One Step Closer to a More Just and Effective Military

June 6, 2013

The House Armed Services Committee took a huge step yesterday towards combating the epidemic of sexual assaults in the military.

In fact, an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2014 that passed HASC en bloc during the markup, which went all day and into the night, will not only protect disclosures of sexual assault, but also will expand protections to those in the military who blow the whistle on waste, fraud, abuse, and other wrongdoing. This bipartisan amendment, offered by Representatives Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) and Mike Coffman (R-Colo.), aims to curb the culture of intimidation and silence in the military. Both the Speier-Coffman amendment and the Senate bill it mirrors include accountability measures that will give teeth to current whistleblower protections. The legislation offers corrective relief to those who face retribution, as well as discipline for those who seek to silence whistleblowers and victims of sexual assault.

The Project On Government Oversight was proud to lend its support—along with partners from across the ideological spectrum—to this amendment and is thrilled to see it in the Committee-approved bill that will be voted on by the full House next week. Some concessions were made to opponents in order to allow the amendment’s consideration, and we will continue to fight for those reforms lost in yesterday’s markup when the Senate considers the NDAA, and when the bills are conferenced.

Another provision in the NDAA strips military commanders of the power to overturn rape and sexual assault convictions and requires that anyone found guilty of those crimes be discharged or dismissed from military service. These new rules fight a system where military members who report sexual assault often face retaliation for coming forward and the perpetrators are protected.

It is about time that Congress took action to change the unaccountable culture that allows sexual assault and other wrongdoing to flourish in the military. To learn more, check out this blog post about the broken Military Whistleblower Protection Act and the harrowing documentary on sexual assault in the military, The Invisible War.

Topics: Whistleblower Protections

Related Content: Congressional Oversight, Defense

Authors: Christine Anderson

Submitted by Dfens at: June 10, 2013

Who would have guessed all this might happen if we went from having straight, single sex crews to having mixed sex and homosexual crew members? Come on, people, set up a situation ripe for abuse and then be shocked when it happens? I know, let's perform more social experiments with out military and see how those turn out too, shall we? I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

Submitted by meyati at: June 8, 2013

It doesn't help that the victim has to report the rape to the rapist-chain of command. One ship crossed the Med. When it pulled into a Greek port, a young seaman out of boot camp, went directly to the US Embassy for protection. She had been raped and sodomized by 6 different crew members, most were her supervisors. The Navy went to the ship and found several young males that were also rape victims. They were all relieved of duty, especially the Capt, because he didn't know what was going on his small ship. They had prison sentences for the rapists. There would be less victims, if they had the smarts of this young female seaman. The chain of command is part of the problem.

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