fully financially and security wise before wednesdays could be interrupted by selling or electricity being cut off. the blockade prevent equipment from coming, limiting technical possibilities. finding basic items like lightning or song systems becomes a request to have been measured had the problem. we face many challenges and obstacles and then to and this is especially in gaza. they, there is a lack of capabilities and the lack of funding for our projects. but we tried to create something great out of nothing and amazed. they wouldn't squeeze it as not inviting for, and directors, and actors or turing is also more of a dream for gaz theater. israel controls who comes in and comes out of the guys as trip with a high percentage of rejections. we give as much as we can, we will try to be online. i have created some shows for people abroad for a live streaming and we're performing the play here in the audience was in another country. so we found some creative ways to leave because even if it's just

virtually or h performance and the goal is to see if there is followed by a discussion club with the audience and directors invited often via video conference to share their views. but most importantly, ceilings and frustrations another battle field where they discover they are, you know, selves with the help of our if the world, the stage and everybody man and we man, man, the players as one same as saying goes then for the people, gaza with a daily, hard shapes and trauma, as it is a rather dramatic performance while to see if there is a way for them to forget about their retain, had look at it from the outside to try and find a way out. the resolution, i all say repulsing from guys. and that's a rep for now. but coming up, john curios speaks to defense intelligence agency, whistleblower lieutenant colonel ryan, suite z about problems inside the agency. next on the whistle blowers, thanks for joining in. they close

the over the course of my career at the c i a i had occasion to work with lots of military officers assigned to the defense intelligence agency. these military diplomats were well represented and us embassies abroad. and their job was to liaise with host country military officers. but what many people don't know is that the culture inside d, i a can sometimes be toxic. and that toxicity if left unchecked, can severely damaged the national security. that's why whistle blowers are so critical. i'm john kerry onto welcome to the whistle blowers the

. 2 2 2 2 virtually any organization, whether in government or in private industry, has had to deal with issues of waste, fraud, abuse, or illegality. but when the dysfunction is at the top, among the ortho organizations, leadership, what's an employee to do? in the case of our next guest is only consideration was to blow the whistle. lieutenant colonel ryan sweets. he said that the defense intelligence agencies, actions were, quote, alienating and disenfranchising, our intelligence personnel, while disrupting and degrading operations and quote, those are serious charges. so what exactly was happening a d, i a, according to our next guest, a colleague at the defense that cache office in rome was secretly reporting negative information about the performance of co workers to superiors. the practice turned managers in western europe against their subordinates, creating a hostile work environment and disrupting their efforts to gather intelligence. in another incident, d, i,

a officers private medical condition was exposed and used against that officer. add to that back biting evidence of retaliation. and you have an intelligence agency that is simply not able to function the way that it should for our guest today is that d i a whistleblower lieutenant colonel ryan squeezy. thank so much for being with us. we're glad to have you. thanks for having me. john. i appreciate the opportunity out of the pleasure is all mine. thank you. a kernel. let's start with your career. tell us about your history in the military. how you got involved in intelligence and tell us a little about your time at d, i a. and then the defense that the shape program. yeah, so i was a 1999 graduate of the air force academy after graduation went to pilot training, where i then flew as sixteens for the better part of my 22 year career in the air force. my pen ultimate assignment was with the defense intelligence agency. i was selected from swath of air force officers to become an aircraft ashtray. eventually

landing myself position is air attache to italy in switzerland. i. that's position being overseen and managed by the defense intelligence agency, which brought me to that organization. i served there for 3 years and after that assignments went on to serve as a staff officer for about a year before my retirement last february, c. and you are the kind of officer with that background that the pentagon wants in these positions in all the years that i was in the c i a working overseas . i thought that d i a was a well oiled machine. the d i a officers with whom i worked, regardless of what country was in, were substantive experts in their fields. they had close and friendly relationships in the host ministries of defense. and they were all personally popular. everybody wanted to hang out with a defense that caches. it never even occurred to me there,

there might be internal problems. tell us about what you saw, the eye that bothered you. when did you begin and, and what was your reaction initially as well? it is a dichotomy because what struck me 1st about the ad tashay service was walking into class the 1st day and meeting my would be colleagues, ashate colleagues. and when you spoke to them and read their sieves and rather bios, it was a veritable who's who of the american military. you had harvard graduates, you had homestead scholars, you had special operators, you had pilots, it was the criminal, a crown of the united states military. and rightfully so, you want to put your best foot forward in terms of the officer core representation in the nations abroad. that they're serving and then on the other hand, the flip side of that coins i dichotomous coined was the management of the defense

