John Crane (government official)

John R. Crane
John R. Crane
Education	Northwestern University ; Georgetown University
Occupation	Pentagon executive, consultant
Employer	U.S. Congress; Defense Dept Inspector General ; Government Accountability Project
Known for	Support for government whistleblowers
Relatives	Günther Rüdel (grandfather)
Awards	Joe A. Callaway Award for Civic Courage

Last updated April 12, 2019

John Crane is a former Assistant Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Defense known for his advocacy on behalf of government whistleblowers. He was fired in 2013 and now works for the Government Accountability Project, a non-governmental whistleblower support organization.

Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Department of Defense Government official

The Department of Defense Inspector General is an independent, objective agency that provides oversight related to the programs and operations of the United States Department of Defense (DoD). DoD IG was created in 1982 as an amendment to the Inspector General Act of 1978. It is the largest office of the Inspector-General in the United States.

The Government Accountability Project (GAP) is a nonprofit whistleblower protection and advocacy organization in the United States. It was founded in 1977.

Non-governmental organizations, nongovernmental organizations, or nongovernment organizations, commonly referred to as NGOs, are usually non-profit and sometimes international organizations independent of governments and international governmental organizations that are active in humanitarian, educational, health care, public policy, social, human rights, environmental, and other areas to effect changes according to their objectives. They are thus a subgroup of all organizations founded by citizens, which include clubs and other associations that provide services, benefits, and premises only to members. Sometimes the term is used as a synonym of "civil society organization" to refer to any association founded by citizens, but this is not how the term is normally used in the media or everyday language, as recorded by major dictionaries. The explanation of the term by NGO.org is ambivalent. It first says an NGO is any non-profit, voluntary citizens' group which is organized on a local, national or international level, but then goes on to restrict the meaning in the sense used by most English speakers and the media: Task-oriented and driven by people with a common interest, NGOs perform a variety of service and humanitarian functions, bring citizen concerns to Governments, advocate and monitor policies and encourage political participation through provision of information.

Career

Crane graduated from Northwestern University with a bachelor's degree in Asian studies in 1980. He then studied at the Arabic Language Unit of the American University in Cairo from 1980-82.^{[ citation needed ]}

Northwestern University (NU) is a private research university based in Evanston, Illinois, United States, with other campuses located in Chicago and Doha, Qatar, and academic programs and facilities in Miami, Florida; Washington, D.C.; and San Francisco, California. Along with its undergraduate programs, Northwestern is known for its Kellogg School of Management, Pritzker School of Law, Feinberg School of Medicine, Bienen School of Music, Medill School of Journalism, and McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science.

Asian studies is the term used usually in North America and Australia for what in Europe is known as Oriental studies. The field is concerned with the Asian people, their cultures, languages, history and politics. Within the Asian sphere, Asian studies combines aspects of sociology, history, cultural anthropology and many other disciplines to study political, cultural and economic phenomena in Asian traditional and contemporary societies. Asian studies forms a field of post-graduate study in many universities.

Crane worked as press secretary for Republican Congressman Bill Dickinson, ranking member on the House Armed Services Committee, from 1985-87. Dickinson advocated establishing an Office of the Inspector General in the Defense Department.^[1] When that office was created in 1982, Crane became one of its first employees, helping to set up the hotlines for whistleblowers to report waste, fraud, or abuse. He had the text of the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989 printed up as pamphlets for the personnel in the IG's office to refer to in carrying out their responsibilities.^[1] Crane's work also included crafting committee press releases involving analysis of the National Defense Authorization Act and consequences for national defense policy.^{[ citation needed ]}

The Republican Party, also referred to as the GOP, is one of the two major political parties in the United States; the other is its historic rival, the Democratic Party.

The United States House of Representatives is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they compose the legislature of the United States.

William Louis "Bill" Dickinson, was a Republican Representative from Alabama's 2nd congressional district from 1965 to 1993.

