the purpose of coordination with foreign security services and do not usually conduct unilateral operations in the host countries . The FBI can and does at times carry out secret activities overseas , just as the CIA has a limited domestic function ; these activities generally require coordination across government agencies . The FBI was established in 1908 as the Bureau of Investigation , the BOI or BI for short . Its name was changed to the Federal Bureau of Investigation ( FBI ) in 1935 . The FBI headquarters is the J. Edgar Hoover Building , located in Washington , D.C .
The September 11 attacks ( also referred to as 9/11 ) [ a ] were a series of four coordinated terrorist attacks by the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda against the United States on the morning of Tuesday , September 11 , 2001 . The attacks resulted in 2,977 victim fatalities , over 25,000 injuries , and caused at least $ 10 billion in infrastructure and property damage . Additional people have died of 9/11-related cancer and respiratory diseases in the months and years following the attacks . Four passenger airliners operated by two major U.S. passenger air carriers ( United Airlines and American Airlines ) - all of which departed from airports in the northeastern United States bound for San Francisco and Los Angeles - were hijacked by 19 al-Qaeda terrorists . Two of the planes , American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 , were crashed into the North and South towers , respectively , of the World Trade Center complex in Lower Manhattan . Within an hour and 42 minutes , both 110-story towers collapsed . Debris and the resulting fires caused a partial or complete collapse of all other buildings in the World Trade Center complex , including the 47-story 7 World Trade Center tower , as well as significant damage to ten other large surrounding structures . A third plane , American Airlines Flight 77 , was crashed into the Pentagon ( the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense ) in Arlington County , Virginia , which led to a partial collapse of the building 's west side . The fourth plane , United Airlines Flight 93 , was initially flown toward Washington , D.C. , but crashed into a field in Stonycreek Township near Shanksville , Pennsylvania , after its passengers thwarted the hijackers . 9/11 is the single deadliest terrorist attack in human history and the single deadliest incident for firefighters and law enforcement officers in the history of the United States , with 343 and 72 killed , respectively . Suspicion quickly fell on al-Qaeda . The United States responded by launching the War on Terror and invading Afghanistan to depose the Taliban , which had failed to comply with U.S. demands to extradite Osama bin Laden and expel al-Qaeda from Afghanistan .
William Edward Binney is a former intelligence official with the United States National Security Agency ( NSA ) and whistleblower . He retired on October 31 , 2001 , after more than 30 years with the agency . He was a critic of his former employers during the George W. Bush administration , and later criticized the NSA 's data-collection policies during the Barack Obama administration . He dissented from the view that Russia interfered with the 2016 US election .
The United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence ( HPSCI ) , also known as the House Intelligence Committee , is a committee of the United States House of Representatives , currently chaired by Adam Schiff . It is the primary committee in the U.S. House of Representatives charged with the oversight of the United States Intelligence Community , though it does share some jurisdiction with other committees in the House , including the Armed Services Committee for some matters dealing with the Department of Defense and the various branches of the U.S. military . The committee was preceded by the Select Committee on Intelligence between 1975 and 1977 . House Resolution 658 established the permanent select committee , which gave it status equal to a standing committee on July 14 , 1977 .
Diane Roark is an American whistleblower who served as a Republican staffer on the House Intelligence Committee from 1985 to 2002 . She was , right after 9/11 , the House Intelligence Committee staffer in charge of oversight of the NSA . Along with William Binney , Ed Loomis , and J. Kirk Wiebe , she filed a complaint to the Department of Defense 's Inspector General ( DoD IG ) about the National Security Agency 's highly classified Trailblazer Project . Her house was raided by armed FBI agents in 2007 after she was wrongly suspected of leaking to The New York Times reporter James Risen and to Siobhan Gorman at The Baltimore Sun in stories about NSA warrantless surveillance . This led to her suing the government in 2012 because they did not return her computer , which they had seized during the raid , and because the government failed to clear her name . The punitive treatment of Roark , Binney , Wiebe , and Loomis , as well as , and , in particular , then still active ( rather than retired ) NSA executive Thomas Andrews Drake , who had gone in confidence with anonymity assured to the DoD IG , led the Assistant Inspector General John Crane to eventually become a public whistleblower himself and also led Edward Snowden to go public with revelations rather than to report within the internal whistleblower program .