attache service. the thing that struck me very bluntly, right off the gate, was my 1st interaction with management of the, the defense actually service or das. and they purported this montrose of high production, low drama. and course i wasn't sure what that meant. exactly. but i came out to find out very well with that mag, which is don't rock the boat because we will make your life difficult to you just so our viewers can understand that you are in a position like that. you're an intelligence collector, much of what you collect is either unclassified or it's collected by observation. you're not out there meeting with sources in the middle of the night behind the garbage dumpster. you're there as an official representative of the united states

department of defense. you're liaising with, with military senior military officials of the host country. what kind of information is it that, that you're out there trying to collect without rocking that boat? right, in all defense ashes throughout the world, whether it be from our country or others fall under that vienna convention last right. that it is. it is covered the international convention that we're in the country observing and reporting it. and also our, our dual role really is to advocate for us to interest in that house nation and vice versa, advocate for our hosts, interests as they pertain to the united states. so our interlocutors range from anything from the mid level of capturing all the way up to the chief of defense of that nation and anything in between. that's right. like so many whistle blowers, whom we've had on this show. you went through your chain of command when you saw

evidence of wrongdoing. that is exactly what we're all trained to do. but going through the chain of command didn't work. so 1st, what was the wrong doing that you reported? and 2nd, what was the response from your chain of command when you did that reporting? yeah, the whole issue is really snowball, from what i thought was going to be a relatively easily resolved. and that was we had 2 colleagues within the office who were under performing in the mission and as operations officer, my role was to ensure that everyone was so feeling their, their role as well as their potential and country. and we have 2 officers who not only were not doing that, but they were impeding others carrying out that mission, whether it be with their toxicity costs to city or just lack of teamwork.

so over the course of about a year, i tried to resolve that at the lowest level, meaning within the office chain of command. and it was an incremental and gradual approach in with, in which i addressed it to the eventual failure. there it was not with excuses and eventually retribution. and that's when i explored other avenues to include the inspector general of the defense intelligence agency, as well as the office is chain of command at headquarters in dc. before we get to the inspector general, which is very important, i want to ask you about the initial stages of these. what really were protected whistleblower complaints that you were making? what was it exactly that you were reporting? what was it that you were seeing that you believe constituted, waste, fraud, abuse, and illegality as well. the 1st thing is that as an ad, tashay e. uh,

the military invests a lot of resources into your training and then into your assignment itself, we were very well resource to execute the mission. the training program is very well resourced. so to go out on station and then have the veritable commanding officer say, no one ever got sent home for not writing is not only dereliction of duty. it's an incredible waste of government resources that are invested into the attache and into that operation. to do exactly that, which is to right. so i like and did as a pilot to going through pilot training and showing up at your 1st operational unit and being told, you know why you need not fly here, which was astounding to me. wow, yeah, that's shocking. after you major complaints through the chain of command,

you then went to the inspector general as you said a moment ago. again, that's exactly what we're trained to do. if you don't get satisfaction in that chain of command, you go to the inspector general. in my case, you know, i, i objected to the torture program, it was my chain of command that had created the torture program. so you want to go to the inspector general. but just like in your chain of command, you did not get satisfaction there. what happened with the inspector general's office? what was that experience like? so i, i took on an instrumental approach 1st. obviously, like we talked about within the office. then i took it to my commander's commander and said look, here's what i'm seeing. here's what's happening within the office before i go to the inspector general, i'd like the opportunity for you to come out and vet the issues to which she did. however, instead of rectifying the issues, this is where the reprisals took place,

which you i took the form of her coming out to the location of broad removing my assignment. my follow on assignments, removing the assignments for 2 others and my colleagues and sending one back to dc after only about 10 months on station. so that was right. that was the real genesis of the i g complaint was not this fraud waste and abuse their election and duty, toxic work environment that contributed to the headquarters management coming out and committing reprisals on all of us who had raise these issues. that's where title 10, the letter of the law was wrong, and you know, that's an important point. i'm glad you raised it because what you're talking about, the retribution that you're talking about is very clearly and specifically a violation of the whistleblower protection law that we have in the federal

government. right? they just can't do things like that. at what point did you say the system is just simply not working for me? i'm going to have to do something radical. something that i never expected to have to do like hire an attorney for example. yeah. did you read my mind, john? because i got to that point where i took actions that i never thought i would, and i never thought i would have to it maybe that surprised me even more having been grown up so to speak in the operational air force. and then seeing the cd under value of the united states military that i never thought i would. and that point came about 9 months into the i g investigation. so for the recap and the timeline of the advance the headquarters and come out, committed, reprise on multiple ass ashes, including myself. shortly thereafter,

