BOB GARFIELD: Whistleblowers are one of the best checks the public has on corruption, incompetence and cover-up in government. That's why there are laws protecting federal whistleblowers. The US Office of Special Counsel, an independent body, is supposed to protect federal whistleblowers by processing the requests for investigation and shielding them from retaliation. In other words, if you leak in the public interest and get fired, transferred or docked, this is the place you go. But recently, three national whistleblower organizations themselves tried to blow the whistle on the Special Counsel. They say that whistleblowers are, (quote) "meeting a dead end" at the office that is supposed to be a whistleblowing advocate. Jeff Ruch is executive director of PEER, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, one of the three concerned watchdog groups. He joins me now. Jeff, welcome to OTM.

JEFF RUCH: Hi. Thank you for having me.

BOB GARFIELD: You're quoted in the press release saying about Special Counsel in charge of the office, "Scott Bloch is running the shabbiest closeout sale in the history of the Whistleblower Protection Act." Now those are strong words.

JEFF RUCH: I said that in connection with the disclosure by his office that was inadvertent that they had dismissed a thousand whistleblower cases during his tenure without investigation, and the spokesperson for the Special Counsel said that all of those cases were dismissed without any further referral or investigation, because all of the matters they raised were trivial or stale. He's not represented a single whistleblower. In many cases where they're asking for investigation they have no other recourse. Scott Bloch, the Office of Special Counsel, is the last word. We've likened it to discovering that your new fire chief is the town arsonist.

BOB GARFIELD: What about new whistleblowers coming forward? Is there any evidence so far that the current state of affairs has had a chilling effect, that it's discouraged people from blowing the whistle on their own federal bureaucracies?

JEFF RUCH: Well, two things about that. One is that this special counsel has been notable for his refusal to release any information, so, for example, we found out about the cases being dismissed because he referred to them in a letter to Representative Henry Waxman. He's yet to issue any reports or respond to requests for information. So all we have is anecdotal evidence. We know that we're not referring additional people to the Office of Special Counsel. Mr. Bloch used to be the deputy director of the Justice Department Office of Faith Based Initiatives, and so we're telling whistleblowers that you better have faith, because you may not have much hope. [LAUGHTER]

BOB GARFIELD: The whole idea of special counsels is they're supposed to be independent of the, the machinery of - certainly of politics. Is Scott Bloch an independent agent, or is this a case of the fox guarding the henhouse?

JEFF RUCH: Maybe a maniac overseeing the asylum. We're not quite sure what the method to his madness is, but he's conducted a purge inside of his own agency to root out what he calls, quote/unquote "leakers." So the number of special counsel attorneys and investigators have been put on paid administrative leave, relieved of all their duties. And the reason was they refused orders to relocate to Detroit to open a new Midwestern field office. It's been a horrendous disruption that's part of a whole series of what appear to be perverse personnel moves by the special counsel.

BOB GARFIELD: What motives do you ascribe to them?

JEFF RUCH: We think that Scott Bloch is politicizing the office, so what he's doing is pushing out the veteran civil servants and replacing them with selected loyalists who all appear to be movement conservatives. So, for example, he's hired three brand new graduates from the ultra-conservative Ave Maria Law School to act as investigators and attorneys rather than, as traditionally was done, have a competitive examination so that attorneys from around the country could compete for these positions. He's not made a single hire on a competitive basis.

BOB GARFIELD: Obviously the Congress did not legislate the Whistleblower Protection Act for no reason. They had an interest in protecting whistleblowers, and historically have not looked on too kindly when administrations tried to subvert the laws that it has passed. Is there any uproar about this in Congress about this situation?

JEFF RUCH: There is. The Senate Government Affairs Committee has announced they're going to hold an investigative hearing. Members of the House have asked for the Government Accountability Office to do an investigation. And other members of Congress have called for Scott Bloch's resignation. But the key committees that hold gavels are of the president's party, and I think that there's been a very deep concern about doing anything that embarrasses the administration, which is one of the reasons why the independent function of the special counsel is now more critical than ever, because a lot of the traditional avenues of oversight are closed or closing.

BOB GARFIELD: Politically, the Congress is in such lockstep with the administration that they're not going to protect against the executive branch usurping its oversight authority?

JEFF RUCH: This is certainly not the Golden Age of Congressional Oversight, and we joke that the only way to get Congress to hear this is to start a rumor that Scott Bloch's on steroids, and maybe that'd stimulate them. [LAUGHTER]

BOB GARFIELD: All right, Jeff. Well, thank you very much.

JEFF RUCH: All right. Bye, bye.