In 1987, Crane became Legislative Director and Press Secretary for Silicon Valley Congressman Ernie Konnyu, where he did supervisory work on formulating legislative policy agenda and communications thereof.^{[ citation needed ]}

Silicon Valley is a region in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology, innovation and social media. It corresponds roughly to the geographical Santa Clara Valley. San Jose is the Valley's largest city, the third largest in California, and the tenth largest in the United States. Other major Silicon Valley cities include Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Cupertino, Santa Clara, Mountain View, and Sunnyvale. The San Jose Metropolitan Area has the third highest GDP per capita in the world, according to the Brookings Institution.

Ernest Leslie Konnyu is a former Republican U.S. Representative from Silicon Valley, California, 12th congressional district, and a former California State Assembly Member from the 22nd district.

By 1988, Crane moved to the Defense Department's Inspector General office as a Congressional Liaison. He represented the IG on congressional activities and legislation as well as in contacts on legislative and public affairs with the Office of the Secretary of Defense. In 1994 Crane was promoted to Director of the Office of Communication in the IG. He managed public affairs efforts including public statements and congressional testimonies regarding US activities in Southwest Asia. He was promoted to a high-level executive position, the Assistant Inspector General for Communications, in 2004. He administered change management and communication policy for Europe, Southwest Asia, and East Asia. He also performed strategic planning and was Principal Advisor to the IG. He was responsible for whistleblowing and transparency, including strategic (internal) and public affairs communications that included responses regarding the Freedom of Information (FOIA) and Privacy Acts. Crane reviewed legislation and advised on legislative changes. He was fired from his post as an assistant inspector general in February 2013, an action he claims came in response to his advocacy on behalf of whistleblowers who faced illegal reprisal from his superiors in the IG and from other areas of the executive branch.^{[ citation needed ]}

The Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) is a headquarters-level staff of the United States Department of Defense. It is the principal civilian staff element of the U.S. Secretary of Defense, and it assists the Secretary in carrying out authority, direction and control of the Department of Defense in the exercise of policy development, planning, resource management, fiscal, and program evaluation responsibilities. OSD is the Secretary of Defense’s support staff for managing the Department of Defense, and it corresponds to what the Executive Office of the President of the U.S. is to the U.S. president for managing the whole of the Executive branch of the federal government.

East Asia is the eastern subregion of Asia, defined in either geographical or ethno-cultural terms. China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam belong to the East Asian cultural sphere. Geographically and geopolitically, the region includes China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, and South Korea.

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. § 552, is a federal freedom of information law that requires the full or partial disclosure of previously unreleased information and documents controlled by the United States government upon request. The Act defines agency records subject to disclosure, outlines mandatory disclosure procedures, and defines nine exemptions to the statute. President Lyndon B. Johnson, despite his misgivings, signed the Freedom of Information Act into law on July 4, 1966, and it went into effect the following year.

In October 2013, Crane joined the Government Accountability Project (GAP) as a consultant on legislative impact analysis. At GAP, he works with whistleblowers related to national security and on legislative, FOIA, and Privacy Act impacts.^{[ citation needed ]}

Crane earned an Executive Master's in leadership from Georgetown University in 2015.^{[ citation needed ]}

Whistleblower program official becomes whistleblower

Edward Snowden went to the press with revelations about the NSA due to the experience of previous whistleblowers, such as Thomas Andrews Drake, William Binney, J. Kirk Wiebe, Ed Loomis, and Diane Roark, who initially reported their concerns within the system and faced intense retaliation.^{[ citation needed ]}

After making his concerns about mistreatment of whistleblowers known to his superiors, Crane was removed from his position in 2013.^[1] He was a recipient of the 2015 Joe A. Callaway Award for Civic Courage.^{[ citation needed ]} He is a major focus of investigative journalist Mark Hertsgaard's book, Bravehearts: Whistle-blowing in the Age of Snowden.^[2]

Related Research Articles

A whistleblower is a person who exposes any kind of information or activity that is deemed illegal, unethical, or not correct within an organization that is either private or public. The information of alleged wrongdoing can be classified in many ways: violation of company policy/rules, law, regulation, or threat to public interest/national security, as well as fraud, and corruption. Those who become whistleblowers can choose to bring information or allegations to surface either internally or externally. Internally, a whistleblower can bring his/her accusations to the attention of other people within the accused organization such as an immediate supervisor. Externally, a whistleblower can bring allegations to light by contacting a third party outside of an accused organization such as the media, government, law enforcement, or those who are concerned. Whistleblowers, however, take the risk of facing stiff reprisal and retaliation from those who are accused or alleged of wrongdoing.

