you hear from people in the white house? >> this time i did. first interview i gave with huffington post that day the director of communications for the white house called up the interviewer and asked about it. i didn't hear directly but they did and i got a book because they wanted to see it. the bush people a did not hear directly but i met a few people who knew him. karl rove and different people were not too excited about it. >> a few minutes with dr. justin frank. "obama on the couch" is the name of the book. booktv covers dr. frank a. long forum event at politics and prose. you can watch that at booktv.org. >> marsha coleman-adebayo recount her court battle against the environmental protection agency, performer employer. attempting to throw off claims that a corporation was responsible for hundreds of deaths in south africa. as a result of her experiences

shea organized the "no fear" coalition to provide protection to other whistle-blowers. efforts led to passage of the first civil rights legislation of the twenty-first century, notification of federal employees be given an anti-discrimination and retaliation. former president george w. bush in 2002. this is about an hour and a half. >> good evening and welcome to the new york public library. thank you for joining us this evening for tonight's presentation. tonight's program is a discussion led by the author on the book georgedaughan.com 18, a whistle-blower's triumph over corruption and retaliation and the epa. after graduating from mit the author landed her dream job and

the epa as the first appearance -- post-apartheid south africa. her dream became a nightmare when she attempted to investigate a multinational corporation responsible for the deaths of hundreds of south africans mining minium. she. the whistle and suffered the fallout faced by federal employees who take on the bureaucracy. she tells the story of her struggle to bring protection to all federal employees facing retribution for telling the truth. before we begin tonight's program i have the usual requests. please silence yourself loans, pagers, any other noisy devices that might interrupt the program. secondly, please do not take any pictures or make any recordings this evening unless you have

received prior permission from the new york public library administration. we thank you for your courtesy and consideration. tonight's program is being filmed by c-span and consequently at the end of the program there will be a question and answer period and we ask you to wait for the microphone so that we can record the questions that you are asking for the program. our speaker tonight is marsha coleman-adebayo, founder of the "no fear" coalition and former senior policy analyst at the united states environmental protection agency. she received her b.a. degree from barnard college, columbia university and her doctorate from mit. in 1996 she became a federal whistle-blower and filed

complaints about a u.s. company mining canadian in south africa. with her leadership the no fear coalition secured passage of the notification of federal employees anti-discrimination and retaliation act, the "no fear" act. currently she is on the board of directors of the national whistle-blower center, a nonpartisan advocacy group. she has been featured in several newspapers such as the new york times, washington post and federal times. in addition, joining us tonight tiedlawn -- of media activist with vw marine images. his third film, "no fear," features the story of whistle-blowers marsha

coleman-adebayo. before the book discussion with marsha coleman-adebayo starts we have the privilege of meeting mr. washington and seeing part of that film. so if you please, welcome, mr. washington. [applause] >> thank you so much. thank you for being here this evening. i want to thank lois more for facilitating this event. i want to thank the library for hosting such an important forum and discussion especially in the climate today where people are constantly persecuted for telling the truth and speaking out. we have a culture in this country that punishes people for doing what is true and what is right. not on my watch the good guys finish last.

and will take up doing this film. this is a short. we are fund-raising to do a much fuller peace because there are so many dimensions and things that are going to be revealed in the film that you won't get in the book or you won't see here. you will go to our web site, www. bewmovingimages, you can be part of the film business and help make this film a reality. as you know, independent filmmakers and journalists have to do a lot of these things are of pocket. we have to call -- actually rely on people just like you who are here tonight to get this film produced. also want to thank c-span for always covering the kinds of stories you don't see on mainstream media.

mainstream media -- you can quote me on that -- when you have entities like c-span who have the courage and insight to come out and videotaped these important issues that are really important to all the fuss, that needs to be applauded. [applause] the fabric of our entire nation is dependent on people like marsha coleman-adebayo. people like her to step up and stand up for what is right even when it is not popular or the important part is not safe. people don't know she was threatened. her children were about to be kidnapped. because she really was concerned about people who were the poorest of the poor and depended on -- to put food on the table.

no one else seemed to care. she was actually encouraged to decorate the room and be quiet, received a wonderful check and don't worry about it. that didn't sit right with her. how many people here face a similar situation where it is easy to just look away, easy to just keep your mouth shut and think about your pay check, i don't want to make waves or cause any trouble or lose my job and that is why you have bernie madoff and occupy wall street, what is so repugnant was a peaceful demonstrators being sprayed by one of the occupy wall street movement -- with none of the other officers -- i have a feeling if marcia was there that kopp would have gotten arrested. you will see for the first time hopefully -- being arrested by

another police officer. becomes so repugnant to some people that some of these things we see go on go on. i won't take too much time. you are about to see ten minutes of a much larger piece. i guess you can get it started and i will come back with a couple questions and introduce marsha coleman-adebayo. ♪ ♪ >> renewable energy field getting investors' attention,

the element that change the world. what drives renewable energy has created a rush for development of efficient energy storage devices. a new generation of batteries. my next guest's company produces the elements for a new type of battery. >> the possibility that canadian will be used in green technology. storage of solar power. >> >> provides storage solutions using -- have no idea what this is, fuel cells. that is one of the coolest things i have ever said out loud. ♪

>> my husband -- [speaking in native tongue] -- [talking over each other] georgedaughan.com eight [speaking in native tongue] >> vanadium particle in the air.