Trailblazer was a United States National Security Agency ( NSA ) program intended to develop a capability to analyze data carried on communications networks like the Internet . It was intended to track entities using communication methods such as cell phones and e-mail . NSA employees J. Kirk Wiebe , William Binney , Ed Loomis , and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence staffer Diane Roark complained to the Department of Defense 's Inspector General ( IG ) about waste , fraud , and abuse in the program , and the fact that a successful operating prototype existed . The complaint was accepted by the IG and an investigation began that lasted until mid-2005 when the final results were issued . The results were largely hidden , as the report given to the public was heavily ( 90% ) redacted , while the original report was heavily classified , thus restricting the ability of most people to see it . The people who filed the IG complaint were later raided by armed Federal Bureau of Investigation ( FBI ) agents . While the Government threatened to prosecute all who signed the IG report , it ultimately chose to pursue an NSA Senior Executive Thomas Andrews Drake who helped with the report internally to NSA and who had spoken with a reporter about the project . Drake was later charged under the Espionage Act of 1917 . His defenders claimed this was retaliation . The charges against him were later dropped , and he agreed to plead guilty to having committed a misdemeanor under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act , something that Jesselyn Radack of the Government Accountability Project ( which helped represent him ) called an act of civil disobedience .
ThinThread is the name of a project that the United States National Security Agency ( NSA ) pursued during the 1990s , according to a May 17 , 2006 article in The Baltimore Sun . The program involved wiretapping and sophisticated analysis of the resulting data , but according to the article , the program was discontinued three weeks before the September 11 , 2001 attacks due to the changes in priorities and the consolidation of U.S. intelligence authority . The change in priority consisted of the decision made by the director of NSA General Michael V. Hayden to go with a concept called Trailblazer , despite the fact that ThinThread was a working prototype that claimed to protect the privacy of U.S. citizens . ThinThread was dismissed and replaced by the Trailblazer Project , which lacked the privacy protections . A consortium led by Science Applications International Corporation was awarded a $ 280 million contract to develop Trailblazer in 2002 .
Marta Andreasen ( born 26 November 1954 ) is an Argentine-born Spanish accountant , employed in January 2002 by the European Commission as Chief Accountant , and notable for raising concerns about flaws in the commission 's accounting system which she felt left the commission vulnerable to potential fraud . Elected as a Member of the European Parliament for the UK Independence Party ( UKIP ) in the 2009 election , she defected to the Conservative Party in February 2013 . She lost her seat in the 2014 European Parliamentary election .
The European Commission ( EC ) is the executive branch of the European Union , responsible for proposing legislation , implementing decisions , upholding the EU treaties and managing the day-to-day business of the EU . Commissioners swear an oath at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg City , pledging to respect the treaties and to be completely independent in carrying out their duties during their mandate . The Commissioners are proposed by the Council of the European Union , on the basis of suggestions made by the national governments , and then appointed by the European Council after the approval of the European Parliament . It is common , although not a formal requirement , that the commissioners have previously held senior political positions , such as being a member of the European Parliament or a government minister . This EU institution operates as a cabinet government , with 27 members of the Commission ( informally known as commissioners ) . There is one member per member state , but members are bound by their oath of office to represent the general interest of the EU as a whole rather than their home state . One of the 27 is the Commission President ( currently Ursula von der Leyen ) proposed by the European Council and elected by the European Parliament . The Council of the European Union then nominates the other members of the Commission in agreement with the nominated President , and the 27 members as a single body are then subject to a vote of approval by the European Parliament . The current Commission is the Von der Leyen Commission , which took office in December 2019 , following the European Parliament elections in May of the same year . The term Commission is variously used , either in the narrow sense of the 27-member College of Commissioners ( or College ) or to also include the administrative body of about 32,000 European civil servants who are split into departments called directorates-general and services . The procedural languages of the Commission are English , French and German . The Members of the Commission and their cabinets ( immediate teams ) are based in the Berlaymont building in Brussels .
