Erroll Southers - pleads guilty to domestic abuse of powerAnother TSA/DHS/Obama failure. This is getting ridiculous:
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.
Source: Washington Post
Good God! Can this administration do ANYTHING right?
At issue is the nomination of former FBI agent Erroll Southers to head up the TSA. Why did Southers inappropriately access a federal database? Maybe for reasons related to national security? Maybe he pulled some kind of Jack Bauer stunt that was illegal but totally necessary to save the free world? Maybe it was something like that?
Um, no. It wasn't like that at all:
He said in a Nov. 20 letter to key senators obtained by The Post 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.That's a bit of a red flag, no? Philadelphia Weekly seems to think so:
Source: Washington Post
“Grave error in judgment” is correct. I’d go so far as to say a “disqualifying error in judgment.” Granted, this was 20 years ago and perhaps Erroll Southers has matured since then — I’d say, in fact, that it’s likely. But given that we’re likely to have increasing concerns and debate over the balance of security versus privacy in TSA procedures, I can say with some certainty I’d rather not see the agency run by official with a documented history of abusing his power to casually invade somebody’s privacy.
And question: How much did Obama’s vetters know about this?
Source: Joel Mathis, Philadelphia Weekly
Well at least he didn't lie about it while being questioned by Senator Susan Collins (R-ME). He was very upfront about his past misconduct:
In questioning before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Southers has said he understands the need to balance security and privacy. Said Collins: "You have taken responsibility for your actions. You've acknowledged your mistake in the personal conversation that we had in my office. It is important that the public have confidence that government officials will not misuse the authority that they have."
She added: "If you're confirmed, you're going to have the access to databases that have personal information on many, many individuals, such as through the secure flight program, and it's going to be important for the public to have confidence that you would not, in any way, misuse your access to the personal information in those databases. So, let me first ask you: Have you ever in the past misused your access to databases that the government maintains, other than this one incident that led to this censure?"
"No, Senator, I have not," Southers replied.
Source: Washington Post
Oh wait. That was a lie:
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.
Source: Washington Post
