Dana Liebelson

Reporter

Dana Liebelson is a reporter in Mother Jones' Washington bureau. She contributes regularly to The Week. Previously, she worked for the Project On Government Oversight (POGO), covering defense and open government issues. Her work has also appeared on TIME's Battleland, Truthout, OtherWords and Yahoo! News. In her free time, she plays electric violin in an Indie rock band.

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Obama: Whistleblowers' New BFF

—By Dana Liebelson

| Wed Nov. 28, 2012 5:56 AM PST

When it comes to protecting whistleblowers, President Obama's track record has been fairly bleak. In his first term, he trampled over them on his quest to aggressively prosecute government leakers. But Obama's legacy on the issue may have changed on Tuesday when he signed a law called the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act, a far-reaching bill that affords federal whistleblowers a host of new safeguards.

This hard-fought law (activists have been working to get it passed for more than a decade) upgrades the existing protections for federal employees who witness waste, fraud, or abuse within the federal government.

Specifically, the law lowers the standard of proof whistleblowers must provide in order to receive protection and closes judicially-created loopholes that were added to the original 1989 Whistleblower Protection Act. It also makes it easier for the Office of Special Counsel, the federal government's whistleblower protection agency, to discipline employers or agencies who retaliate, and it provides compensatory damages to certain whistleblowers who have successful cases. (This compensation is different than the monetary awards available to certain whistleblowers in the private sector. The Securities and Exchange Commission, which received 3,000 tips last year, rewards private sector whistleblowers who expose financial corruption, and whistleblowers who bring Qui Tam cases are also eligible for compensation under the False Claims Act.)

The Obama administration has angered whistleblower advocates in the past for being particularly tough on whistleblowers and prosecuting them under the Espionage Act. But, with the passage of the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act, whistleblower advocates seems to think the administration has turned over a new leaf. According to the Government Accountability Project (GAP), Obama restored a large portion of the bill that protects national security whistleblowers after the House gutted it via a presidential directive.

"Most Presidents have offered lip service for whistleblower rights, but President Obama fought to give them more teeth," Tom Devine, legal director of GAP said in a statement.

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Did the Head of the Israeli Military's Social Media Pose in Black Face?

—By Dana Liebelson

| Mon Nov. 26, 2012 9:36 AM PST

Following reports that he posted a photo of himself in what appears to be black face, with the caption "Obama style," Sacha Dratwa, the 26-year-old lieutenant heading the Israel Defense Forces' social media campaign is shutting down public access to his Facebook profile, according to a statement he sent Mother Jones and posted online.

A screenshot of the photo, which was originally posted by Dratwa on September 29, was published Saturday by the website, Your Black World. The image appears to be of Dratwa at the Dead Sea with mud on his face. While that would not be an uncommon activity there, the "Obama style" caption drew scornful comments on his Facebook page. Mother Jones asked Dratwa for a comment, and he said:

There have been attempts to make use of private photos from my Facebook profile in order to publicly misrepresent my opinions. Due to the amount of public attention I've garnered in recent days I have decided to restrict access to my page, in order to protect my privacy and prevent further cynical use of the information therein. I am, and have always been, completely candid about my beliefs and have nothing to hide – as reflected by my Facebook profile, which until recently was open to everyone. The aforementioned photos do not reflect my beliefs and have no bearing whatsoever on my position in the IDF.

ABC News, which says it has confirmed the photo is real, reports that Dratwa responded to a user on Twitter accusing him of racism by saying, “I’m not a racist, please stop [spreading] lies about me.”

In charge of the Israel Defense Forces' official Twitter account, @IDFSpokesperson, Dratwa became a high-profile figure during the recent Israel-Hamas conflict. According to a profile by Gizmodo, in his free time, Dratwa enjoys snowboarding, swimming, vodka, macchiatos, and hanging out with friends.

The IDF did not respond to a request for comment.

This post has been updated.

Catching Up With DC Punk Legend Ian MacKaye (Video)

Dischord Records is a lot quieter than during its heyday, but the do-it-yourself attitude endures.

—By Dana Liebelson

| Mon Nov. 26, 2012 4:03 AM PST

MacKaye shows off his Minor Threat-era skateboard.

I'm drinking green tea with Ian MacKaye in the modest Arlington, Virginia, house where it all began—where Dischord, MacKaye's legendary do-it-yourself record label, took root more than 30 years ago. Back then, MacKaye was a pissed-off teenager whose straight-edge punk band, the Teen Idles, operated amid the musical wasteland of the nation's capital, a city too obsessed with dark money and happy hour to care about DIY ethics and $5 punk shows. But MacKaye cared, and he still does, even if Dischord's flagship acts have long since disbanded. This "is exactly how we started," he tells me. "For the first few years it was just all of us out of this house. We wanted to make records. Literally, make records. We would fold and cut and glue all the sleeves because that's what we needed to do to get it done."