The University of California ( UC ) is a public university system in the U.S. state of California . Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education , the University of California is a part of the state 's three-system public higher education plan , which also includes the California State University system and the California Community Colleges System . The University of California was founded on March 23 , 1868 , and operated in Oakland before moving to its campus in Berkeley in 1873 . In March 1951 , the University of California began to reorganize itself into something distinct from its campus at Berkeley , with Robert Gordon Sproul remaining in place as the first systemwide President , Clark Kerr becoming the first Chancellor of UC Berkeley , and Raymond B. Allen became the first Chancellor of UCLA . However , the 1951 reorganization was stalled by resistance from Sproul and his allies , and it was not until Kerr succeeded Sproul as President that UC was able to evolve into a system from 1957 to 1960 . In the 21st century , the University of California has 10 campuses , a combined student body of 280,380 students , 21,200 faculty members , 144,000 staff members and over 1.86 million living alumni , as governed by a semi-autonomous Board of Regents . Its tenth and newest campus in Merced opened in fall 2005 . Nine campuses enroll both undergraduate and graduate students ; one campus , UC San Francisco , enrolls only graduate and professional students in the medical and health sciences . In addition , the UC Hastings College of Law , located in San Francisco , is legally affiliated with UC , but other than sharing its name is entirely autonomous from the rest of the system . The University of California also manages or co-manages three national laboratories for the U.S. Department of Energy : Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory ( LBNL ) , Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory ( LLNL ) , and Los Alamos National Laboratory ( LANL ) . Collectively , the colleges , institutions , and alumni of the University of California make it the most comprehensive and advanced postsecondary educational system in the world , responsible for nearly $ 50 billion per year of economic impact . UC campuses have large numbers of distinguished faculty in almost every academic discipline , with UC faculty and researchers having won at least 62 Nobel Prizes as of 2017 .
Los Alamos National Laboratory ( Los Alamos or LANL for short ) is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory initially organized during World War II for the design of nuclear weapons as part of the Manhattan Project . It is located a short distance northwest of Santa Fe , New Mexico in the southwestern US . Los Alamos was selected as the top secret location for bomb design in late 1942 , and officially commissioned the next year , under the management of University of California . At the time it was known as Project Y and was the center for weapon design and overall coordination . Other labs , today known as Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Hanford Site , concentrated on the production of uranium and plutonium bomb fuels . Los Alamos was the heart of the project , collecting together some of the world 's most famous scientists , among them numerous Nobel Prize winners . The site was known variously as Project Y , Los Alamos Laboratory , and Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory through this period . The lab 's existence was announced to the world in the post-WWII era , when it became known universally as Los Alamos . In 1952 , the Atomic Energy Commission formed a second design lab under the direction of the University of California , Berkeley , becoming the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory ( LLNL ) . Since that date the two labs have competed on a wide variety of bomb designs . With the ending of the Cold War , both labs turned their focus increasingly to civilian missions . Today , Los Alamos is one of the largest science and technology institutions in the world .
Sibel Deniz Edmonds is a former contract translator for the Federal Bureau of Investigation ( FBI ) and the founder and editor-in-chief of the independent news website NewsBud . The FBI hired her as a translator shortly after 9/11 but fired her after less than seven months . She identified herself as a whistleblower and challenged her termination ; however , the courts dismissed her lawsuit for wrongful termination because the FBI would need to disclose privileged information . She accused a colleague of covering up illicit activity involving Turkish nationals , alleged serious security breaches and cover-ups and that intelligence had been deliberately suppressed , endangering national security . The PEN American Center awarded her the PEN/Newmans Own First Amendment Award in 2006 for her claims . She published a memoir in March 2012 , titled Classified Woman - The Sibel Edmonds Story . Sibel Edmonds is the founder and publisher of the Boiling Frogs Post , an online media site that aims to offer nonpartisan investigative journalism . In 2016 as editor-in-chief Sibel expanded and founded NewsBud independent news media with associates , partnered with BFP .
Turkish Americans ( Turkish : Amerikalı Türkler ) are Americans of Turkish descent or origin .
The state secrets privilege is an evidentiary rule created by United States legal precedent . Application of the privilege results in exclusion of evidence from a legal case based solely on affidavits submitted by the government stating that court proceedings might disclose sensitive information which might endanger national security . United States v. Reynolds , which involved military secrets , was the first case that saw formal recognition of the privilege . Following a claim of state secrets privilege , the court rarely conducts an in camera examination of the evidence to evaluate whether there is sufficient cause to support the use of this doctrine . This results in court rulings in which even the judge has not verified the veracity of the assertion . The privileged material is completely removed from the litigation , and the court must determine how the unavailability of the privileged information affects the case .
