UNCOVERING ETHIC VIOLATIONS: HOW DO WE DO IT?

Since I tend to read a plethora of information sites (not having subscribed to a newspaper in 8 1/2 years)it makes me wonder how people stay informed. I believe that it is the seniors group that is more apt not to have gone onto the Internet for their News. Speaking with them, those who read a single large city paper and their local news, they seem pitifully uniformed to me.

How then, can Washington insiders expect the voters to speak up and correct mistakes of which they are completely unaware? For example, MedScape Today reports that "Federal regulations require clinical trial sponsors to collect financial information from investigators at the outset of trials, and to report on their efforts to minimize the possibility that financial self-interest could color trial results, notes the report from the office of Daniel R. Levinson, Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).....Trial sponsors — usually the company developing or licensing the drug or device in question — only have to disclose this information when they apply for marketing approval, and even then there's a loophole: they can claim that they "acted with due diligence" to collect financial information from each investigator to satisfy regulations.
Report Found Few Financial Disclosures
Yet 42% of new drug marketing applications filed in fiscal year 2007 were short on investigator financial disclosures, and in fully one fifth of cases where such information was disclosed, FDA reviewers took no action, the watchdogs reported.
"In FY 2007, only 1% of clinical investigators disclosed a financial interest," the report's authors write."

For fun, I Googled politicians ethic violations. The results: Results 1 - 10 of about 112,000 for Politicians ethics violations. (0.30 seconds) An article in the NY Times on 1/7/09 suggests that, more properly, action was initiated on a more appropriate level than simply a lone (or group) voter. Governor Deval Patrick of Massachusetts Proposes Ethics Reform to Curb Corrupt Politicians and Lobbyists. What a novel idea!!

A year ago, Jack Cafferty of CNN wrote: FROM CNN’s Jack Cafferty:

"In case you’re not convinced our government is broken, consider this: A new study shows that almost 60% of government employees at all levels — federal, state and local — say they’ve seen violations of ethical standards, policies or laws at their workplaces in the last year. This includes everything from conflicts of interest, abusive behavior, altering documents and financial records to lying to employees, vendors or the public.

And apparently it’s worse at the state and local levels. The nonprofit research group “Ethics Resource Center” found 63% of those at the local level witnessed at least one kind of misconduct. At the state level, it was 57%, and 52% at the federal level.

And it’s going to get worse. The head of this group says it looks like we’re headed toward more ethical misconduct in government in the future, not less.

They found that 30% of the incidents go unreported. One reason for that is some employees who reported misconduct said they experienced retaliation. Researchers also say there aren’t enough systems in place to stop these problems once they’re exposed.

The center says the answer to this problem is what it calls a “strong ethical culture.” A lovely idea to be sure. But when you watch example after example of government dishonesty and abuse go uninvestigated and unpunished, what’s the message? That it doesn’t matter because no one will do anything about it anyway.

Here’s my question to you: Does it surprise you that almost 60% of government employees at all levels say they’ve seen ethics violations at work?"

If the people we vote into office don't report their abusive colleagues, what recourse does the average voter have without knowledge of the violations? If anyone has suggestions, I'd like to hear them.