Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger
House Committee on Government Reform.
House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
There is one person who is on the bottom of the list in terms of importance - but nonetheless he is the only democrat in the House that I have seen who is absolutely pro-secrecy. He is on the Homeland Security Committee - Ruppersberger, from Maryland. He's also on the Gov. Reform & Intelligence Committee. When I explained this thing from last September when the Democrats introduced these amendments and Tom Davis said 'No - I'm not even going to consider it' and they passed it without those amendments - Ruppersberger was the only Democrat opposing it saying 'no - these issue deal with National Security and secret stuff and should be dealt with behind closed doors, by the Intelligence Committee' and I was like 'Who the hell is that guy? He’s sitting on the democrats’ side and he's harder than the Republicans opposing the whistleblowers!' - they said 'he's always been like that - that's Ruppersberger'. That was my first experience with him.
Ruppersberger is also Russ Tice's representative - and Russ Tice, besides this NSA eavesdropping thing, his whistleblower case has to do with this espionage case that he reported 2.5-3 years ago - and he was retaliated against - that was when they sent him to the shrink's office. That is the way the NSA retaliates - they gave him the 'red badge' (clarification via email: When NSA pulls a whistleblower's security clearance, it gives them this Red Badge to wear at all times, which shows they are not clear/they have no access to info/they are under investigations...Then, they put them in these positions, in Tice's case: Parking attendant, where they are humiliated and are seen by every other employees with their Red Badge. They want to humiliate the whistleblower; they want to intimidate others) - and all the angst he went through. They put him on admin leave for three years and after that they fired him.
Ruppersberger was Russ' representative, but Ruppersberger's office never responded to him once. Never returned his calls once. Even after I sent his stuff to the Gov. Reform Committee - Shays was saying 'Wow - this is outrageous! I’m going to have an enquiry into NSA' and still Ruppersberger did nothing. No follow-up. So it's another good example of abdication of responsibility - because one of the things that whistleblowers do is when they contact their senators and reps - they contact those in the appropriate committees - those that I was talking about - the FBI goes to the Judiciary Committee or the Gov. Reform Committee etc - but they also always go to their local congressmen and senators.
Russ Tice is a very good example of this - and here his representative who is also on two appropriate committees dealing with NSA a) the Intelligence Committee and b) the Gov. Reform & Homeland Security Committee - and not a single response, or a single briefing, or a single meeting with his constituent, Russ Tice.
Ruppersberger is pro-secrecy, unreasonable secrecy, without oversight - he's pro-NSA's illegal eavesdropping, and he has let down a major whistleblower case - a high profile case - from someone who is also a constituent. This despite the fact that Ruppersberger is on 2 relevant committees.
That's why Ruppersberger is on the list.
Resources: