Daniel P. Meyer


Daniel P. Meyer is the former director for whistleblowing and transparency to the Inspector General of the Defense Department.
As Director DW&T, Meyer's role was to promulgate a whistleblower protection program and provide leadership for investigations implementing and ensuring accountability in the protection of employees, military and civilian, as well as contractors who disclose violations of law, rule and/or regulation. The DW&T also coordinated office policy on Qui Tam and False Claims Act litigation. From January 2004 to September 2010, Meyer was a federal supervisory investigator specializing in the protection of sources providing information regarding wrongdoing, also known as "whistleblowers." Formerly as the Director, Civilian Reprisal Investigations, Meyer led a directorate composed of two investigative teams: the National Security Reprisal Team and the Procurement Fraud Reprisal Team. In the spring of 2010, he was announced as a finalist for the Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medal, National Security and International Affairs category.

Expertise

As the DCRI, Meyer investigated whistleblower reprisal complaints filed by DoD civilians pursuant to Section 7, Inspector General Act of 1978. Created in 2004 to augment the primary jurisdiction of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, CRI investigates reprisal against whistleblowers who are civilian appropriated-fund employees of the U.S. Department of Defense, including Defense agencies and Military Service civilian employees engaged in intelligence and counter-intelligence activities. Since 2004, CRI has investigated reprisal against whistleblowers on the C-130J, RC-135, F-18 and other avionics platforms, the former U.S. Army program known as "Able Danger", the integrity of ground intelligence data, and other matters. CRI is known for its role in developing a means for reviewing security clearance decision-making and investigations alleged to be a pretext for reprisal. Meyer's directorate also investigate the activities of John C. Metzler, Jr.'s staff in the actions toward a whistleblower at Arlington National Cemetery. The investigation became a small contribution in the uncovering of the Arlington National Cemetery mismanagement controversy.
Meyer has been a consistent critic of pro-management judicial and administrative interpretations of the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989, noting their corrosive effect on the intent of the United States Congress in passing the Act. In his role as Director of DW&T and CRI, Meyer has been described as "... pretty fearless. He has the knowledge and technical acumen to determine what is right.". In 2001, Meyer cautioned whistleblowers that despite the fact that the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989 "... says that federal workers should be protected, not punished... whistleblowing remains an often risky and difficult path...." Dan Meyer is credited within overcoming some senior leadership reticence to protecting whistleblowers within the intelligence and counterintelligence communities. When addressing whistleblower issues, Meyer focuses on the fact that whistleblowing plays "an important role in improving government performance and accountability." He considers whistleblowing to be "... all about transparency. We shouldn't run from letting the people know what we federal employees are doing. In fact, if we had more transparency, we would have fewer problems. More government transparency allows more senior executive and congressional oversight; and oversight allows for the correction of government failures." When describing the Inspector General's reprisal investigations, Meyer stated, "We just call them as they are. I have no concerns at all for protecting the wrongdoer. At the end of the day, the business of government is the people's business, not the wrongdoer's business."

Congressional testimony

In testimony before the United States Congress in 2003, Meyer advanced a theory stating that there is a false dichotomy between Defense readiness and Environmental compliance. National security and environmental security are two components of the common defense. Central to the theory is the concept that national security achieved at the expense of the environment undermines the purpose for which a common defense is maintained. In his 2003 testimony before House Resources, Meyer distanced himself Raymond F. Dubois, Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Installations, and Environment, Department of Defense. Meyer advised the committee that environmental laws were to be read together, each successive act of Congress forming an evolving set of mandates on federal agencies, all of which were to be organized as a whole under an Integrated Natural Resources Management Plan. Meyer also used the hearing as an opportunity to warn the Congress about the impact of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's decision in the Huffman case, fundamentally changing the protections afforded to federal whistleblowers, and the dangers of further delegations of statutory responsibilities to the States unless a concurrent delegation of the whistleblower protection provisions was matched by a waiver of sovereign immunity. While at PEER, Meyer was moving this theory into a deconfliction of environmental and mercantile policies as well. This is evident in his pleading regarding Installing and Maintaining Commercial Submarine Cables in National Marine Sanctuaries, 65 Fed. Reg. 51264-51270. Reference to the PEER environmental security work during Meyer's tenure can be found in Rita Floyd's Security and the Environment: Securitisation Theory and U.S. Environmental Security Policy.
During the winter of 2006, Meyer appeared in Congressional testimony with Mr. Thomas F. Gimble, Acting Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Defense, and Ms. Jane Deese, Director of Military Reprisal Investigations before the U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Government Reform, Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations. The hearing was called by Congressman Chris Shays. In the testimony, the Office of the Inspector General stated that it had the authority to investigate adverse security clearance and access decisions as part of its broad responsibility for investigating allegations that individuals suffered reprisal for making disclosures of fraud, waste and abuse to certain authorities. Meyer's February 2006 testimony discussed the importance of whistleblower-initiated complaints driving the investigative process so that the offices of inspectors general are not used to target whistleblowers. The issue arose in an exchange with Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich and related to the experience of Sgt. Samuel Provance. In his Congressional testimony, Meyer's positions have typically supported the independence of discrete constitutional actions. This concern for the independence of government decision-making is also present in his first appearance in a court of law, making oral argument in United States v. Graf, 35 M.J. 450, 1992 CMA LEXIS 1032.

Previous government service

Meyer is a former naval officer. A veteran of the Persian Gulf War, he is also a survivor of the 1989 explosion on board battleship, in which a technical malfunction destroyed Turret Two. During the Iowa investigation, then Lieutenant Meyer became a whistleblower when he disclosed alleged misdirection of the investigation to the Senate Armed Services Committee. Regarding his whistleblowing, Dan Meyer stated in 2011, "I can empathize with the pressure that's put on you. But the Navy did OK by me." Meyer's fleet service was the subject of a 2001 TV film, A Glimpse of Hell, starring Robert Sean Leonard and James Caan. A book of the same title was authored by veteran 60 Minutes journalist Charles S. Thompson.
In 1993 and 1994, Meyer served as regulatory clerk to Commissioner Andrew C. Barrett of the Federal Communications Commission. He also served as a graduate intern to the Office of Communications Research in the Executive Office of the President during the first Clinton Administration. While at the White House, he assisted the President's 'War Rooms' for the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 and the North American Free Trade Agreement of 1994. The Communications Research team was under the direction of Ann Walker Marchant, and reported to Mark Gearan and supported the activities of George Stephanopoulos and Dee Dee Myers.
In the United States Navy, Meyer served as Communications & Signals Officer for the Flagship Middle East Force during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. He conned the during that ship's mine sweeping operations to liberate Mina Al Shuaiba, and also during the repelling of Islamic Guard pirates off in 1991. Prior to that assignment, he was the Turret One Officer on board battleship Iowa from 1987 through 1990. He and his gunners broke the world's record in naval offshore gunnery at Vieques Island on January 28, 1989.
During his naval service, Meyer was awarded honors, including: Surface Warrior Pin, Iowa ; Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal, Seventh Fleet ; Navy Meritorious Unit Commendation, Commander, Naval Surface Forces, Atlantic ; for meritorious service in the aftermath of the explosion on board Iowa. While Officer of the Deck of LaSalle, he qualified for the Combat Action Ribbon during minesweeping operations off Kuwait. Other naval operations in which Meyer participated included the Ernest Will Operations escorting U.S.-flagged oil tankers through the Straits of Hormuz and the planned strike at Nahr al-Kalb in 1989. He served under Captains Larry Seaquist and Fred Moosally on board Iowa. His commanding officer during Desert Shield and the beginning of Desert Storm was John B. Nathman. Dating from his days on the IOWA tasked to Commander, Cruiser-Destroyer Group Eight, Meyer counted Jeremy Michael Boorda among his mentors through the mid-1990s.

Private Practice

Prior to serving as director, CRI, Meyer practiced law with private firms and non-profit corporations in the District of Columbia, specializing in communications and whistleblower law. He is the former general counsel of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, where he represented Teresa Chambers and worked the gubernatorial issues surrounding the case of Cindy Ossias. Significant litigation included Moosally v. W.W. Norton & Co., 594 S.E.2d 878 ; R.I. Dep't of Envtl. Mgmt. v. United States, 304 F.3d 31 ; William T. Knox v. United States Department of Labor, 434 F.3d 721 violated the whistleblower provision of the Clean Air Act ; and appellate litigation in behalf of the shipping services sector of the economy following the consolidation of railroad ownership in the 1990s. Meyer's labor advocacy included participation in the rulemaking regarding the privatization of essential government activities. A critic of privatization, he argued that privatization reaches a limit after which cost savings is limited and enforcement reduced. Meyer's legal writings have appeared in the Federal Communications Law Journal and the Western New England Law Journal. He is also a non-managerial equity partner of The Crescent Group-based out of New Haven, Connecticut.