The Supreme Court of the United States ( SCOTUS ) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States . It has ultimate ( and largely discretionary ) appellate jurisdiction over all federal and state court cases that involve a point of federal law , and original jurisdiction over a narrow range of cases , specifically all Cases affecting Ambassadors , other public Ministers and Consuls , and those in which a State shall be Party . The Court holds the power of judicial review , the ability to invalidate a statute for violating a provision of the U.S. Constitution . It is also able to strike down presidential directives for violating either the Constitution or statutory law . However , it may act only within the context of a case in an area of law over which it has jurisdiction . The Court may decide cases having political overtones , but it has ruled that it does not have power to decide non-justiciable political questions . Established by Article III of the Constitution , the composition and procedures of the Supreme Court were initially established by the 1st Congress through the Judiciary Act of 1789 . As later set by the Judiciary Act of 1869 , the Court consists of the chief justice of the United States and eight associate justices . Each justice has lifetime tenure , meaning they remain on the Court until they resign , retire , die , or are removed from office . When a vacancy occurs , the president , with the advice and consent of the Senate , appoints a new justice . Each justice has a single vote in deciding the cases argued before it . When in majority , the chief justice decides who writes the opinion of the court ; otherwise , the most senior justice in the majority assigns the task of writing the opinion .
The National Security Whistleblowers Coalition ( NSWBC ) , founded in 2004 by former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds in league with over 50 former and current United States government officials from more than a dozen agencies , is an independent , nonpartisan alliance of whistleblowers who have come forward to address weaknesses of US security agencies . NSWBC is made up of current and former employees of the Federal Bureau of Investigation ( FBI ) , the Central Intelligence Agency ( CIA ) , the Defense Intelligence Agency ( DIA ) , the Drug Enforcement Administration ( DEA ) , the Department of Energy ( DOE ) , the Federal Aviation Administration ( FAA ) , the Federal Reserve , the Department of Homeland Security ( DHS ) ( including the Transportation Security Administration ( TSA ) ) , the National Security Agency ( NSA ) , the Department of State , and others . The organization has collectively testified before Congressional committees in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate to demand that Congress act to end government retaliation against those who expose corruption , misdeeds and errors in the realm of U.S. national security .
The United States Army ( USA ) is the land warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces . It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services , and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution . As the oldest and most senior branch of the U.S. military in order of precedence , the modern U.S. Army has its roots in the Continental Army , which was formed ( 14 June 1775 ) to fight the American Revolutionary War ( 1775-1783 ) - before the United States of America was established as a country . After the Revolutionary War , the Congress of the Confederation created the United States Army on 3 June 1784 to replace the disbanded Continental Army . The United States Army considers itself descended from the Continental Army , and considers its institutional inception to be the origin of that armed force in 1775 . As a uniformed military service , the U.S. Army is part of the Department of the Army , which is one of the three military departments of the Department of Defense . The U.S. Army is headed by a civilian senior appointed civil servant , the secretary of the Army ( SECARMY ) and by a chief military officer , the chief of staff of the Army ( CSA ) who is also a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff . It is the largest military branch , and in the fiscal year 2017 , the projected end strength for the Regular Army ( USA ) was 476,000 soldiers ; the Army National Guard ( ARNG ) had 343,000 soldiers and the U.S. Army Reserve ( USAR ) had 199,000 soldiers ; the combined-component strength of the U.S. Army was 1,018,000 soldiers . As a branch of the armed forces , the mission of the U.S. Army is to fight and win our Nation 's wars , by providing prompt , sustained land dominance , across the full range of military operations and the spectrum of conflict , in support of combatant commanders . The branch participates in conflicts worldwide and is the major ground-based offensive and defensive force of the United States .
General Motors Company , commonly referred to as General Motors ( GM ) , is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Detroit that designs , manufactures , markets , and distributes vehicles and vehicle parts , and sells financial services , with global headquarters in Detroit 's Renaissance Center . It was originally founded by William C. Durant on September 16 , 1908 as a holding company . The company is the largest American automobile manufacturer , and one of the world 's largest . As of 2019 , General Motors is ranked # 13 on the Fortune 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations by total revenue . General Motors manufactures vehicles in 15 countries ; its core automobile brands include Chevrolet , Buick , GMC , and Cadillac . It also either owns or holds a significant stake in foreign brands such as Holden , Wuling , Baojun , and Jiefang . Annual worldwide sales volume reached a milestone of 10 million vehicles in 2016 .
