Left and RightHatch Act Collision Course

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This thread is for news related to the Hatch Act.

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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119621772122306160.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Head of Rove Inquiry in Hot Seat Himself

Bloch Used Private Company,
Geeks on Call, to Delete Files
On His Office Computer
By JOHN R. WILKE
November 28, 2007; Page A6

WASHINGTON -- The head of the federal agency investigating Karl Rove's White House political operation is facing allegations that he improperly deleted computer files during another probe, using a private computer-help company, Geeks on Call.

Scott Bloch runs the Office of Special Counsel, an agency charged with protecting government whistleblowers and enforcing a ban on federal employees engaging in partisan political activity. Mr. Bloch's agency is looking into whether Mr. Rove and other White House officials used government agencies to help re-elect Republicans in 2006.

At the same time, Mr. Bloch has himself been under investigation since 2005. At the direction of the White House, the federal Office of Personnel Management's inspector general is looking into claims that Mr. Bloch improperly retaliated against employees and dismissed whistleblower cases without adequate examination.
http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/HC-GF880_Bloch_20051020075819.gif
Recently, investigators learned that Mr. Bloch erased all the files on his office personal computer late last year. They are now trying to determine whether the deletions were improper or part of a cover-up, lawyers close to the case said.
Bypassing his agency's computer technicians, Mr. Bloch phoned 1-800-905-GEEKS for Geeks on Call, the mobile PC-help service. It dispatched a technician in one of its signature PT Cruiser wagons. In an interview, the 49-year-old former labor-law litigator from Lawrence, Kan., confirmed that he contacted Geeks on Call but said he was trying to eradicate a virus that had seized control of his computer.

Mr. Bloch said no documents relevant to any investigation were affected. He also says the employee claims against him are unwarranted. Mr. Bloch believes the White House may have a conflict of interest in pressing the inquiry into his conduct while his office investigates the White House political operation.

Concerned about possible damage to his reputation, he cites a Washington saying, "You're innocent until investigated."

Clay Johnson, the White House official overseeing the Office of Personnel Management's inquiry into Mr. Bloch, declined to comment. Depending on circumstances, erasing files or destroying evidence in a federal investigation can be considered obstruction of justice.

Mr. Bloch had his computer's hard disk completely cleansed using a "seven-level" wipe: a thorough scrubbing that conforms to Defense Department data-security standards. The process makes it nearly impossible for forensics experts to restore the data later. He also directed Geeks on Call to erase laptop computers that had been used by his two top political deputies, who had recently left the agency.
http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/NA-AO638_GEEKS_20071127202522.gif

Geeks on Call visited Mr. Bloch's government office in a nondescript office building on M Street in Washington twice, on Dec. 18 and Dec. 21, 2006, according to a receipt reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The total charge was $1,149, paid with an agency credit card, the receipt shows.

The receipt says a seven-level wipe was performed but doesn't mention any computer virus.

Jeff Phelps, who runs Washington's Geeks on Call franchise, declined to talk about specific clients, but said calls placed directly by government officials are unusual. He also said erasing a drive is an unusual virus treatment. "We don't do a seven-level wipe for a virus," he said.

Mr. Bloch was a loyal member of the Bush administration, serving in the Justice Department's office of faith-based programs, when the president named him to head the Office of Special Counsel in 2003. Unlike many administration appointees, Mr. Bloch doesn't serve at the pleasure of the president. He has a fixed five-year term and may be removed only for malfeasance. That is supposed to ensure his agency has the independence to pursue any probe.

Mr. Bloch's investigation of the White House political operation began after a Rove deputy gave a series of political presentations to government agencies on Republican prospects in specific congressional races. Mr. Bloch's office wants to know whether such presentations violated the Hatch Act, a law forbidding the use of federal resources to back candidates for office.

The Office of Special Counsel has set up a task force of lawyers and investigators, led by Mr. Bloch's deputy, James Byrne, to determine which agencies got political briefings from the White House. The agency plans to interview officials at more than 20 agencies and is examining White House emails and documents.
In one email, sent by the U.S. drug-control office and disclosed this summer, an official quotes Mr. Rove as being pleased that officials at the Commerce, Transportation and Agriculture departments went "above and beyond" the call of duty in arranging appearances by cabinet members at Republican campaign events.

Mr. Rove has resigned from the White House and is no longer under jurisdiction of the Office of Special Counsel.
His attorney, Robert Luskin, declined to comment.

The special counsel's probe has already found one alleged violation, at the General Services Administration, where Rove deputies gave a presentation on Jan. 26. At the end of the presentation, according to a report by Mr. Bloch's office on the incident, GSA Administrator Lurita Doan asked, "How can we help our candidates?" Twenty participants in the meeting recalled substantially the same words, the report said.

In a letter to President Bush, Mr. Bloch urged that Ms. Doan "be disciplined to the fullest extent for her serious violation of the Hatch Act" and for failing to cooperate "fully and honestly" with the probe. The White House hasn't acted on Mr. Bloch's request. In a response, Ms. Doan said the investigation was "far off the mark." Her lawyer urged the White House to ignore Mr. Bloch's findings, citing a "clear lack of objectivity and impartiality."