[speaking in native tongue] >> this will come out. when you come -- albert. >> did you have any bleeding? >> yes. when i went to urinate. it comes out read. >> i was a mission operator, taking samples my tongue used to change during the night. couldn't breathe during the night. it was like fire. as time goes by, throughout --

called me to a meeting and the company couldn't afford to. they dismissed me in the 1990s. i didn't know -- x-ray everything that was healthy. >> when you saw your friends and neighbors dying did you believe they were dying because they worked there? >> [speaking in native tongue]

>> other was an epa employee who discovered a community in south africa has been poisoned by the u.s. multinational corporation. when i exploited it, the ceiling fell on my head. my supervisors told me to shut up and not talk about it. it takes a lot of courage to come out and talk about your experiences. we have a lot of expression in the united states. when you speak out the state often times will punish you for speaking out. >> marsha coleman-adebayo has been a senior analyst at the epa for ten years and she claims it has been a decade of discrimination. >> i was an intruder in their world. i could participate in

high-level staff meetings only because my colleagues regarded me as an honorary white man. i must admit i was so stunned -- remember hearing the laughter are around the table. >> she and other employees took their case to congress and took on the epa chief carol browner. >> perhaps they had all tier mode of. >> she told us she was unaware of any complaints. >> more than double the number of minorities. >> this agency, all living in hell. >> today i join with the city of gaithersburg in honoring one person, dr. marsha coleman-adebayo, a leader in the struggle for civil rights. >> these attacks were meant to break my spirit but i decided instead to struggle for human

dignity and integrity. >> marsha coleman-adebayo won a historic lawsuit against the federal agency based on racial, sexual discrimination and a hostile work environment. >> my name is marsha coleman-adebayo and i thank god for this day. >> as a result of this victory and subsequent testimony before the united states congress the expectation of federal employees anti-discrimination and retaliation act, a.k.a. the "no fear" act was passed by congress and signed into law. after passage of this important legislation, marsha coleman-adebayo formed the "no fear" coalition. group of civil-rights and whistle-blower organizations dedicated to working for increased legislative protections proposed federal employees to speak out and protect the public. >> marsha won her court case. sound like the aaron brock of

its movie and actually maria coleman-adebayo's movie could make it to the big screen. danny glover is preparing a movie based on her story. >> i got to know marsha when we were working on the film. courageous fight for justice. it was a victory not only for marsha but for women of all human beings who stand up to justice, who stand up and say no. stand up and be counted. ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ [applause] >> thank you so much for your applause. applause really goes to marsha.

every time i see this piece i get choked up again and just to know that some of those people are not here. it wasn't necessary for them not to be here because people were greedy and people were selfish and i am glad that marsha -- it is very important that each of you in here make it your business not only to purchase a book but purchase two. if you are an educator and you work in your churches you need to make this information available to your congregation, to your students and have a discussion. are have a daughter who is 17 years old. she read that book in a weekend and she had so many questions. you can talk to high school lawyers, folks in college. they will be able to get the

information that is in that book. that is a perfect christmas gift for this holiday. christmas kwanzaa or whenever, have a book on the table and one that marsha will autograph hopefully for you this evening. we have to support these good works. freedom is not free. to make people aware of some of the things that are going on, part of their reality and given them the tools that if she can do it, marsha coleman-adebayo probably 125 pounds, so can we. you can stand up where you are at your job, right where you are if something is going on, stand up in the face of adversity. she has heard this before. she really is to meet the rose up parks of our generation. she spearheaded the only civil rights law to be passed since the 1960s.

by the way there was not one dissenting vote in this legislation. she was the only person who had this done with a coalition. wasn't just her struggle. was able to find common ground with so many other organizations and bring those people together. this is a testimony to the fact that any legislator, faced with marsha's integrity and commitment would be in awe of her sacrifice and courage and immediately side with her. she is a shining example for all of us. ladies and gentlemen, it is truly my privilege to introduce to you dr. marsha coleman-adebayo. [applause]

>> good evening. good evening. so many thanks to so many people. i am so incredibly honored to be here tonight and to have this opportunity to engage you in a dialogue and a conversation about our country and where it is going. let me thank deborah hirsch, thank you for all the telephone calls and e-mails, thank you to lois more who gave the beautiful introduction. what can i say, tylon washington. let's get another round of applause. [applause] we depend and independent filmmakers to tell the other side of the story. tylon could work in hollywood or some fancy production company but here he is in the community

providing information for all of us so that we understand our world a bit better. i would also like to thank danny glover in absentia because he provided the film crew so that we could introduce you to the vanadium victims. danny provided the resources for the crew and the production team. i am eternally grateful to danny for that and he optioned a book for a feature film. thanks to danny and cyberspace and my husband who couldn't make it tonight. i have colleagues here from mit, just so grateful that all of you decided to spend your evening with us. i am going to start with an introduction, a reading from the book. this is the first paragraph of the book.

they came to me. complaining of green tongues. they told me about bleeding from every orifice. their husbandss could no longer perform. the sheets on his side of the bed would be black in the morning from whatever it was that used from his poor's while he tried to sleep. some had only photographed there has beens who died at the age of 50 but looked like 95. there are reports of many dead and more dying. the company would not help. the company would not even let them see their own x-rays. it was an american company. they had come to me. for them, i was america. i work for the united states environmental protection agency and america send me to them in

july and celebration at the end of apartheid. america had come to help them and to help their new government succeed. in government we spend so much time spinning the truth. there are times when citizens, we need to set pretense aside. we need to cut to the chase and spit out the truth and that is what i'm going to do tonight. we are going to start with my favorite story about a whistle-blower. december 1st, 1955. complaint, montgomerie, alabama. the bus driver said to a group of black folks on a bus you better make it light and yourselves and let me have those seats. when the bus driver realized

there was still one person sitting when the others had gone to the back of the bus he came over to this young woman and said did you hear me? you better make it to the back of the bus. when he didn't receive a reply he said you going to leave your seat? and this young lady said no. under normal circumstances it is intimidating to have a bus driver tell you what to do and to tell you to move but when you realize this happened in 1955 in montgomery, alabama where there was a very thin line between the ku klux klan and the bus driver, he probably owed his job to the local klan organization, the clan control the sheriff's office and other municipal offices so that when this bus driver asked this young lady to leave he was speaking with authority that was not be squeezed to him because he was a

bus driver. he was speaking with something much more powerful. the power of violence. he asked her again are you going to leave your seat? and this young lady said no. then the bus driver told her if you don't leave your seat i am going to have you arrested. what did she say? she said you may do that. you may do that. at some point we have all experienced someone in authority telling us to do something that we know is wrong. but how many of us have the courage of that young woman to say you may do that? for example i hear this all the time. my boss said that i must not report the discrepancy that i found in our financial situation and if i do he will fire me.