i filed an inspector general complaint, signing multiple accounts of reprisal. that investigation then languished on for the better part of 9 months. and alternately, about 16 months, but at that in my 9 months of march is when i surmised something was a mess. i felt that the eyes inspector general was not carrying out the investigation with due diligence. and i say that as a former i g myself from the air force and i felt they were not actively pursuing the case based in good faith. and it was at that point where i emailed $170.00 of my former defense, i attached a service colleagues and i said, i'm ryan. so easy. here's what i saw occurring. i the fraud raising abuse toxic work environment,

followed by retributive hits carried out by the leadership of the agency, followed by an inspector general that's complicit in, allowing it to all play out. who else out there is seeing what i'm seeing. that for me, what was the turning point in it, and at which i said, i never thought it would come to this, but i'm being stonewall clearly after being that they're going to reprise on something needs to change here. while we are speaking with defense intelligence agency, whistleblower lieutenant colonel ryan squeezy, we're going to take a short break and come right back for more of this conversation. stay tune. 2 2 the look forward to talking to you all that technology should work for people. a robot must obey the orders given by human beings except we're so shorter is that

conflict with the 1st law show you alignment of the patient. we should be very careful about visual intelligence at the point, obviously is to create a trust rather than fit the job. i mean with the artificial intelligence we have so many with the human, the robot must protect this phone existence with alexis. the welcome back to the list of lawyers. i'm john kerry onto we're speaking with defense intelligence agency. it was a blower, lieutenant colonel ryan's ways the about problems inside that agency. criminal, thanks again for being with us. thanks again, john. appreciate it. just before the break, we were talking about you going to the office of inspector general to report now

seasons in d, i a not only did the inspector general say that it was unable to confirm the information that you had reported, but the i g also told you that it had concluded that there was insufficient evidence that you were a victim of reprisal, and it's pretty easy to see what the reprisal is, even from an outsider's perspective. so 1st tell us about what reprisals you suffered and 2nd, why do you think the inspector general failed to act? who was the inspector general covering for? yes. are the elements of reprisal? simply port are you? the victim has to make a protective communications. so that's a report of a wrong doing to the chain of command inspector general congress. and then there has to be an unfavorable personnel action taken as a result of that protected communication. so in my case, in the case of my colleagues, we raise concerns of fraud, waste and abuse,

dereliction of duty, and a toxic work environment. and as a result, in a direct result of those reports, our file on assignments were cancelled. and i was subsequently given a sub par annual performance report which all but ended my professional air force career. there was the link right there in black and white, a defense at the chaise service workforce survey conducted in 2020 found almost half of responded and said that they had witnessed hostile behavior in the workplace, including harassment, intimidation and bullying. 30 percent so that they had directly experienced racial, gender, or other discrimination. to me, these are crazy numbers. has this been your experience to these number sound right to? so they do and that report came as a result of a freedom of information act request. i put forth after i had queried under a $170.00 former colleagues,

i actually received an anonymous tip about the climate assessment uh from that query. yeah. and not only the storm and tell me about the assessment. they told me about the leaderships attempt to cover up that assessments when they receive the results and not only did not act but summarily ignored and dismissed the before it results that you just briefed. and so to your previous question, and the question that's back now is why, why would the agency be so apt to not address that would be so i asked to instead punish or red tribute against the people who raise concern of the problem, but never attacked the problem and solves and i think it just comes down to protecting the institution. there is a curve ball in place within the defense intelligence agency that has inserted

themselves in defacto power. and they enjoy many benefits there of whether it be employment, whether it be career progression, whether it be power data arrive that from allowing and for 40 the institution to remain in place. so for a whistle blower such as myself, to have an allegation substantiated for, for this climate assessment to see the light of day is seen as an existential threats to that institution. and when that institution is threatened, the reaction, there is no no bounce. as we've seen, careers were up ended personal lives up and it is what now people were the railed careers were ended, as i saw with my case and others. and it is all because,

and really for the sake of the continued existence of this institution, after the survey that was published, defense that test a service director, michael book, now e mailed his staff and promised to address all of the issues that respondents had raised. has that happened? have things improved to the best of your knowledge? not to my knowledge. and i would say that because of the timing of the climate assessments and then the timing of my report to congress. so that climate assessment that you mentioned was done in september of 2020. when all a sudden done by the time i had collected and coal laid at approximately 70 witnessed statements from the defense intelligence agency and sent that report to congress. it was march of 2022. wow. so at least a year and a half later. and so if there were any substantive actions taken, then i think logic would say that i would not have had the number of respondents in

