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Researcher Fired At NSF After Government Questions Her Role As 1980s Activist
sciencehabit writes Valerie Barr was a tenured professor of computer science at Union College in Schenectady, New York, with a national reputation for her work improving computing education and attracting more women and minorities into the field. But federal investigators say that Barr lied during a routine background check about her affiliations with a domestic terrorist group that had ties to the two organizations to which she had belonged in the early 1980s. On 27 August, NSF said that her 'dishonest conduct' compelled them to cancel her temporary assignment immediately, at the end of the first of what was expected to be a 2-year stint. Colleagues who decry Barr's fate worry that the incident could make other scientists think twice about coming to work for NSF. In addition, Barr's case offers a rare glimpse into the practices of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), an obscure agency within the White House that wields vast power over the entire federal bureaucracy through its authority to vet recently hired workers.
Researcher Fired At NSF After Government Finds She Lied On Her Routine Background Check
We know you are out there some where .. or maybe its just your ghost?
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Government is for the people by the people and commies need not apply.
Be honest on the paperwork. What's the worst that can happen? They say no?
This is blatant stupidity masquerading as "news." Yawn
If I knew who they were, but TFS doesn't expand on that TLA
FTA:
Cohen speculates that the massive leaks by Edward Snowden of national security secrets, which began in June 2013, could also have been a factor in NSF’s decision. “If it’s a matter of weighing the employee’s statement against what the investigator says he has found, agencies will resolve it in favor of national security,” Cohen says. “That’s just how it is, especially after Snowden.”
Confirmed my suspicion when I first read the summary. THIS will be the lasting legacy of Snowden's actions. Not increased government accountability or transparency, but a hellbent determination to make sure they will never be caught with their pants down again. Sigh.
"Love heals scars love left." -- Henry Rollins
Cool, that means all employees of the NSA, CIA, FBI and TSA are fired, as they are all members of radical terrorist organizations.
Let the terminations begin!!!
First off, what is a "Domestic terrorist group" and who makes the decision. Second, what are 'ties'? She was a member of 2 organizations that had 'ties' to a 'domestic terrorist group'. Does this mean financial or material support or that Joe Blow was also a member of the groups involved and therefore he was a 'tie'. Lastly, what was her 'dishonest conduct'? If she outright lied, that's one thing. If during her interviews/form filling she was asked if she had 'ties' (there's that slippery word again!) to any terrorist group if she honestly didn't know group X was considered a 'domestic terrorst group' when she wasn't even a member of group X and was instead a member of group Y which was NOT a 'domestic terrorist group' is that justifiable grounds for dismissal?
The NSF has one of the worst bureaucracies for grant recipients to have to deal with.
So why was he not fired when he was found to have lied under oath to congress ?
Well, in the end McCarthy was right. How about that?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...
Don't forget China hacked OPM some months back and supposedly has a list of everyone who applied for a security clearance. Not that super-secret now.
The thing about government checks is that they will take whatever you give them and examine it to death. Just deprive them of information -- by not volunteering things that are not verifiable -- and you will generally avoid getting into these situations. Not that it's reasonable to hold certain things against you, but just save yourself the trouble. Sometimes I think people are a little too honest for their own good.
The NSF investigators pulled an "IRS" like tatic on a Academic! Another Scandal under Ostumble:
impeach Obama!
So, it sounds like she answered honestly, was never part of any group with that as their mandate, but that somehow there was a tangential connection to the one she was a member of.
Welcome to the war on terrorism, it's the new McCarthyism.
This just sounds like a witch hint where we're supposed to proactively identify any and all tangential links to anybody who has ever done anything bad and exclude ourselves.
Such bullshit. In reading the article, there isn't a single shred of evidence to suggest she ever did anything illegal.
Hey, I know, Bush did business with the family of OBL, Cheney owned a private security firm which did war profiteering and possibly committed war crimes, and the CIA historically supported terrorists to fight regimes they didn't like .. can we conclude that all top government have ties to terrorism?
Or can we conclude the people in the OPM are fucking morons?
This is just stupid. She was never a member of an organization dedicated to the use of violence, overthrowing the US government or any of that crap. She was a member of a group pushing for the rights of women.
Give me your fucking papers, comrade.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
...she now goes back to her regular full-time, tenured professor job in New York?