or what if your boss is the president of the united states? and he tells you to stand down on clean air regulations? but you know that if you stand down on clean air regulations, thousands of people will die. your job is on the line. how many heads of agencies would have the courage of that young woman to say no? if the president was threatening your position, if he was going to ask for your resignation, would you have the courage to say you may do that? you see, everyone has a rose up parks moment. mind came at the environmental

protection agency. i joined the epa in 1990 as a senior foreign policy analyst after working at the united nations, world wildlife fund and various professions. in all of my previous positions i had never worked anywhere as stifling, racist, sexist and anti-democratic as the u.s. environmental protection agency. in fact, the environment within the epa reminded me of a 20 first century plantation. the system was held together by an intricate web of fear. fear of retaliation. fear of losing your health insurance. fear of saying the wrong thing. but the mother of all fear was what really kept the system together, the fear of losing your job. so fear is the ever-present best in the federal government.

if you don't believe me, ask bradley manning. ask daniel kelberg. matthew fog. all targeted by the government for retaliation. for speaking out against corruption. it is the fear that presents federal employees from exposing corruption, exposing health dangers to the public. this kind of fear that sends a good people from sounding the alarm when they find out there is lead in the water or mercury in the food or basketball coach is molesting 10-year-old boys. fear. so i became the epa representative to the commission in 1996. the commission was designated as a flagship foreign policy vehicle between the u.s. and

newly elected government of nelson mandela. under international agreement my job was to work with the south african department of environment and tourism to provide humanitarian assistance to the people of south africa who had been so devastated by decades of recent rule. not long after i assumed this position of approached by a south african environmental leader named jacob ooglekanye who told me about a community where miners were reportedly being injured and dying from exposure to vanadium, a metal used to strengthen steel. he described workers who bled from every orifice and defecated and urinated blood, their tongues turned green, sometimes brown, sometimes black. when i reported the situation to my supervisor, ac to ration

anyone would consider horrific but particularly if you work for the epa she told me to shut up. and went on to explain since i had just moved into a new office that what i need to do is spend my time decorating. i was shocked. i had just told an epa official that on my duty station people were being reportedly dying from a substance and that a u.s. company was responsible and i was told to shut up. in fact what i was really told was that i needed to have a martha stewart moment. i would learn that whenever a very is -- whenever there is a decision to be made between a multinational company and the

health of people almost always the decision is made in favor of the corporation. so a little bit about who i am, my background. i grew up in detroit, michigan. the civil-rights movement and motown revolution was the backdrop to my childhood. on special sundays when i was really good my mom would take me to river franklin church to hear aretha franklin sang in her insihelce n

community. my grandson -- grandfather my grandmother head the ku klux klan and get the shot down by her front door. a double barrel shotgun. i used to ask my grandmother when i visited her, why did you have a shotgun by your front door? my grandmother would look at me and put her hands on her hips and say if any of those pointy head people try to come through my door this will be the last door they will ever come through. that was my grandmother. my mother fought the detroit school system when it tried to track me into special education. i remember coming home with a card that said i was special and telling my mom the school said

that i am special. i am a special education program. and my mother being very patient and very loving said you are special but not in the way they mean you are special. and so the next day i was getting ready to go to school and instead of going to school my mom was waiting for me at the door and she said we are going to school together. so we walked in to gather. i was the only one walking in with my mom. she took my hand and she said you coming with me. she took me to the principle's office and she said sit-down. i thought what did i do this time? my mom made it known that she had to see the principle now. the secretary started scary and about. he cannot of the door and -- my mother was a very soft-spoken person but this time i heard

loud noise. i never heard my mother scream and screech like this and then things started falling off the wall. i looked at the secretaries and they're looking at each other like should we if call the police? they are going to take my mommy. the principal came out. my mom made him understand they had made an error in placing me in special education. they convinced the my blogging college prep. my mother cleared her throat. i am sorry. you are right. she belongs in the artist program. that was the power of my mother. i was transferred from special education to the artist program. she told me that night that she was prepared to go to jail that

day but she was not prepared for the detroit school system to kill her dreams. women who have a strong moral compass so when the epa asked me to look the other way and not do everything in my power to help the victims of vanadium poisoning i said no. i said no. it was simply not a part of my dna. when the epa close its doors on the victim's of vanadium poisoning at reached out to civil society, to the people. i contacted my girlfriends who were medical doctors and said would you mind going to south africa with me? we still have to investigate. the united states government is going to do it we will do it

ourselves. after that first, first visit to south africa i stopped at my college. i went in and said we need professors. we have to go to south africa. we have to investigate vanadium. what did my college say? they said yes. how many professors? how many students? we investigated. we continued to investigate vanadium poisoning. as you know, the epa environment for me was a very difficult place. as you saw in the clip art was called a pretty, you can kill -- fill in the get. i was called honorary white man. i was called aggressive. i was called the high tea. i was called anything you can imagine and that was in the workplace. wasn't even on their time.