In the United States, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) is a generic term for the oversight division of a federal or state agency aimed at preventing inefficient or illegal operations within their parent agency. Such offices are attached to many federal executive departments, independent federal agencies, as well as state and local governments. Each office includes an inspector general and employees charged with identifying, auditing, and investigating fraud, waste, abuse, embezzlement and mismanagement of any kind within the executive department.

The Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA) is an agency of the United States Department of Defense under the direction of the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller). It was established in 1965 to perform all contract audits for the Department of Defense. Previously, the various branches of military service were responsible for their own contract audits.

Russell D. Tice is a former intelligence analyst for the United States Air Force, Office of Naval Intelligence, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and National Security Agency (NSA).

The Office of Inspector General for the Department of State (OIG) is an independent office within the U.S. Department of State with a primary responsibility to prevent and detect waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement. OIG inspects more than 270 embassies, diplomatic posts, and international broadcasting installations throughout the world to determine whether policy goals are being achieved and whether the interests of the United States are being represented and advanced effectively.

The Whistle blower Week is the name given to a series of events in Washington, D.C. meant to raise awareness about whistle blowing. There were two whistle blower weeks which took place in Washington in two different years.

Michael D. Kohn, a founding partner of the Washington, D.C. law firm Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto, is one of the top litigators specializing in whistleblower protection law. A graduate of Rutgers University, he received his law degree from the Antioch School of Law. After graduating from Antioch, he served as Director of Legal Ethics for the Government Accountability Project. Kohn co-founded the law firm now known as Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto with his brother Stephen in 1988.

Mark Hertsgaard is an American journalist and author who is the environmental correspondent for The Nation. He was formerly a cultural reporter for New Yorker magazine. His best-known work as an author is On Bended Knee: The Press and the Reagan Presidency (1988), which described the way the Reagan White House "deployed raw power and conventional wisdom to intimidate Washington's television newsrooms". He has also written for magazines and newspapers such as Vanity Fair, Time, Harper’s, The Guardian and Le Monde, and for the website Salon.com.

Thomas Andrews Drake is a former senior executive of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), a decorated United States Air Force and United States Navy veteran, and a whistleblower. In 2010, the government alleged that Drake mishandled documents, one of the few such Espionage Act cases in U.S. history. Drake's defenders claim that he was instead being persecuted for challenging the Trailblazer Project. He is the 2011 recipient of the Ridenhour Prize for Truth-Telling and co-recipient of the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence (SAAII) award.

The Department of Defense Whistleblower Program in the United States is a whistleblower protection program within the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) whereby DoD personnel are trained on whistleblower rights. The Inspector General's commitment fulfills, in part, the federal mandate to protect whistleblowers. It also administers the Defense Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Program (DICWP), as a sub-mission for the intelligence community. The Inspector General's Defense Criminal Investigative Service also conducts criminal investigations which rely, in part, on Qui Tam relators.

Daniel P. Meyer is the former director for whistleblowing and transparency (DW&T) to the Inspector General of the Defense Department.

Günther Rüdel was a German general in the Luftwaffe during World War II.

The Defense Intelligence Community Whistleblower Program (DICWP) is a sub-mission of the Department of Defense Whistleblower Program. In administering the DICWP, the Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Department of Defense (DoDIG) balances the competing national security and separation of powers interests raised by whistleblowing within the Defense Intelligence Community.The DoDIG provides a safe, authorized conduit for Defense Department whistleblowers to disclose classified information. The Inspector General also has authority to investigate whistleblowing reprisal allegations filed by civilian and military members of the Defense Intelligence Community. It therefore accepts the disclosures and provides source protection for those providing the information. The Department of Defense funds and supervises much of the Republic's intelligence gathering. DoD IG accordingly provides protection to a large number of civilian and military intelligence personnel.

