Charles Hamel

Charles Hamel "is a retired international management consultant. He served as Administrative Assistant to Connecticut U.S. Senator Thomas J. Dodd and as Executive Assistant to Alaska U.S. Senator Mike Gravel. While engaged as an independent tanker and oil broker with oil lease interests on the North Slope of Alaska, Mr. Hamel discovered environmental, health, and safety violations by Alyeska Pipeline and its oil company owners. Mr. Hamel, acting as a conduit for concerned whistleblowers including Alyeska employees, became a source of information for Congress, State and Federal regulatory agencies and the media. Alyeska Pipeline and its owner companies, ARCO, BP, Exxon, Mobil, Unocal, Phillips and Amerada Hess, engaged the Wackenhut Corporation in mounting a massive undercover surveillance operation of Mr. Hamel. Federal Judge Stanley Sporkin, during 1993 U.S. District Court proceedings, described the details of Alyeska's spy operation on Mr. Hamel as "horrendous" and "reminiscent of Nazi Germany." Judge Sporkin further observed "no one should be subjected to the kind of treatment the Hamels were.""

• Director, Project On Government Oversight