was in the workplace. i constantly had to worry about this very fine line of an enduring managers and suffering the brutality of their a enter. let me give you an example of a day for me in that environment. i was called in to the office of the assistant secretary of national activity. dr. alan text. i didn't know what i was being called in. my secretary came in and said you got to go upstairs. the boss wants to see you. i went upstairs to see what he wanted to talk to me about.

marsha -- why don't you just go down to the office of civil rights and file a complaint? i wasn't sure if i was interrupting the rantings of a lunatic or if i was an invisible visitor in a conversation he was having with himself? he was yelling at the top of his lungs and banging his fist on the table. what are you talking about? are repeatedly asked. i felt ambushed a, paralyzed little trapped. i could get enough air in my nostrils and felt ahead take a punch to buy solar plexus. he was so absorbed in his own conversation that i don't think he heard me ask what was he talking about? are cautiously sat down looking around the room for a window or any alternate route of escape hoping one of the secretaries would open the door to

investigate the shouting and banging. we didn't have these kinds of problems until you people came here, he said. what are you talking about? i have no idea. i tried to interject but his yelling intensified. his face getting closer and closer to mind. i could feel the heat radiating from his skin and i could smell and feel particles of recently invested tuna. his eyes were bulging and his face had turned a bright red. he had worked himself into a state of self induced frenzy, pounding the table legal adjust file a complaint in! i am sick of this! stop shouting at me, i demanded using every nerve in my body to study my voice. i steered him down.

get out of my face, i said slowly. he moved back and i could finally breathe for the first time since entering his office. marsha blogger to one of your colleagues told me you made an inappropriate comment that the last african team meeting. this kind of behavior will not be tolerated. do you understand? his voice had started to rise again. you have got the wrong black person. franklin attended that meeting, not me. i picked up my note pad and headed for the door. next time you decide to call someone in and yell at them i suggest you get the right person because we don't all look alike. if you want to understand the culture of the epa or the culture of the federal

government, follow the money. follow the money. at the performance in federal court in which my lawyer confronted him and he admitted what you just heard his punishment was a detail to the white house. now under the lisa jackson administration he is director of the epa office of sustainable development. the reality is managers that discriminate and retaliate are rewarded, not punished. for example take the example of former epa administrator carol brown who you saw in this clip. whose career at epa ended in disgrace after my trial because she was attempting to defend discriminating and retaliating managers who failed in my case. congress condemned her, passed a law because of the activities of

the agency, but one of the first acts of president obama was to recycle carol browner back into the political process and recast or resuscitate her in the role of the new energy czar. if you want to understand why the culture of the federal government is so dysfunctional and so in many ways psychotic, follow what it does and not what it says. ..

>> the fertile ground for the coalescing of the no fear coalition. and after my trial and congressional testimony, congressman f. james sensen brenner and congresswoman sue sheila jackson-lee introduced the no fear act. this group consisted of the most courageous individuals in the federal government. for two long years, we marched, we faxed, we wore out shoes on capitol hill, we talked to anyone who would stand still for two minutes to listen to what was going on in the federal government. actually, the first vote for this bill was actually scheduled for september 11th, 2001. so we were on the steps of the capitol when the security officers screamed from the top of the stairs, run for your life. and after that, of course, we saw the smoke billowing from the pentagon. after 9/11 we regrouped and continued to fight both to

reschedule on the house and the senate side, and we prevailed. and we prevailed, and we triumphed. we passed the first civil rights and whistleblower law of the 21st century through a unanimous vote in both chambers of congress. what we accomplished in the no fear coalition is an example of what people can do when they determine how powerful they are. we knew that left to congress or the president we would continue to hold a position of collateral damage. left to the people in power, the conditions we met in the federal government would never change. we decided to take back our power, to organize our colleagues and anyone else who had worked with us until we had overwhelming presence. the struggle was difficult. we lost people. people lost their jobs, they lost their homes. we had a couple of casualties where people died in the

struggle, but we kept marching, we kept fighting, and we prevailed. so now we've introduced no fear ii, and we're going to introduce no fear iii legislation. but legislation cannot take the place of people standing up. and blowing the whistle. and that's why i support the occupy movement. i've led two demonstrations to epa called occupy epa, and we're calling upon the epa administrator and the president to reverse their decision on the clean air regulations. but we need more whistle l blowers. as a society, we needed someone to blow the whistle at penn state. we need more whistleblowers. everyone has a rosa parks moment when the words of gandhi become your rally cry, do not bend your knees before an oppressor.

i have not stopped. i will not stop, and i cannot stop until we have fundamentally changed government from a government of corruption and back room deals with corporations to one that's for and by the people. and i'd like to end with my third and last reading. t perhaps, i think, the most emotional poem of all of them in the book. it's really my favorite, but i think it sums up what this evening has been about. and it's something, it's a poem that i wrote called "something deeper than words." something deeper than words. manager happens when a person stands up one day and says i refuse. often it is a first. i refuse to give up my seat.