Whistleblower protection in the United States

A whistleblower is a person who exposes any kind of information or activity that is deemed illegal, unethical, or not correct within an organization that is either private or public. The Whistleblower Protection Act was made into federal law in the United States in 1989.

Brian Lee Losey is a retired rear admiral of the United States Navy. He headed the Naval Special Warfare Command from 2013 until his retirement in 2016. Losey is a native of Tacoma, Washington.

William Edward Binney is a former highly placed intelligence official with the United States National Security Agency (NSA) turned whistleblower who retired on October 31, 2001, after more than 30 years with the agency.

The United States Presidential Policy Directive 19, signed by President Barack Obama, is designed to ensure that employees who serve in the Intelligence Community or have access to classified information can effectively report waste, fraud, and abuse, while protecting classified information. It is the executive order establishing standards for all Federal agencies with employees covered by the Directive, including those under Defense Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection and the U.S. Department of Defense Whistleblower Program. It also prohibits retaliation against these employees for their reports. PPD-19 accordingly establishes a system of Intelligence community whistleblowing and source protection under the Office, Director of National Intelligence and supervised by the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community.

Diane Roark is an American whistleblower who served as a Republican staffer on the House Intelligence Committee from 1985 to 2002. She was, right after 9/11, "the House Intelligence Committee staffer in charge of oversight of the NSA". Along with William Binney, Ed Loomis, and J. Kirk Wiebe, she filed a complaint to the Department of Defense's Inspector General about the National Security Agency's highly classified Trailblazer Project. Her house was raided by armed FBI agents in 2007 after she was wrongly suspected of leaking to The New York Times reporter James Risen and to Siobhan Gorman at The Baltimore Sun in stories about NSA warrantless surveillance. This led to her suing the government in 2012 because they did not return her computer, which they had seized during the raid, and because the government failed to clear her name. The punitive treatment of Roark, Binney, Wiebe, and Loomis, as well as, and, in particular, then still active NSA executive Thomas Andrews Drake, who had gone in confidence with anonymity assured to the DoD IG, led the Assistant Inspector General John Crane to eventually become a public whistleblower himself and also led Edward Snowden to go public with revelations rather than to report within the internal whistleblower program.

References

Citations

1 2 3 Hertsgaard, Mark; Felix Kasten; Marcel Rosenbach; Holger Stark (May 22, 2016). "Blowing the Whistle: Former US Official Reveals Risks Faced by Internal Critics". Spiegel Online International. , a translation of the German article in Der Spiegel No. 21/2016 (May 21, 2016).
↑ Hertsgaard, Mark (2016). Bravehearts: Whistle-blowing in the Age of Snowden. New York: Hot Books. ISBN 978-1510703377.

Bibliography

Clark, Charles S. (May 23, 2016). "Fired Pentagon Whistleblower Goes Public in Attack on IG's Office". Government Executive. Retrieved May 23, 2016.

External links

John Crane on IMDb
Snowden calls for whistleblower shield after claims by new Pentagon source (Spencer Ackerman and Ewen MacAskill, The Guardian)
Future of national security whistleblowing at stake in US inquiry (Ewen MacAskill and Spencer Ackerman, The Guardian)

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[Spiegel-1] 1 2 3 Hertsgaard, Mark; Felix Kasten; Marcel Rosenbach; Holger Stark (May 22, 2016). "Blowing the Whistle: Former US Official Reveals Risks Faced by Internal Critics". Spiegel Online International. , a translation of the German article in Der Spiegel No. 21/2016 (May 21, 2016).

[Bravehearts-2] Hertsgaard, Mark (2016). Bravehearts: Whistle-blowing in the Age of Snowden. New York: Hot Books. ISBN 978-1510703377.