It was, perhaps, silly to dump her for 30-year-old activities.
It was also, perhaps, silly to lie about that sort of thing (assuming she was actively communicating with the one in jail for armed robbery).
Nonetheless, it's not like it really hurts her - she's back being a college professor already (ain't tenure great?)....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
"Valerie Barr was a tenured professor of computer science at Union College in Schenectady,"
is.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
It is utterly offensive to me that the State Department gets to decide who and what groups are "terrorists". Free Association is one of the key tenants of a functioning Democracy.
I find the associations between lobbyists and government officials to be a clear and present danger to our country... but what can I do about it?
Why are any of these losers working for a government science program? Get a real job.
It's a shame that the summary and the article omit the most important information needed to judge whether this is reasonable or not -- details and evidence in support of the characterization of the groups Barr belonged as "linked" to the group responsible for the armored car robbery & murder. What does "linked" mean in this context: members in common? command structure? who knows? The article doesn't say, and without that information none of us can have a really informed opinion on the topic.
Since there's not much to discuss from TFA, I'm going to tell you a little story from back when I was in school, because it's conceivably relevant (but then, as I've said, we don't really have the details we need to know..
Annnnyyyyway.. Once upon a time, long ago (but still some years after this woman was in school) I was a student at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. During the time I was on campus there were a group of chuckleheads who fancied themselves the vanguard of the socialist revolution that was sure to sweep the country Real Soon Now (tm). They were the scourge of all of the small clubs on campus because of a trick that they pulled, over and over, quite successfully until the other student groups learned to defend themselves against it.
Here's what would happen.. A small, inoffensive campus group having little or nothing to do with the main goals of the revolutionary organization in question would have a meeting at the beginning of the year to welcome new members and to elect leadership positions for the coming school year. Let's imagine we're talking about the Campus Knitting Society.. Well, a group like that might have 8-10 members who attended meetings regularly, and a few more who would drop in when their schedules allowed. The Revolutionary Chuckleheads League (not their real name) would descend en masse on the Campus Knitting Society the week that group was electing new officers and since a lot of groups had open membership the RCL would nominate its own slate of officers and take over the Campus Knitting Society. They'd use the small budgetary stipend the group got from the student government activities fund to print up flyers and the next thing you'd know, every kiosk on campus would be covered with fluorescent orange flyers saying "U of M Campus Knitting Society DEMANDS AN END TO US IMPERIALISM" and "U of M Campus Society Says: Free Mumia!". Then the Revolutionary Chuckleheads League would abandon the burned-out husk of the club they'd taken over and move on to play the same trick on some other organization. The shellshocked original club members, if they weren't completely soured by the experience, might form a new club to replace the one that had been stolen from them, which is why from time to time you'd see flyers pop up on campus saying things like "First Meeting Sunday Night: Michigan Knitting Club (NOT THE Revolutionary Chuckleheads League)"
So.. I've got no idea from the article what Barr's politics were at the time, what they are now, and what her level of involvement with the banned group might be. But it wouldn't surprise me if there were a lot of people that I went to school with who belonged to perfectly harmless clubs who could conceivably fall afoul of the same shadow that blighted Barr's career just because they belonged to a club that got infiltrated and taken over by a group of radicals whose interests were only tangentially related to the club's original goals. I don't think that happens very often, but I would like for the government to have a higher standard than "affiliated" or at the very least to make clear what they mean by that.
Just so.
Look, basically three things get you into trouble during a government background check:
1. You *currently* participate in an organization trying to harm the United States Government.
2. Anything about yourself or your family life leaves you vulnerable to blackmail.
3. You conceal relevant truth, lie, or exhibit a pattern of deceit and/or theft.
Pretty much nothing else disqualifies you for work for Uncle Sam. You can even get a security clearance.
So, DON'T LIE. Err on the side of telling the interviewer more than he asked. Especially if it's embarrassing. An open book is easy to read and it's incredibly hard to blackmail someone who is never too embarrassed to seek the local security officers' help.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
What was once considered Domestic Terrorism, may very well now days be called Being a Good American. The only Domestic Terrorists out there now are the politicians.