i refuse to settle for less. i refuse to look the other way. it is beyond the day-to-day, the trendy or the job description. but something deeper than words. beyond bullets and older than anything we have ever known returns to us in that moment large and independent, but still needing us. something comes to the life in our refusal and becomes a singular creed that we must obey. thank you. [applause] okay. >> could you explain about our -- [inaudible] it says assisting apartheid in south africa. in that situation could you explain details? >> sure. i was the executive secretary for the environment committee

for the commission, and, of course, al gore and the other vice presidents came together as the two, as the two vice presidents to head up these committees. the commission was broken out by department, so you had department of agriculture, the epa, department of defense. so i worked in the environment section of that. >> [inaudible] >> he was, he was certainly, he was certainly aware. one day i, a number of people started writing letters to vice president gore about this situation. and one day i came into my office, and there was a package on my desk with the seal of the president of the united states. it took my breath away because it meant, um, that first of all the white house was now involved, and it meant that the vice president knew about what was going on. and it also probably meant that they understood that i was working with ngos, um, doing

my job to make sure the public was a aware of what was going on. and the letter, the package basically said before we respond to a letter from randall robinson who at that point was the president of transafrica, that the white house wanted to see our draft. so it was quite clear that damage control was in place, and they wanted to make sure that we didn't say anything at the epa that the white house didn't know about. >> wow. thank you. >> you're welcome. yeah, he has a microphone. >> when i was an undergrad, the big thick at that point -- the big thing at that point was strip mining. and we became very much aware of what was going on and, naturally, i was against it. and eventually, people started to talk more about it, and it became against the law to strip

mine. so i'm wondering whether, well, you did mention that the colleges were dealing with it. but with, i mean, on a larger plane, you know, where you write three cease and so forth -- theses and so forth and so on, the other question i have is, okay, something that they use with batteries, what does it do -- >> yeah -- >> did they get sick because the dock was left open, or did they get sick because they were working closely with the -- [inaudible] >> ve maid yum. yeah. it's a metal that's found buried deep in the earth's crust. um, and it's used to strengthen steel. so if you look around the room and you see things that are made

of steel, then there's a very good chance that it's inside that steel. it's crucial in many ways. henry ford actually found out how crucial it is because the model ts kept cracking because in detroit when he was building the model t, detroit has extreme weather. it's very hot and very cold. in the winters, the model ts started having problems because of the steel cracking. but when henry ford found out about venadium, then, of course, the vehicles could go quite easily from summer to winter because it allowed the steel to expand and contraction. >> when it comes out, is it dust? >> it comes out as a white-grayish metal, but it has, but there's a lot of dust, contaminated dust around it. and it's also in the field with a lot of other toxic elements. and so the miners are, basically, in these large pits,

and they're digging out the venadium with very flimsy gloves, almost no mask, and they give them masks like once every six months. and so they're usually -- yeah, using their hands to cover their noses. um, and so the dust, basically, coffers everything -- covers everything in this area. so, of course, the dust goes up, and it comes down as acid rain. so the area around the venadium field is, obviously, is dead essentially. there's no trees or grass or whatever. so it's very, very toxic. we understood that it might be toxic when i went to south africa the first time. what we had never found in the literature was the impact on women, on women. and when we went to visit some of the homes of the workers and we saw that the wives were coughing and they were complaining of the same, um,

symptoms as their husbands, we started asking questions about that. and we found out the mine never provided instructions for the husbands in terms of how to clean up before they came home. so the husbands were coming in with venadium under their fingernails, in their hair, and in south africa where you have children sleeping in the same bed as their participants, children were -- as their parents, children were also being impacted. >> hi. i heard you on leonard -- [inaudible] today, and it was very interesting. i went to his web site afterwards, and the comments, i was, i felt like there was a bunch of fox people who were, like -- [laughter] i mean, do you find that people are not really ready to hear, a, the kind of bigotry that exists in, you know, corporate america

and in our society in general, and also do you think as a whistleblower even though there's tons of people who speak out that people still want to hold on to the idea that america is like the land of honesty and freedom? >> i'm really grateful that i didn't see the comments, first of all. [laughter] but i think the comments were probably in reaction to a question he asked me. he asked me whether i thought the epa should be closed down. and what i said was, no, i thought that we needed a real epa, an epa that was a really strong advocate for the people as opposed to corporations. and then instead of fewer regulations, i wanted more regulations. so i think probably maybe that sort of got the fox news folks engaged a bit. but that really is my position is that, you know, i'd like to see an epa that does not use a

cost benefit analysis, how much is it going to cost business versus how many people are we going to lose if businesses don't make enough money. i'd like to see an epa whose sole focus is the health and welfare of people. and, you know, i've sat in so many meetings where we've had to decide, you know, will this constituency -- meaning one of the chemical company or whatever -- will not be happy if we do this? on the other hand, we might injury people, and for me there's no equation at all. i want to know how do we make sure that everyone is healthy, how do we make sure we have clean water, clean air in this country. >> i'm sorry, because i just wanted to follow up on that. just because when you had ended, you had said that after you were, after you were taken out, then the private sector people came in, and i don't know if you're aware of john perkins' confessions of an economic

hitman. can you speak to that a little bit? i'm sorry, i didn't want to monopolize, but it was just really important that people understand what came next. >> well, i think the best example of what you're talking about is the clean air regulations that i reference in my report. as you know, a couple of weeks ago the epa was, was, had asked president obama to sign the new smog regulations. and according to the reports by the administrator's office, these regulations would have potentially saved the lives of over 7,000 people, would have prevented 11,000 emergency room visits and 38,000 asthma attacks. i mean, those are fairly large numbers. but what happened is that the president was being lobbied by big business and, also, the right wing of the republican party. and so he asked the epa

administrators to step down on pushing these clean air regulations. so we have some decisions to make in this country about whether or not businesses are going to drive public health policy or whether science will drive public health policy. >> one of the other lectures that i attended here we learned that tungsten was used to strengthen steel. when did venadium become that important? was it a way of outsourcing, you know, the labor to other countries so that it was cheaper, or how did that come about? >> well, tungsten is, obviously, it's a substitute for venadium, but it's more expensive. and that's the problem in south africa. you have cheap labor, plus you