Now, Mr. Bloch is facing claims that he too isn't cooperating with investigators. Agents working for the inspector general of the Office of Personnel Management are seeking his emails and a copy of an encrypted flash drive he bought from the Geek service.

"I have nothing to hide and I've cooperated with all legitimate requests," Mr. Bloch said.

[Bullishreturn]

Time to bring this up:

A reminder for everyone out there-

This year, even more so than ever before- it looks like a new, more creative (and strict) interpretation of the HATCH ACT is going to be enforced.

Please be careful out there- and don't even forward ANY email messages, or post while at work. Here is today's HATCH ACT ARTICLE OF THE DAY:

From this week's FEDERAL TIMES:
http://federaltimes.com/index.php?S=3411565

Blogs, e-mails land feds in trouble
By ELISE CASTELLI
March 09, 2008

Blogs have revolutionized how this year’s presidential candidates reach out to voters, but they’ve also increased the ways government employees can run afoul of the Hatch Act.

The Office of Special Counsel, which investigates cases of improper politicking by government employees, is getting more inquiries than ever from feds about how they can use blogs and social networking sites without jeopardizing their jobs this campaign season.

Blogging about politics at work is a no-no, but even blogging off hours could land a fed in trouble under certain circumstances, said Ana Galindo-Marrone, chief of OSC’s Hatch Act unit.

Many campaign sites allow supporters to set up their own Web pages or blogs to support a candidate. The danger for feds who set up a page on a campaign-sponsored site: Many of these pages also contain a big, red “donate” button.


“Even if you are not on duty or in a government building, it is still viewed as solicitation of the people who read the blog,” Galindo-Marrone told Federal Times. “The prohibition concerning soliciting is 24-7.” If an appeal for funds appears on a government employee’s blog post, that’s a violation even if the employee doesn’t identify himself as a federal employee, posts anonymously or didn’t know a donation appeal was attached to the post, she said.

The Hatch Act bars federal employees from distributing political materials on the job, using their government titles to support a candidate, and raising money for a candidate. Those found guilty of violating the Hatch Act could lose their jobs. In some cases, the Merit Systems Protection Board can downgrade the penalty to a 30-day suspension without pay, but the entire board must agree to the reduced sentence.

Social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook also pose a potential problem if employees use them to show support for a candidate.
In many cases, employees’ personal pages include job descriptions and official titles, which could violate the Hatch Act if the pages have links to campaign sites or other displays of partisan political support, she said.
While the inquiries related to campaign-sponsored blogs and networking sites were pre-emptive, as a way to avoid violations, there have been a few cases of federal employees improperly using personal blogs to influence a political campaign.

In one case OSC is investigating, a federal employee has been accused of blogging about a local campaign on his personal blog while at his government job. There were allegedly more than 50 instances of prohibited politicking related to the blog and e-mails sent by the employee on government time, Galindo-Marrone said.

In January and February this year — the first two months of presidential primary elections — the Office of Special Counsel has pursued 20 federal Hatch Act cases. That’s up from 13 cases during the same two months in 2004, the last presidential election year. And that number is certain to shoot up as the general election nears. In 2004, the number swelled to more than 200 cases.

E-mails make up the bulk of the cases under investigation. Most are e-mail chains that circulate through federal networks purporting to know the “truth about Barack Obama” or that contain cartoons disparaging Hillary Clinton, Galindo-Marrone said.

E-mails make it easier to rack up a number of Hatch Act violations because people aren’t always thinking about the law when they give in to the temptation to forward a politically charged e-mail from a government account, said Special Counsel Scott Bloch, head of OSC. With a click of a mouse, federal employees can distribute political information using their official titles to a large group of people, he said.

“Using e-mail is no different than taking a brochure and going from office to office,” Bloch said. “It’s still electioneering.” Employee unions are concerned that OSC is being too tough in how it views e-mail and blog cases.

Agencies have information technology policies and other workplace rules that can be used to discipline an employee who sends an inappropriate political joke on the job, said Ward Morrow, assistant general counsel for the American Federation of Government Employees.

“People shouldn’t lose their job over 30 seconds of forwarding a joke,” Morrow said.

The Hatch Act is meant to stop serious attempts to influence an election, such as the Obama e-mails, Morrow said.

There needs to be a clear definition of what is and isn’t an electronic violation of the Hatch Act, but the law hasn’t caught up, he said.
The National Treasury Employees Union is urging its members to exercise their political rights fully but with caution, said NTEU President Colleen Kelley.

“In light of the aggressive prosecution of even trivial, inadvertent e-mail transgressions by the current special counsel, NTEU strongly recommends that our members use personal computers away from the work site and on off-duty time, as well as private, nongovernmental e-mail accounts when sending e-mails containing political content or when posting their opinions to electronic forums,” Kelley said in a March 5 statement to Federal Times.


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