Fred Whitehurst is the whistleblower who revealed that the crime lab at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) failed to live up to its reputation for scientific integrity, and sometimes even resorted to falsifying results. Today Jeff Stein of the Washington Post’s Spy Talk blog calls Whitehurst a “hero” and chats with him about his legacy.
Earlier this month, the Post’s Keith Alexander wrote about a report of the U.S. Attorney in the District of Columbia finding over 100 cases that were tainted by FBI crime lab results that must be reviewed. That report is in response to the exoneration of Donald Gates who spent 28 years in prison for a rape and murder he did not commit.
Stein elicited from Whitehurst how he continues to review FBI records released under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to find people who might still be suffering from unreliable crime lab results. Stein does not cover Whitehurst’s recent activism to get the U.S. Senate to improve the federal Whistleblower Protection Act. Whitehurst has called on Senators to fix the poison pills in the Senate’s current version of S. 372, the supposed Whistleblower Proection Enhancement Act (WPEA). One of those “enhancements” is to repeal the special law that protects whistleblowers at the FBI. Whitehurst has written an open letter to Senators calling on them to fix all the poison pills before they pass S. 372. Follow this link to join him in that call.