BOB GARFIELD: Jeff Ruch is executive director of PEER, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. Scott Bloch is, as you know by now, the US Special Counsel. He was nominated by President Bush and sworn in to the office in January 2004. He says the office had a chronic backlog that crippled the agency's ability to provide full, fair and expeditious justice to whistleblowers. He says he has not been throwing whistleblower cases away, but rather, changing the system to make it more efficient. Scott Bloch, welcome to On the Media.

SCOTT BLOCH: A pleasure to be here, Bob.

BOB GARFIELD: Specifically with respect to whistleblowers, how did your procedures change?

SCOTT BLOCH: I asked the whistleblower unit to come up with creative solutions to how to deal with the large influx of claims and the old claims that were sitting on the shelf, gathering dust, while at the same time having no new staff, and in fact having suffered some loss of staff. The solution that we came up with in the Special Projects Unit was again to bring in other attorneys who worked in other units. They swept through the unit and were able to bring a fresh perspective, a certain amount of energy, and this had tremendous benefits. In addition to that, we hired some summer interns who worked under the supervision of attorneys to make the initial calls to whistleblowers to find out if they still worked at the agency, to basically perform a certain customer service function, and sometimes to do legal research.

BOB GARFIELD: And how many of those cases found their way through this new procedure to be referred to other agencies for further investigation.

SCOTT BLOCH: Well, I can't give you an exact number. I can only tell you that we doubled the number of referrals to the agency's finding substantiated whistleblower claims over the prior year. How many exactly came out of the Special Projects Unit process, I can't tell you. I know there were some.

BOB GARFIELD: I mean was it greater than three, for example. Was it-

SCOTT BLOCH: Yes, I think so.

BOB GARFIELD: Was it, you know, greater than 50?

SCOTT BLOCH: No, it was not greater than 50. But it was greater than three.

BOB GARFIELD: What was the basic threshold for determining whether to refer?

SCOTT BLOCH: We are asked to determine if there is a substantial likelihood as to whether the condition or the illegality occurred. The standard that we used for determining what "substantial likelihood" meant varied from year to year and from special counsel to special counsel. We believed, as a result of our study of the process, that the standard we were using to determine whether a substantial likelihood existed was higher than what the agency itself would use when it did a full investigation. We, of course, are not empowered by Congress to do any investigation of the whistleblower complaint. All we're entitled to do is review the file. But I think the important message to get across, Bob, is that whistleblowers have seen a greater success with our agency while I've been here than has been enjoyed in the past under a more stringent standard, and we think this is all for the good.

BOB GARFIELD: One of the things that has raised eyebrows is how you have staffed the agency. Someone complained that, for example, you bypassed ordinary civil service hiring procedures of lawyers to go to the Ave Maria Law School, founded by Tom Monahan, the Domino's Pizza baron, explicitly with a conservative ideology, and that the lawyers that come out of Ave Maria, almost by definition, are true believers.

SCOTT BLOCH: No, that's completely false. Our office has hired people using the proper civil service laws, rules and regulations. We have violated none. We have returned to a practice of one of my predecessor special counsels that in the area of exempted service or excepted service hires - that is, attorneys - they're a Schedule A hire - we have used - not always, but we have used the right to hire in people directly who have been recommended through the Justice Department or other places as excellent candidates. So this is really a baseless allegation.

BOB GARFIELD: If three people from a small law school with an ideological bent show up in one agency, that's a reason to at least ask a question, and that's what I'm doing. I'm asking the question.

SCOTT BLOCH: We just know that we've hired highly qualified individuals that came well recommended, were unknown to me as people, not hired based on any other criteria except their abilities, and if you want to talk to others outside of my office who have some knowledge about these ideological issues that don't really concern us, you're free to do that, but I don't share your presumptions.

BOB GARFIELD: Well, as you know, we're not speaking to you about this for no reason. We just got off with Jeff Ruch, who thinks that maybe the maniacs are running the asylum and that the White House expects you not to protect whistleblowers but just to shut them up. What were your marching orders when you took the job?

SCOTT BLOCH: Well, Bob, sometimes I wonder if you have to fall through the rabbit hole in Washington. Things seemed to be turned in their head in the media. We deal in rumor, innuendo and special interests throwing around name calling and pretending it's the truth. The truth is, I took an oath of office to defend whistleblowers and to take the meritorious claims and push 'em to the limit, and that's exactly what we're doing. Now, I cannot help it if individuals want to gainsay that or throw around reckless allegations, but they are false. I have no marching orders, and I don't take marching orders. We are an independent federal agency that is dedicated to supporting the merit system and protecting whistleblowers, and to improving government efficiency and integrity. And that's what we're doing.

BOB GARFIELD: Scott Block is the US Special Counsel.