have -- you have cheap labor, and you have a cheap mineral. and so those two somehow go together, and that's unfortunate because we do have substitutes. but as long as tungsten is more expensive and you have chief labor, at this point we've not seen any move towards tungsten. >> yes. so far how many people died because of venadium poisoning in south africa? that's my number one question. and the second one is the situation, this venadium poisoning in south africa, is it getting better, or what is the situation right now in south africa? >> um, the health department in south africa does not keep those kinds of statistics under apartheid, so we have no idea what happened before the onset of the nelson mandela government. and even now the statistics are fairly faint. they need a lot of work, and

there's a lot of mixture going on in terms of different, um, environmental problems. i mean, some people are smoking, some people are exposed to venadium, so how do you begin to ferret out the different kinds of exposures that people are experiencing. and that was the reason why we had, um, the u.s. goth along with the south african government decided to organize an independent research investigation. and that really would have been the fist time that an independent investigation of the poisoning would have happened. and i believe -- i cannot prove this, but i believe what happened is that when they saw how serious we were in terms of promoting the investigation, probably a little phone call came through from people in the industry and told us to shut down the investigation. i mean, those are the phone calls that you never really can prove, but you -- after working in the government, you know they happen. so, but for whatever reason i

was told the pull the plug on the investigation. now, i started yelling and screaming about this issue. you can imagine because i'm receiving phone calls every day from south africa saying people are ill and dying. and so i finally got the agency to agree to at least send a medical doctor to south africa at least to give us some initial data in terms of what was going on. i was processing, um, that request, and i called him to ask him what his specialty was, and you won't believe this, or maybe you will after my, would after my discussion. he turned out to be a veterinarian. [laughter] >> yes, i couldn't help but wonder -- yes, i can't help but wonder that so many people probably knew it before you, you know, started. so i'm wondering, what is the incentive that people, that

someone has to have to be involved to an extent that you did, and also what's the first thing that potential whistleblower should do to protect him or herself before he gets involved, or should he do that at all? thank you. >> well, one instance cannot be that you're going to make a lot of money. [laughter] you have to laugh about these things. you know, i think there's a moral compass. i'm not really sure, um, if there are incentives. certainly, we have a law now that will in the private sector that will allow you to recover a portion of the funds that are recovered by the government or the agency. and so if it's a huge settlement, then the whistleblower can recover, i think, up to 10%. but if you're a federal government worker, that would not, um, that particular law does not address federal government workers. um, so i think it really is an

issue of moral compass at this point for federal government workers. and what we need are laws that will protect us because, quite frankly, everyone in this room is vulnerable as long as we don't have laws to protect federal government whistleblowers. your water, your air, your food, it's all translated through government agency, and if you have people in those agencies that are too afraid, too fearful to speak out for the public, then we are all at risk. and so, you know, it has to be almost a national goods kind of thick -- thing where the public comes together and says we have to protect whistleblowers because they are the first line of defense for democracy and the first line of defense for our safety, our personal safety in this country. in terms of, um, your second question, um, if i remember it correctly in terms of the whistleblower issue, um, no, i'm

sorry, can you repeat your second question? >> if you're going to become a whistleblower, what do you do initially to protect yourself, or should you think about that? just go ahead and follow your moral conscious and, you know? you know, there might be retaliation, so what would you do? do you think a lawyer, or do you talk with your family or priest or pray or whatever? [laughter] >> all of the above is very helpful. um, you know, the reality is that most people don't set out to become a whistleblower. you know, you're working on a project, and you find the discrepancy. you don't realize that you're going to end up being a whistleblower. you just ask your supervisor, well, there's a discrepancy here, and how do you think this discrepancy, you know, found its way into this report, or you're reading or writing something like the report on, um, for example, i was thinking of the ambassador who had said that there was no, i think, uranium in niger, and all of a sudden

it's in a presidential address, and you say, no, no, no, i didn't tell you that. so most people do not set out to become whistleblowers. it, you trip on an issue. and before you know it, um, the people around you understand what you found, and all of a sudden you begin to become the target. a lot of whistleblowers don't even know they've blown the whistle. they don't even know they've blown the whistle. all they know is they said, you know, something's not right here. and then the person who you said that to is thinking, oh, my god, if she continues to dig, she's going to find something. and so in order to stop you from continuing to dig, they start to retaliate against you. and before you know it, you know, you are at that point a whistleblower because you've probably figured out that there's something wrong. and so it's hard to tell people what to do in advance since most people -- when i went to my supervisor and said there's a community in south africa that

seems to be suffering from this, i'm receiving reports, i had no idea what was going to happen to me. i had no idea. i was 18 years -- i had no idea that the agency was going to react that way. in fact, i thought my supervisor was going to say, oh, my god, let's get on this, we can't allow this to happen. why don't you give me a contact to this corporation, let's see if we can't talk and make sense of this whole thing. but, in fact, what happened was my performance evaluations started going down, the whole playbook went into effect where your performance evaluations start going down, you start getting notes in your personnel file that you're not doing well even though you have been doing very well up until that time. i had just received, i think, a bronze medal for performance, and two weeks later i received a note that my performance was failing. so it doesn't make any sense. that's the reason why i won, because some of these guys maybe are not the brightest cookies in the jar. but they just continued to just

harass you, and they're putting everything in writing. so if there are any potential whistleblowers out there, if you think that you tripped upon something that's not right, what i would say is start taking notes. um, you'd have to start taking notes, i would join a whistleblower group, the national whistleblowers center, government accountability -- there's so many wonderful whistleblower groups, no fear coalition. but start talking to people, start making sure that you keep your notes safe, someplace that's safe wherever in your house. make sure, at some point you do have to consult an attorney if it becomes a legal matter. but as i said, most whistleblowers, they don't intend to -- whistleblowers are made, they're not born. >> what happened to your family? you mentioned about your daughter was threatened to kidnap. >> yeah. yeah. the film that we saw is always

very difficult for me to watch because that film took place in a courtyard in back of a church, and my daughter was with me on one of my missions, and she was playing with the miners. and i was interviewing miners. you could probably hear my voice going, uh-huh, uh-huh, in the background. that's me. and all of a sudden someone started yelling, and i turned around, and the miners had literally encircled my child. and there she was about 8, 9 years old in the center of these mine workers. and when i ran over to see what was going on, they said that she was walking away with someone they knew who was an agent is of the venadium mine. and when i asked her, she said, oh, he just told me he wanted me to see something, he wanted to take me to the -- [inaudible] and so they saved my daughter. they literally surrounded her, and they took care of her. and, um, so i'm just eternally grateful for that.