the number of allegations to boot. by that point, one of the things consistently disappointing to me is the failure of the congressional oversight committees to actually oversee agencies appropriately and to address these kinds of problems. i complain about this all the time, frankly. have the senate or house to arms or arms services committees. done anything at all to fix these problems? have you been in touch at all with the oversight committees? yes. are engaged to primary oversight committees. both the house armed services committee ask and then the house permanent select committee on intelligence or hips . the commonly referred to is a house intel committee from the house guy received fairly type and response. nothing substantive was carried out. however, from the hip. see that the story was different. and i think one of the issues that i brought to light, which we haven't discussed yet,

was the potential violations of executive order 12, triple 3 year 1233. and that is the explicit prohibition with exceptions, of course, of collecting and reporting on us persons. there were multiple allegations in that report to congress about violations of the 12th triple 3 and not only reporting and collecting, but the allegations that managers and leaders within the defense intelligence agency task americans are brought to collect and report on other americans. and i, i surmise that is what really caught the attention of the house and talk committee because they did act on it in fact. and they passed into law via the fiscal year 2023 intelligence authorization act, several remedial measures that the i is the carry out. and of course, the i,

a into authorization act becomes part of the larger national defense authorization act was really just passed to this last december. and, and had it states that d a must conduct 360 degree feedback marcus must do it. exit interviews must report the results of climate surveys now to congressional oversight entities. and it said in black and white d, i a has fail up to this point to curb an environment which is right for management abuses. and in that they were spot on. wow, that is big news actually, when i was at the c i a, we practically had to tie to the text of executive order. 12333 on our arms so that we didn't forget it. it's arguably one of the most important executive orders that's ever been signed by any president. and i hope that i hope that he is

able to clean up its act in, in the light of these uh, these revelations. one more question for you. there are uh, several important whistleblower groups here in the washington area. the biggest one being and w. c. the national whistleblower center. they have very close relations with pro whistle blower legislators on capitol hill, especially people like senator chuck grassley for example. um, have they reached out to you to discuss these issues and have they, if they have reached out to you, have they offered to put you in touch with members of congress who may not be sitting on the oversight committees, but would be sympathetic to the information that you have yes, and i think the biggest benefit that we've garnered from the relationship between myself and the end of you see and in some champions in congress is looking at it through uh, contrasting with civilian whistleblower law, especially in the uh,

securities regime. fcc wise and so with uh, is it frank, dot, uh the name eludes me now, but there is, there is a, an act which incentivizes in a way, whistle blowers to come forward in the financial sector. right? to the tune of, if there are sanctions that whistleblower is by law, are required to receive at least 10 percent and sometimes up to 50 percent of those sanctions. that's right. and the take away from that, in contrast with the military and especially in, in the intelligence community is that there exists no incentive and no reward for whistle blowers. and by reward i really mean risk mitigation. yes. when you are a whistleblower in the i see in the intelligence community, it is 100 percent risk and personal risk not only to your personal life but to your

career. and the government affords no offset. not only are you likely to be the victim of subsequent retribution, but you're also incurring a lot of personal risk for relatively low likelihood that you're going to inside some kind of systemic changes in the fcc world that's different there. the authorized not only to authorize their mandated to receive some kind of compensation, should there be findings. and so the project we're working on and we're trying to get momentum, is that you have to somehow offer some kind of incentive, some kind of risk offset for the whistleblower within the military. within the intelligence. can unity? well unfortunately that's all we have time for today. i want to thank our guest, lieutenant colonel ryans ways you for joining us and things to our viewers for watching president abraham lincoln. once said, nearly all men can stand adversity. but if you want to test a man's character,

give him power. it's all too common for power to corrupt, and as the old saying goes for absolute power to corrupt. absolutely. that's why we need whistle blowers. the road for them is almost never the easy one, but our society is better because of them. i'm john kerry, aka and you've been watching the whistle blowers until next time. 2 2 the the, the,

[000:00:00;00] the the, and attempted terrorist attack on russian civilians. that's how russian officials classified the forwarded assassination. on our cheese editor in chief margarita simone, young and journalist getting asked of the head of ukraine's main orthodox christian monastery is placed in custody for 30 days. unable to pay a large fail fee under no circumstances with an exclamation point, that's the us response to developing nations requesting climate reparations. we