Dec 3, 2022
A now-retired Maine state trooper has been awarded $300,000 in a lawsuit after facing retaliation for blowing the whistle on a state police division that was gathering intelligence on several groups of people, including gun owners. George Loder, 53, had filed a lawsuit over retaliation he faced when he went to his superiors with concerns about the intelligence operation. Aside from gun owners, the division was working with the Maine Information and Analysis Center in Augusta to collect intelligence on power line protesters and employees at a camp for Israeli and Arab teens. None of the people targeted for surveillance were engaged in illegal activity, according to the whistleblower. ABC News reports that in the lawsuit, Loder alleged that he was "reassigned to a desk job two hours from his home and then improperly denied a transfer.