but it was, but let me just say it's a very difficult time for women because not only are you double tasking in terms of going to work and also your duties at home, but now as a whistleblower you're also having to take on these responsibilities as well. but my kids, um, have really benefited in many ways from my struggle, and i think they would both tell you that even though it was very difficult, um, they understand something about justice now that a lot of their friends don't understand. >> um, my question is did the american government compensate the victims or planning to compensate them? my second question is do you have something in your book, something you wanted to tell now that is not written in your books? >> we'll have to save that for the documentary film. [laughter] >> thank you. >> no, unfortunately.

when i was pulled off of the venadium project, they replaced me with, um, a colleague whose focus was the private sector. the reality is that i was a trojan horse, guys. i mean, that's the reality of it. the nelson mandela government had come to power, they thought that the government would be more receptive with someone who looked like me at the table than other people, and what they wanted me to do was, basically, open the doors to american businesses. and when i realized that that's what was going on, that's when i started really yelling and screaming, no, i will not be used like this. um, so, um, the government has not acknowledged that there's a problem. so the issue of compensation is totally out of the question. or the american company, no. in fact, if you go to their web site, it's all about how great they are, and they're building, holding clinics and, no, the

company has never admitted wrongdoing. >> i was wondering, um, uranium has -- >> venadium. >> no, no, i wanted to ask you if it had uranium in it. >> no, no. >> there's nothing like nuclear energy or anything like that? >> it's not nuclear, no. >> okay. well, i was wondering because nuclear energy, they use salt and water to break down the molecules of the radiation. so i was wondering whether you should concentrate on that area. because the fact of the matter is that it does bring income whether it's -- we know that it's not safe, not healthy for the people, but i was wondering if there was some way that we could find something that they

could use like, for instance, if water, saltwater could break down the molecular structure of the chemical, then they would be able to work, you know, with the product and not get sick. so i was wondering whether there was anyone working on that level. >> you know, not that i know of. venadium mining is very different. it's open pit mining, and so, basically, what you're doing is you're, basically, mining areas about three or four football fields long, wide. so all of that dust is just going up into the atmosphere. so it's not contained. it's not contained dust, in other words, it's dispersed. and so, um, you know, what i

would say about the income generation issue is that mining tends to be an intergenerational activity. you find grandfathers and fathers and sons mining in the same location whether that's coal mining in west virginia or whether it's venadium mine anything south africa, it's intergenerational work. and so the question is how do we begin to develop a sustainable future for these communities where we don't have to, um, disturb the earth in that way and where we can retrain these workers, these people to productive work as opposed to work that will harm them. >> i guess i have the mic here. we're talking here about the u.s. epa which i have a lot of very negative associations with, but we've essentially neglected the role, if any, of the south african government who were

fully cognizant of this who want their raw materials, their minerals to be exploited to the advantage, hopefully, of their people. all of the stuff around us happens to be virtually everything in this room is the result of extracted metallurgy and mining. venadium, any ideas to the contrary is a pretty basic steel additive. there aren't any substitutes for it that are economically viable. >> yeah. >> but at any rate, the big issue is that what has been done to get the south african government to get off their butts and to address this issue? it's not really our problem, it's the south africans' problem. in this particular case, we made it our problem, but what has been done, if anything, to get the south africans to step up to the plate? >> well, that's the $24 million question, isn't it? and i'm certainly not going to provide excuses for that.

but what i will say is that one of the legacies of apartheid is a vast reserve, this vast commitment or this vast dependency on the mining sector. south africa's a country, as you know, that's very rich in minerals and environment alters alters -- environmental materials, and the world has all flock today south africa whether it's gold -- our economy is just as dependent on south africa as south africa's dependent on us. that's the reality. this is a global economy, and these two economies are locked together. and 80% of south africa's gnp is dependent upon the mining industry. so that would mean that the whole economy would come to a grinding halt. not only for venadium, but what about gold mining, what about

asbestos, what about rubber mining? i mean, if they stop mining, then the whole economy would come to a screeching halt. so it's, it is a challenge for future south african policymakers, how do they begin to restructure their economy where they're not so dependent on an activity that's so detrimental to their, to their people? >> [inaudible] there's nothing intrinsically problematic about mining. it's the name of our industrialized and even iron age societies. it can be, economically can be made safe. we're talking here about pretty rudimentary industrial hygiene, a relatively small investment. and i think that it's not, you know, rocket science to protect these workers. and it's abdicating collective respondent to suggest -- responsibility to suggest that

it is. you can mine a lot of really toxic stuff if you take the proper precautions. and they're, obviously, not being taken, you know, for a very small amount of additional investment. >> you're not going to get an argument with me on that. that's, obviously, the case. i would just argue, though, with open pit mining it's a little bit different than cave mining because even if you could protect the workers, in other words, if they could work in a bubble suit, right? which, as you know if you've worked in the environment, it's very hot, very sticky, very difficult work when you're working in these suits. even if you could do that, what happens to the dust that's going up into the atmosphere and coming back down as acid rain? i agree with you that we could protect the workers better but most likely not the natural environment, and that's even -- the water tables and animals and other kinds of important environmental creatures. so it's a difficult problem, um, but it's a problem that i think

