No state can expect its citizens to report violations of its laws by public officials unless there is protection from retaliation . The new Louisiana Ethics Code needs to include sections for dealing with both physical and economic reprisals from the reported officials.
Again it is the current ethics probe of Craig Webre which gives us information on the very real need for whistle blower protections.
In the summer of 2007 Webre discovered the name of the citizen who filed the initial complaint over his alleged violations. What did Webre do in response ? He got his office staff to profile the man through the L.P.S.O.'s huge government and financial database software, THINKSTREAM. ( By law THINKSTREAM is reserved for use against criminal suspects, many of the data bases accessible only with court-authority ; see the October 17, 2007 suit in the United States District Court in New Orleans by the C.L.A.W. organization addressing Webre's violation of federal electronic wiretapping laws against his constituents.
Apparently the sheriff sees citizens who would dare report his alleged ethics misconduct as enemy combatants. The Thibodaux resident who submitted the complaint against Webre to the Ethics Board became the L.P.S.O.'s prime target. His confidential social security, government benefits, educational, passport, travel, prior litigation, medical and banking records became Webre's guides for a retaliatory attack. Seems that the man suffered from an earlier job-related medical condition.
What did the Webre retaliation crew do with their information on this man ? They registered as commentators on the THIBODAUX DAILY COMET on-line newspaper forums.
For months this man. the ethics board's main informant on Webre, became Webre's press target. He was psychologically pounded, harassed, defamed, belittled, ridiculed, and ultimately physically threatened through the newspaper forums by Webre's people. Ten thousand plus readers of the Daily Comet forums were told that the man was a perpetrator of federal fraud and perjury. There was no foundation for the charge. Webre knew the accusation was false. Webre and his hit team had one thing in mind : subject the man to such incredibly deep stress and pressure that his medical condtion would re-surface. It did.
GET BACK TIME was Webre's rule for dealing with a citizen who had the courage to come forth about the sheriff's alleged repeated code violations. The ethics law needs a drastic change to deal with this this type of brutal retaliation by an elected official against an everyday citizen.
The Ethics Board needs to be granted power to bring in the state police when the official it is investigating resorts to such reprisals; the board needs to be given the power to file criminal complaints of witness intimidation and duress with the AG's Office. The code's revisions need to extend witness protection and whistle blower restitution to the victim with costs imposed on the official who is accused of violating the code.
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2 comments:
More lies and wimpy complaints from the "Master of Delusions": Louisiana Troutman, also known as "WaldoCop," "Incognitolady," "justanordinarycitizen," "brain user," and a host of other online pseudonyms. His typical response to any challenges to the truth of his outrageous and unsupported accusations and his credibility (very little there) was to whimper and bellyache about imagined "threats" and "intimidation." Of course, such behavior is typical of paranoid psychosis, now known as "delusional disorder, persecutory type."
The "Master of Delusions" was a conniving, cowardly blowhard, who supplemented his SSI and food stamps by filing trumped-up lawsuits that only occasionally paid him token settlements. He was a paranoid crybaby and professional bum.
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