TSA appointee violated privacy, lied to Congress about it.

(H/T AoSHQ Headlines) Well, at least Erroll Souther’s not a tax cheat, right? Puts him ahead of the pack for this administration, it does.

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.

[snip]

Southers first described the episode in his October affidavit, telling the Senate panel that two decades ago he asked a San Diego Police Department employee to access confidential criminal records about the boyfriend. Southers said he had been censured by superiors at the FBI. He described the incident 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.

‘Incorrect.’

Moe Lane
Crossposted to RedState.

Report: WH in full CYA/BDS mode over Christmas attack.

A quick survey of priorities:

  • In 2001, the American government’s response to a successful series of terrorist attacks was to look outwards to see who to hit for this*.
  • In 2009, the American government’s response to an only-because-we-got-lucky unsuccessful terrorist attack was to look inwards to see who to blame for this. (H/T: Nice Deb)

I think that, all things considered, I prefer the first approach.

Moe Lane

*To somewhat purify the Onion’s point.

Crossposted to RedState.

Well, I’ll give the new decade more than an hour…

…before I endorse this position, but it should be noted that I was made the same promise that Avery Brooks was.

And that was back in 2000.

Moe Lane

PS: Yes, I know why it was decided that we wouldn’t have flying cars. I was still promised flying cars.