FDA whistleblowers sue agency over surveillance of personal e-mail

[Emily]

The key point here is that employees are notified that they are subject to monitoring and actions for illegal activities, but not legal activities to protect the public from harm. This news makes me doubt that efforts the FDA started to increase the safety of the use of radiation producing devices are going to be fruitful.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fda-staffers-sue-agency-over-surveillance-of-personal-e-mail/2012/01/23/gIQAj34DbQ_story_1.html

By Ellen Nakashima and Lisa Rein, Published: January 29
FDA staffers sue agency over surveillance of personal e-mail

The Food and Drug Administration secretly monitored the personal e-mail of a group of its own scientists and doctors after they warned Congress that the agency was approving medical devices that they believed posed unacceptable risks to patients, government documents show.

[snip]

Information garnered this way eventually contributed to the harassment or dismissal of all six of the FDA employees, the suit alleges. All had worked in an office responsible for reviewing devices for cancer screening and other purposes.....