Posted on 01/02/2010 6:02:41 AM PST by La Lydia
The White House nominee to lead the Transportation Security Administration gave Congress misleading information about incidents in which he inappropriately accessed a federal database, possibly in violation of privacy laws, documents obtained by The Washington Post show. The disclosure comes as pressure builds from Democrats on Capitol Hill for quick January confirmation of Erroll Southers....
Southers, a former FBI agent, has described inconsistencies in his accounts to Congress as "inadvertent" and the result of poor memory of an incident that dates back 20 years. He said in a Nov. 20 letter to key senators that he had accepted full responsibility long ago for a "grave error in judgment" in accessing confidential criminal records about his then-estranged wife's new boyfriend....
Southers's admission that he was involved in a questionable use of law enforcement background data has been a source of concern among civil libertarians, who believe the TSA performs a delicate balancing act in tapping into passenger information to find terrorists while also protecting citizens' privacy.
Southers first described the episode in his October affidavit...as isolated and expressed regrets about it. The committee approved his nomination Nov. 19. One day later, Southers wrote to Lieberman and Collins saying his first account was incorrect. After reviewing documents, he wrote, he recalled that he had twice conducted the database searches himself, downloaded confidential law enforcement records about his wife's boyfriend and passed information on to the police department employee, the letter said.
It is a violation of the federal Privacy Act to access such information without proper cause. The law says that "any person who knowingly and willfully requests or obtains any record concerning an individual from an agency under false pretenses shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and fined not more than $5,000."...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
They call him ‘Snoopy.”
You assume a large portion of the populace gets its news from the Washington Post when we are seeing data from allover the country about how papers are failing and going bankrupt. This and other forums are the new media for people intersted in keeping one’s ear to the ground for news and people like Beck are sourcing and then broadcasting it.
Once it goes on the radar of the new media, Sarah picks up on it and fires another Facebook note to which the same media cannot help themselves and run the story again. Only this time people are paying attention because she lit the fuse of the media that attempted to hide it in the first place.
What I do assume, and it isn't much of a stretch since I live in the middle of it, is that the people who will actually be VOTING ON THIS NOMINATION, and their staff, are more likely to miss this story when it is published on a Friday federal holiday. Palin and Beck can opine, "source," broadcast all they want. They don't have a vote, and the people who do have a vote aren't always interested in what they think.
Obama seems to like people with this sort of thing in their past. After all, John Brennan ran the company that accessed candidates passport records during the campaign.
Yes, I am expecting to learn any day now he hasn’t paid income tax for several years. The BO administration appears to be 1) tone-deaf to crime, vice and perversion, and completely accepting of all three, and, 2) incapable of performing a background check.
Sheesh! Just a bit touchy are we? I view constructive criticism as a learning experience and you missed the last point of as much as they try to hide it, it still comes back around full circle and they end up reporting it anyway.
Nobody is perfect but Obama seems to go out of his way to find people with ethical and criminal problems in their backgrounds.
The only reason I can see for doing it is that he intends to use their “talents” at some point. Kinda like a mob boss hiring a hit man for his “unique” talents.
Translation: He knowingly lied under oath to a Senate committee. That ought to be game, set, and match and would be were he a Republican. Democrats, however lie routinely, and if we were to disqualify Democrats on this basis, they would not be able to form a government.
Criminals are controllable.
I’ve always been particularly irritated with the Brennan hiring. The media went ballistic about his firm illegally accessing candidates passport records. They even did the usual game of assuming it was a republican conspiracy. Then when Obama hired the man at the top, they were strangely silent.
As I sit here thinking about it. Between Brennan and this TSA nominee, Obozo has an interesting means of controlling entry and exit from the country.
Obama is consistent in his ability to select the absolute wrong person for a job. Got a guy who has been caught inappropriately accessing private records for personal use? Make him the head of a security agency! Got a guy who cheated on his taxes? Make him the head of the IRS! Got a guy who is a radiacal homosexual activist who advocates underage gay sex at every chance? Make him safe schools czar! It’s like he’s trying to come up with the worst possible choices.
RESPONSE: It is called poor judgement.
erroll is a stalker
charming
another public servant who uses his access to public resources for personal gain- in this case, spite
Well, when there was a suggestion that Sarah Palin used her position to get a law enforcement official to investigate person involved with her sister, the news media made it a national obsession, and there was a year-long “ethics investigation”.
So I would assume we will see this nomination put on hold at least for 6 months while the media and the congress hashes this out. /sarc
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