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration ( NHTSA , pronounced NITZ-ah ) is an agency of the U.S. federal government , part of the Department of Transportation . It describes its mission as Save lives , prevent injuries , reduce vehicle-related crashes . As part of its activities , NHTSA is charged with writing and enforcing Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards as well as regulations for motor vehicle theft resistance and fuel economy , as part of the Corporate Average Fuel Economy ( CAFE ) system . FMVSS 209 was the first standard to become effective on 1 March , 1967 . NHTSA also licenses vehicle manufacturers and importers , allows or blocks the import of vehicles and safety-regulated vehicle parts , administers the vehicle identification number ( VIN ) system , develops the anthropomorphic dummies used in U.S. safety testing as well as the test protocols themselves , and provides vehicle insurance cost information . The agency has asserted preemptive regulatory authority over greenhouse gas emissions , but this has been disputed by such state regulatory agencies as the California Air Resources Board . The Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards are contained in the United States Code of Federal Regulations , Title 49 , Part 571 . This is commonly referred to as 49CFR571 , with any particular FMVSS appended after a period ; for example 49CFR571.301 is the location of FMVSS 301 . Additional federal vehicle standards are contained elsewhere in the CFR . For instance , 49CFR564 contained the specifications and requirements for various types of replaceable headlamp light sources ( bulbs ) , until this information was moved to a docket elsewhere , with effect from 2 December 2012 . Another of NHTSA 's major activities is the creation and maintenance of the data files maintained by the National Center for Statistics and Analysis . In particular , the Fatality Analysis Reporting System ( FARS ) , has become a resource for traffic safety research not only in the United States , but throughout the world .
Diane Urquhart is an independent financial analyst and former senior securities industry executive . She is a major critic of the financial system in Canada . She appeared before the Parliamentary finance committees hearings into Canadas frozen non-bank asset-backed commercial paper as one of six witnesses to address the committee where she appeared on behalf of a group of retail customers of non-bank ABCP . Diane Urquhart says that asset-backed commercial paper is responsible for a loss of $ 7- $ 13 billion in Canada held primarily by government , corporation pension funds and treasuries . Implicated are credit rating agency Dominion Bond Rating Services ( DBRS ) , the Federal Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions ( OSFI ) , and the Ontario Securities Commission . Ms Urquhart also speaks out against some powerful institutions and people , such as Ernst & Young , JP Morgan and Purdy Crawford . Urquhart has been helping the Nortel 's laid off employees , pensioners , and the disabled in their battle to try and collect their benefits from the bankrupt company . She also testified in 2010 before a parliamentary committee that $ 100 million is missing from the Nortel Health and Welfare Trust and that a $ 37 million loan to Nortel has not been paid back .
The Government of Canada ( French : Gouvernement du Canada ) , officially Her Majesty 's Government ( French : Gouvernement de Sa Majesté ) , is the corporation responsible for the federal administration of Canada . In Canadian English , the term can mean either the collective set of institutions or specifically the Queen-in-Council . In both senses , the current construct was established at Confederation through the Constitution Act , 1867 - as a federal constitutional monarchy , wherein the Canadian Crown acts as the core , or the most basic building block , of its Westminster-style parliamentary democracy . The Crown is thus the foundation of the executive , legislative , and judicial branches of the Canadian government . Further elements of governance are outlined in the rest of the Canadian Constitution , which includes written statutes , court rulings , and unwritten conventions developed over centuries . The monarch ( currently Queen Elizabeth II ) is personally represented by the Governor General of Canada ( currently Julie Payette ) . The Queen 's Privy Council for Canada is the body that advises the sovereign or viceroy on the exercise of executive power . However , in practice , that task is performed only by the Cabinet , a committee within the Privy Council composed of ministers of the Crown , who are drawn from and responsible to the elected House of Commons in parliament . The Cabinet is headed by the prime minister ( currently Justin Trudeau ) , who is appointed by the governor general after securing the confidence of the House of Commons .