the south africans are going to have to work out. from my position we are sol l darety workers with them -- solidarity workers with them. when i first went to south africa i was, basically, gung ho, let's close the mine down, and the miners were, basically, look, this is the work that we to. if we close the mine down, we will die from hunger. that's our choice. and so that meant that we have to, um, respect the workers who are involved in this process and then provide the resources that they need to help them make intelligent decisions but not go to the site and then try to impose our thoughts or our wishes upon them. so, but you're -- it's an intractable problem, and the injury rate is very high as you can imagine. >> [inaudible] >> hi, marsha. >> hi. >> i wanted to ask was, obviously, you know, people like you are in the trenches, you're doing your job and, you know,

then you go through struggles like this. what has been the impact, um, of the no fear legislation that you can point to? i mean, i don't know if you've been able to see any changes in the epa, but maybe just in general. have the -- what's the impact been? >> well, the impact's been substantial. i mean, that's one of the great things about struggle is that you actually do at times see the fruit of your hands. with the epa, with the no fear act, for example, federal employees must take no fear training every two years. so if you're in the federal government, you are being trained in this law every two years. so that means that you have a pretty good idea what your rights are now and should be able to defend yourself if you're being attacked by some illegally in the workplace. second of all, if you join the federal government, within 90 days of joining the federal

government you must be trained in the no fear act. so as soon as you go into the federal government, they give you a book, or you take training in the no fear act. another benefit of the no fear act is when i sued the federal government, there was a slush fund that had been created in the department of treasury so that when people won lawsuits like mine instead of the agency being responsible and taking account for what had happened, they would just simply send the bill to the slush fund in the department of treasury. that's pretty nice, right? you get a bill for whatever, and instead of you paying it, you just send it to a little slush fund. well, that's what the federal government was doing. now, under no fear when an agency is found liable for discrimination, that agency pays for the bill. they don't send it off to a little/fund anymore. -- little slush fund anymore. also, every six months congress receives a report from the gao,

basically, outlining a snapshot of what the federal government looks like from the inside in terms of retaliation, discrimination, so no one can say ever again they don't know what's going on in the federal government. also, if you go to any federal government web site whether it's the white house, cia, fbi, it doesn't matter, on the front screen of that, of the web site will be a no fear icon. you click on the no fear icon, and all of their e, o and -- eeo and whistleblower protection issues will appear on your screen. so now we have more data than we have ever had before to protect ourselves and to use if we have to go to court. one of the things i had as i was preparing to go to court was i didn't know whether i was the only person at the epa or whether there were 100 other people. no one has to ever wonder about that again in the federal government. so we have made incredible strides through the first no fear act, but we're not finished. there's no fear ii, and we've also drafted no fear iii. and someone asked me the other

day, well, how many no fears will there be, and i said, well, we'll just keep producing legislation until we get it right, until we're able to break the back of this, of corruption in the federal government, we will keep passing no fear legislation. >> i have a couple of questions. the first one is, do you think that your supervisors at the epa were aware of the details of the toxic effects on the workers in south africa at the time that you reported it? because it seemed their reaction was immediate. maybe it was knee jerk, but maybe they already knew about it. and my other question is, what is the mechanism whereby the epa could control what a company is

doing in another country? >> actually, i think i was the only one who didn't know the toxic state of venadium, to be very honest with you. the assistant administrator from my office was very heavily involved in the extracktive industry. and so maybe this is a good time to talk about the revolving door between industry and government. because, you know, political appointees usually come in from the private sector, they enter the government, they make fantastic contacts while they're government employees, and then they take those contacts back into the private sector. the problem is that while they're still in the government, they're really sort of performing the duties in terms of contacts and laying their nest egg for when they leave the government. so, so my office was no different. so my assistant administrator had been head of mobil oil company in tokyo, zaire and in nigeria. so did he understand something

about the extractive industry? oh, yeah, he understood. my supervisor that told me to decorate my office, she was formerly in, she formerly worked at usaid. but what we found out during the trial when they sort of backtracked her career is that she was also a cia agent. so did she understand something about the extractive industry? most likely, she did. she certainly understood something about america's strategic interests. and so when i raised the issue of venadium poisoning, i actually think she was probably trying to say you don't want to go there. i think that's what she was really trying to say is you don't want to go there. because if you go there, we're going to have to take you out. and essentially that's, eventually, what happened. when i refused to stop asking questions, they removed me. they called me into the office one day and said we are removing you as executive secretary

because you don't know whose side you're on. you don't know whose side you're on. you're not a team player. you're too close to those blacks in south africa. you're certainly too close to black folks in this country. so you have no idea whose side you're on. and so we, you know, turn over all of your materials to this guy named mark who was in charge to have private sector issues because he will take it from here. >> [inaudible] >> and the mechanism whereby the epa could intercede in another country? >> international agreement. i mean, you know, we had an agreement, and there were international agreements that came out of the commission signed by both the united states and south africa. and, but more importantly, a lot of our work is not, um, just simply a part of an international agreement, it's also a lot of behind-the-scenes work. i could have very easily called the corporation and said, look,

i'd like to have an off-the-record conversation with you, you know? we're working on this project, and before this becomes a major legal battle, could we somehow come together and talk about things. a lot of my work consisted of those kinds of informal approaches as well. so it doesn't always -- our work doesn't always have to rise to a major international agreement. there's a lot of work behind the scenes as well. thank you very much. [applause] >> for more information, visit the author's web site, marsha coleman-adebayo.com. >> here are the ten best-selling hardcover nonfiction books as of january 19th according to publishers weekly.

>> next, a look at the impact