Sad Story of the Beaten Bean Counter, or Wiretap Whistleblower Wasted

The Ninth Circuit on Monday dealt a final blow to a career prosecutor whose whistleblower lawsuit claimed the nation’s largest telecommunications bilked the federal government for surveillance services for two decades. 

The Ninth Circuit panel affirmed dismissal of prosecutor John Christopher Prather’s whistleblower suit...

He said the reduced labor should have lowered costs, but that the telecoms began charging law enforcement agencies, including the FBI and the Justice Department, fees 10 times higher than they should have been.

Prather, who reviewed the telecoms’ rate sheets and developed surveillance budgets as part of his duties supervising wiretapping activities, grew suspicious, and filed a qui tam action in 2009 under the False Claims Act. more previously in the Security Scrapbook