A security is a tradable financial asset . The term commonly refers to any form of financial instrument , but its legal definition varies by jurisdiction . In some countries and languages the term security is commonly used in day-to-day parlance to mean any form of financial instrument , even though the underlying legal and regulatory regime may not have such a broad definition . In some jurisdictions the term specifically excludes financial instruments other than equities and fixed income instruments . In some jurisdictions it includes some instruments that are close to equities and fixed income , e.g. , equity warrants . Securities may be represented by a certificate or , more typically , non-certificated , that is in electronic ( dematerialized ) or book entry only form . Certificates may be bearer , meaning they entitle the holder to rights under the security merely by holding the security , or registered , meaning they entitle the holder to rights only if he or she appears on a security register maintained by the issuer or an intermediary . They include shares of corporate stock or mutual funds , bonds issued by corporations or governmental agencies , stock options or other options , limited partnership units , and various other formal investment instruments that are negotiable and fungible . In the United Kingdom , the national competent authority for financial markets regulation is the Financial Conduct Authority ; the definition in its Handbook of the term security applies only to equities , debentures , alternative debentures , government and public securities , warrants , certificates representing certain securities , units , stakeholder pension schemes , personal pension schemes , rights to or interests in investments , and anything that may be admitted to the Official List . In the United States , a security is a tradable financial asset of any kind . Securities are broadly categorized into :
The House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance ( FINA ) is a standing committee of the House of Commons of Canada .
Asset-backed commercial paper ( ABCP ) is a form of commercial paper that is collateralized by other financial assets . Institutional investors usually purchase such instruments in order to diversify their assets and generate short-term gains .
Katharine Teresa Gun ( née Harwood and married Gün but in the press often simplified to Gun , born 1974 ) is a British translator who worked for the Government Communications Headquarters ( GCHQ ) , a British intelligence agency . In 2003 , she leaked top-secret information to The Observer , concerning a request by the United States for intelligence on diplomats from members of the Security Council , who were due to vote on a second United Nations resolution on the prospective 2003 invasion of Iraq .
Government Communications Headquarters , commonly known as GCHQ , is an intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence ( SIGINT ) and information assurance to the government and armed forces of the United Kingdom . Based in The Doughnut in the suburbs of Cheltenham , GCHQ is the responsibility of the country 's Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs , but it is not a part of the Foreign Office and its director ranks as a Permanent Secretary . GCHQ was originally established after the First World War as the Government Code and Cypher School ( GC & CS ) and was known under that name until 1946 . During the Second World War it was located at Bletchley Park , where it was responsible for breaking the German Enigma codes . There are two main components of the GCHQ , the Composite Signals Organisation ( CSO ) , which is responsible for gathering information , and the National Cyber Security Centre ( NCSC ) , which is responsible for securing the UK 's own communications . The Joint Technical Language Service ( JTLS ) is a small department and cross-government resource responsible for mainly technical language support and translation and interpreting services across government departments . It is co-located with GCHQ for administrative purposes . In 2013 , GCHQ received considerable media attention when the former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed that the agency was in the process of collecting all online and telephone data in the UK via the Tempora programme . Snowden 's revelations began a spate of ongoing disclosures of global surveillance . The Guardian newspaper was then forced to destroy all incriminating files given to them by Snowden because of the threats of lawsuits from the UK Government .
The 2003 invasion of Iraq was the first stage of the Iraq War . The invasion phase began on 19 March 2003 and lasted just over one month , including 26 days of major combat operations , in which a combined force of troops from the United States , the United Kingdom , Australia and Poland invaded Iraq . This early stage of the war formally ended on 1 May 2003 when U.S. President George W. Bush declared the End of major combat operations , after which the Coalition Provisional Authority ( CPA ) was established as the first of several successive transitional governments leading up to the first Iraqi parliamentary election in January 2005 . U.S. military forces later remained in Iraq until the withdrawal in 2011 . The U.S.-led coalition sent 177,194 troops into Iraq during the initial invasion phase , which lasted from 19 March to 1 May 2003 . About 130,000 arrived from the U.S. alone , with about 45,000 British soldiers , 2,000 Australian soldiers , and 194 Polish soldiers . 36 other countries were involved in its aftermath . In preparation for the invasion , 100,000 U.S. troops assembled in Kuwait by 18 February . The coalition forces also received support from the Peshmerga in Iraqi Kurdistan . According to U.S. President George W. Bush and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair , the coalition aimed to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction , to end Saddam Hussein 's support for terrorism , and to free the Iraqi people . Others place a much greater emphasis on the impact of the September 11 attacks , on the role this played in changing U.S. strategic calculations , and the rise of the freedom agenda . According to Blair , the trigger was Iraq 's failure to take a final opportunity to disarm itself of alleged nuclear , chemical , and biological weapons that U.S. and British officials called an immediate and intolerable threat to world peace .