RTC Lawyer OKd Worker’s Files Search : Inquiry: Agency’s counsel authorized computer break-in. Whistle-blowing details were discovered.

The Resolution Trust Corp.’s top lawyer authorized a secret search of an employee’s computer that turned up files detailing whistle-blowing activities, a document shows.

An internal agency memo shows that RTC officials conducted the search after failing to persuade the agency’s inspector general to do it. The memo also says that the inspector general assured the RTC officials that they would not be investigated if questions were later raised. The inspector general’s office disputes the allegation.

Officials at the savings and loan cleanup agency, which employs several hundred people at a regional office in Newport Beach, say RTC acting general counsel Richard T. Aboussie gave the go-ahead for the search because he suspected that Bruce Pederson, a mid-level agency attorney in Denver, was doing personal business on government equipment.

“We have directives in this organization which specifically say that use of office equipment for personal business is prohibited,” RTC spokesman Steve Katsanos said.

Pederson has never disputed that the agency found personal matters in his files, arguing instead that the search was an invasion of privacy. Pederson said he thinks agency officials were trying to punish him for being a whistle-blower. “These events are outrageous,” he said.

The search of Pederson’s computer, first reported in May, occurred less than six months after he had criticized agency management practices in testimony before a Senate panel. He gained assurances at the time that he would not be retaliated against for airing his views.

The FBI investigated the matter, but the Justice Department declined to file charges, according to a recently completed inspector general’s report. However, the Treasury Department, the RTC’s parent agency, has confirmed that it is investigating the case. Pederson’s situation is also likely to be aired at a Senate Banking Committee hearing on RTC issues scheduled for September.

The federal wiretap law was expanded in 1986 to prohibit employers, including the government, from accessing employee work computer records. Under the law, the government is allowed to conduct clandestine searches if the employee is suspected of espionage or theft. Pederson was under no such suspicion.

The May 19 memo from agency attorney Erica Cooper to Aboussie confirms that Aboussie authorized the search himself in March after failing to persuade the inspector general’s office, the agency’s politically independent in-house investigators, to do the task.

“After consideration, the (inspector general’s office) declined to do the inspection,” Cooper wrote, “but confirmed that there would be no investigation of management for attempting to insure that corporate facilities were being used for authorized purposes.”

The inspector general’s office denied making any such promise. “It is my concern that what our person said was taken out of context,” said assistant inspector general Clark Blight. “I think we acted appropriately. We declined to do what they wanted.”

Cooper and Aboussie referred a reporter’s phone calls to Katsanos.

The search, the memo states, turned up several personal letters, as well as numerous notes by Pederson to congressional investigators and members of the news media probing into RTC dealings. It also said officials found Pederson had run some electronic newspaper searches at taxpayers’ expense and used the computer to file correspondence involving a Freedom of Information Act request for RTC documents he was seeking in conjunction with his whistle-blowing.

According to electronic time stamps on each document, many of the letters and memos were generated on Pederson’s government computer after usual working hours, the memo revealed.

Cooper’s memo states that Pederson’s supervisor chose to reprimand him rather than take formal action against him.

In the document, RTC officials also say they got clearance for the search from a Justice Department computer crime expert.

Scott Charney, who heads the computer crime section of the Justice Department’s criminal division, confirmed that he gave the go-ahead for the search. But he said Cooper failed to tell him of Pederson’s whistle-blower status.

Federal whistle-blower laws provide government critics a higher degree of protection against investigation, in part to guard against the possibility of retaliation.

“If they had told me he was a whistle-blower, that would have set off bells,” Charney said. “I wouldn’t have made a decision, based on that aspect of it.”