Elijah Cummings: “I rise in support of the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2007, which I have cosponsored. To say the least…”

“I rise in support of the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2007, which I have cosponsored. To say the least, this administration has not prioritized openness in government, and I was not surprised to learn that the President is opposed to the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act. I am similarly not surprised to learn that the President and many of his colleagues here in the Congress have threatened that by affording our Federal employees whistleblower protections, we are also threatening national security. This administration has consistently used security threats to strike fear into the public's consciousness. But let me be clear: Claims that the legislation we are considering here today would threaten national security are baseless. If anything, the opposite is true. As a member of the House Armed Services Committee, I know how vitally important it is for Federal officials to be able to share their knowledge and their firsthand experience with the Congress. We now know that, going into the Iraq war, Federal officials at the CIA and the State Department were aware that the pre-war intelligence about Iraq purporting to show that the nation had weapons of mass destruction was wrong. Thousands of Americans and Iraqi lives and billions of American taxpayer dollars could have been saved if these individuals had been able to share their knowledge with a Congress willing to listen to them and protect them from retribution.”