Derek Copeland was 11 days away from hitting his one-year mark with the U.S. Department of Agriculture when he received his termination letter on Feb. 14. "You have not demonstrated that your further employment at the Agency would be in the public interest," the notice said. Copeland was shocked. His performance appraisal stated that he was "fully successful" in performing the critical functions of his job as a training specialist at the National Detector Dog Training Center in Newnan, Ga. Moreover, while he'd been at the USDA less than a year, he'd spent his career working with dogs. Copeland had...