Reduced to placing the jackboots on their own employees' necks

From all published accounts the information obtained from conscientious ATF employees has provided a valuable and devastating indictment of the extent of that agency's involvement in the "Fast and Furious" debacle, in which thousands of firearms were allowed to pass into Mexico over the objections of both law-abiding gun stores and those same rational ATF agents. ultimately causing the deaths of countless Mexican citizens as well as two American law-enforcement officers.  The complete story is detailed beginning here for those who need to catch up on the facts of the case.

Well, the top brass at that odious department, true to their jack-booted nature,  have apparently decided to try to put a stop to such inconvenient whistleblowing.  Acting ATF Director B. Todd Jones on July 9 released a video message to all ATF employees, warning them in part that "Choices and consequences means simply that if you make poor choices, that if you don't abide by the rules, that if you don't respect the chain of command, if you don't find the appropriate way to raise your concerns to your leadership, there will be consequences, because we cannot tolerate -- we cannot tolerate -- an undisciplined organization,".

Well, Mr. Jones, the American public cannot "tolerate" an "undisciplined" and rogue government organization that deliberately breaks its own country's laws as well as those of a neighboring country, directly causing the deaths of at least hundreds of innocent people, and then shamelessly tries to cover up its illegal actions by refusing to respond to a legitimate Congressional subpoena seeking to investigate those activities.  Make sure and address that simple concept in your next propaganda video, sir.

What Jones also conveniently forgets is that ATF agents and even some Justice department lawyers did indeed attempt on multiple occasions to address their concerns with their superiors, only to have their "complaints dismissed or ignored".  Thus, they were forced to go to bloggers David Codrea and Mike Vanderboegh as well as members of Congress to get the story out once it became clear that Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry had been shot and killed with one of the thousands of firearms that the ATF had incompetently "lost".

Congressman Darrell Issa and Senator Charles Grassley have warned Jones in no uncertain terms that intimidation of legitimate whistleblowing activities will not be tolerated.  The ATF responded thusly:

"ATF spokeswoman Ginger Colbrun, though, said the video clip was 'taken out of context.'

She said the message was one of eight internal videos released since March that address topics ranging from "trust" to "mission" to "morale."

This one dealt with "choices and consequences," but she said it wasn't meant to "discourage" legally protected activities."

The ATF and Justice Department brass in both Arizona and Washington made the deliberate "choice" to break the law.  It's past time they received some "consequences" of their own.