MacKaye cofounded Dischord in 1980 with bandmate Jeff Nelson to put out the Teen Idles' album Minor Disturbance. And though the Idles split up the same year, MacKaye and Nelson went on to form Minor Threat, whose furious blasts of punk-rock energy influenced a generation of teenage rockers. With proceeds from its founders' records, Dischord started releasing albums by other local punk acts, including State of Alert (SOA), Faith, Government Issue, and Youth Brigade. By the mid-1980s, most of the early Dischord bands were kaput and the label was struggling financially, but it roared back in the late-'80s as MacKaye's new band, Fugazi, exploded onto the scene.

MacKaye in his office.

MacKaye at Dischord HQ

A visceral, passionate, politically astute post-punk band that spurned music industry conventions, capping ticket prices at around $5 and insisting on playing for all-ages crowds, Fugazi won over hordes of loyal fans and helped kick off a nationwide movement of DIY bands and record labels. Fugazi and Dischord were living proof that starting your own band, making your own records, and booking your own shows worked. "It was the label that was very exciting at the time," says Ian Svenonius, whose former bands the Nation of Ulysses and the Make-Up released several albums on Dischord in the '80s and '90s. "It had a staunchly anti-commercial outlook and it was explicitly independent and local."

[Read the full article]

How the GOP Nearly Won the DJ Vote

—By Dana Liebelson

| Tue Nov. 20, 2012 10:05 AM PST

Update: Ars Technica reports on December 6 that the GOP staffer behind the progressive memo has been fired.

The Republican Study Committee, whose members form the conservative wing of the House GOP caucus, released a report on Friday that took a remarkably progressive stance on copyright law. It argued that current copyright laws are "seen by many as a form of corporate welfare that hurts innovation and hurts the consumer" and argued for a wide-ranging overhaul of the system. But the triumph for tech activists—and DJs—was short lived. Over the weekend, the paper mysteriously vanished from the committee's website, leaving a blank web page in its wake.

Brian Straessle, a spokesman for the Committee, told The Hill that the policy paper was pulled because it hadn't been properly vetted. "Due to an oversight in our review process, [the paper] did not account for the full range of perspectives among our members... It was removed from the website to address that concern."

But skeptics say that the GOP simply bowed to industry pressure.

"As soon as it was published, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) apparently went ballistic and hit the phones hard, demanding that the RSC take down the report," wrote Mike Masnick of TechDirt.

A spokesman for RIAA, contacted by The Hill, denied that the organization asked the Committee to deep-six the paper. "We understand that a decision was made to do so to allow for the appropriate process that would have otherwise taken place before issuing," he said.

You can still view a copy of the paper here. It's worth reading solely for the part that says that copyright law is hurting the US DJ/Remix industry. "Many other countries have a robust culture of DJ’s and remixing, but the United States, quite perplexingly as the creator of a large portion of the world’s content, is far behind," the paper notes.

Who knew that a stodgy GOP study committee could be so cool? Oh wait.

E.D. Sedgwick is Sick of Wearing a Dress All the Time

—By Dana Liebelson

| Mon Nov. 19, 2012 4:03 AM PST

Full disclosure: I hate music reviews. I'm a musician, and something about distilling music into esoteric words from a Thesaurus makes me nauseous. It's like taking your favorite song, scraping out the feeling, and replacing it with cold, slimy, sock vomit. That said, the Washington, DC-based dance-punkish band E.D. Sedgwick has a new album out that I'd like you to know about. So to solve my moral conundrum, I won't tell you what to think. You can do that for yourself. I believe in you! Start by streaming the track, "It Wasn't Me," here, and listen as you read.

E.D. Sedgwick is the project of Justin Moyer, a musician and journalist for The Washington Post. (He doesn't like writing music reviews, either.) Founded in 1999, it has in the past consisted mainly of just Moyer, with or without the backing of guest musicians. Now there are three other official members—Jess Matthews (drums), Kristina Buddenhagen (bass, vocals), and JosaFeen Wells (vocals)—giving the group a refreshing gender ratio amid today's Indie-rock brodeo. The band releases its albums on Dischord, the seminal DIY label founded by DC punk legend Ian MacKaye, best known for his groundbreaking bands Minor Threat and Fugazi. Moyer has been involved with Dischord for more than a decade via both E.D. Sedgwick and his previous bands, El Guapo and Antelope.

[Read more in the Mixed Media blog]