Community Involvement

Meyer served as mayor of the Town of Burkittsville, Maryland in 2001–2004. He also served as the chairman of that municipality's Planning & Zoning Commission. Meyer ran unopposed. In the year prior to the election, he was known for his objection to Burkittsville's treatment by the makers of The Blair Witch Project, a mock documentary horror film that became a hit in 1999. Reflecting on Hollywood's performance in both A Glimpse of Hell and The Blair Witch Project, Meyer saw an inverse relationship between the movies. 'With the 'Blair Witch' thing, you were looking at a movie that had a fictitious account of the town. In the IOWA story, it was the exact opposite. The media product is more accurate to the truth than any official finding.'
During this service from 1996 to 2002, he aided the town in its response to the Blair Witch Project and also assisted local residents in developing preservation strategies during the buildout of communications technologies after the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Meyer is currently an usher and a lector, Saint John's Parish Church in Hagerstown, Maryland and is exceedingly active in alumni affairs for Cornell University.

Personal and family

Meyer was born at the U.S. Naval Hospital, New London, Connecticut. During his youth, the family was assigned to naval stations in the tidewater of Virginia, northern Virginia, Northwood, England and Ithaca, New York, during his childhood and adolescence. He is a 1983 Regent's graduate of Ithaca High School, and studied at Cornell University under Dan Baugh, George McTurnan Kahin, Peter Katzenstein, Isaac Kramnick, Walter LaFeber, Theodore J. Lowi, Mary Beth Norton and Norman Uphoff.

Partner

Meyer is the partner to David F. Davis of Elkton, Virginia.

Parents

Meyer's mother is Mary Kinney Meyer, a graduate of St. Mary's Hospital nursing program and the granddaughter of the honorable John Franklin Kinney of Rochester, New York, jurist and corporation counsel to the City of Rochester.
Meyer's father, Captain James Meyer, USN, was born Dec. 2, 1929 in Rochester, New York. He took his masters from George Washington University in 1972 through the Naval War College at Newport, Rhode Island. His thesis was on the transition of the People Republic of China from a communist to an oligarchical system of government. He was married to from 1955 to 1994. There are four Meyer children: , , and .
He entered the United States Navy in 1947 as an enlisted man. The future Captain Meyer served as a radioman after completing the basic course at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center. Attending the electronics school, he was assigned to the Destroyer fleet. In 1949, he was sent to the United States Naval Academy Preparatory School in anticipation of matriculation at the United States Naval Academy in the fall of 1950. Taking his commission from the USNA in 1954, he served briefly in Flying boats at Willoughby Spit and on board the USS Arneb before entering the Submarine school at Groton, Connecticut. From 1955 onward, he served successively on the Argonaut, George Washington, and. In his naval service, Captain Meyer conducted the surveillance of the first Soviet fleet operations into the south Atlantic and was the weapons officer of the during the Cuban missile crisis. He was also executive officer of the. He was commanding officer of the Requin and Cutlass.
On NATO staff, Captain Meyer served with Admirals John Fieldhouse, James Eberle and Henry Leach. The president of the Mess at their headquarters, HMS Warrior, was Lord Louis Mountbatten. The Frasers of Three Rivers were neighbors and family friends of Captain Meyer and his family. Captain Meyer's father, George Earl Meyer served on the Texas border in the aftermath of the Mexican revolution during General John J. Pershing's expedition into Mexico.
In 1969 he left sea duty and served on NATO staff in Norfolk, Virginia prior to a Pentagon assignment in Naval Operations under Admiral Bob Long. Promoted to captain, he then served as Assistant Chief of Staff, Operations and Intelligence, to the Commander-in-Chief, Eastern Atlantic /Commander-in-Chief, Channel. His final tour was under Commander, Naval Education & Training as commanding officer and professor of naval science at Cornell University during the presidency of Frank H.T. Rhodes. He was Meyer's commanding officer during then-Midshipman 4/C Meyer's freshman year at Cornell. Dan Meyer was mentored by Cornell's Richard M. Ramin, in part, due to the latter's relationship with Captain Meyer. Both Ramin and Dan Meyer were tapped into Cornell's Sphinx Head Society and worked successfully to end that organization's ban on women members.

Sample Publications

Director Meyer took his Bachelor of Arts at Cornell University in 1987 and his Juris Doctor at Indiana University Maurer School of Law in 1995. He is a member of the bar, District of Columbia, a veteran of the first Gulf War and a National Security Studies Fellow – Maxwell School, Syracuse University. Mr. Meyer has also completed the U.S. Judge Advocate General's invitation-only Intelligence Law course at Charlottesville, Virginia, focusing on the law governing intelligence and counterintelligence activities by the United States.

Associations

Mr. Meyer is a member of the Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity, Cornell's Sphinx Head Society, and the Irving Literary Society.