Yet Ollie North still got a government job after dealing with Hezbolla, Iran and a variety of bandits in Central America. Don't forget the embezzlement to buy a car and aircondition his house. His "club affiliation" bought him immunity from this sort of scrutiny.
What the hell is an NSF???
Ah yes, who could forget famous terrorist organization, the "Women's Committee Against Genocide." It's so scary sounding!
Why not just do some collective PI work on the officers/civil servants in the federal bureaucracy to dig up dirt about them and publish it online for the world to see?
No, he was a liar and his list was a fiction with no names at all let alone the ones who existed.
The problem isn't association. The problem is the lie. If you routinely smoke crack and have a russian mail order bride, put it on the security clearance form.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
So in August 2013 she took a leave from Union College to join the National Science Foundation (NSF) as a program director in its Division of Undergraduate Education.
So we have background checks concerning membership in terrorist organizations for this? Seriously? I can see some degree of care is required for jobs that have national security relevance, but this is stupid. If she doesn't have felony convictions in the past seven years, then that's good enough for me. I don't see that the feds even should have the authority to ask about association with terrorist groups in a situation like this.
For people who complain that she lied, well, maybe she did. But the employer should have an responsibility to not create the opportunity for such things. If they hadn't asked her, she wouldn't have allegedly lied, served her two years, and life would move on without an excess of drama.
A terrorist within their own soil and she gets a slap on the wrist.
Is it because she's white? Jewish?
I don't philosophically agree with everybody who I'd even call a friend, let alone with everyone I ever have any association with... that doesn't stop me from associating with them in areas where we do agree.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
. /. to get away from the drudge-type sites.
I visit
Are these topics indicative of the course the new owners of /. are taking, now that they have found out they cannot change the look of the site?
Federal investigators say those groups were affiliated with a third, the May 19 Communist Organization (M19CO), that carried out a string of violent acts, including the killing of two police officers and a security guard during a failed 1981 robbery of a Brink’s truck near Nyack, New York.
She was not a member of a "terrorist group", but rather a member of groups claimed by someone to be affiliated. Further, the alleged acts of terrorism occurred a year after she was even involved in those 2nd hand groups.
According to the article, she did not lie either.
Federal investigators say those groups were affiliated with a third, the May 19 Communist Organization (M19CO), that carried out a string of violent acts, including the killing of two police officers and a security guard during a failed 1981 robbery of a Brink’s truck near Nyack, New York.
and
After again being asked if she had been a member of any organization that espoused violence, Barr was grilled for 4.5 hours about her knowledge of all three organizations and several individuals with ties to them, including the persons who tried to rob the Brink’s truck. (Four people were found guilty of murder in that attack and sentenced to lengthy prison terms, including Kathy Boudin, who was released in 2003 and is now an adjunct assistant professor of social work at Columbia University.) “I found out about the Brink’s robbery by hearing it on the news, and just like everybody else I was shocked,” she recalls.
Which of course corroborates her story more than the feds who removed her from the position.
In other words, yet another example of people abusing power.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
From the article:
In her 11 August response, Barr questioned whether the special agent who conducted the investigation “can be an impartial evaluator of academic scientists, or anyone with liberal political beliefs.” As evidence, she points to a posting on a blog maintained by the agent, a veteran who served in Iraq, and his family. The item is a copy of a popular Internet meme about an incident that supposedly took place in an introductory college biology course. According to the story, a “typical liberal college professor and avowed atheist” declares his intent to prove that there is no God by giving the creator 15 minutes to strike him from the podium. A few minutes before the deadline, a Marine “just released from active duty and newly registered” walks up to the professor and knocks him out with one punch. When the professor recovers and asks for an explanation, the Marine replies, “God was busy. He sent me.”
Seems to me like the investigator has an axe to grind. How is a person like that even allowed to do investigations about who is suitable for a job? It would be funny if it wasn't so sad; Scientist gets investigated for suitability to work for the government, gets found unsuitable because of involvement with some activist groups >30 years ago. Investigator advocates violence against people with different opinion (scientist would most likely fall into that group). Now who is unsuitable for his job.
Before you say, making a joke like the investigator is not really advocating violence. You're probably correct, however for someone in his position it is extremely unprofessional to say anything like that! Someone like this should be extremely cautious to always give the impression that they will make a reasonable and fair assessment.
Also lets remember this is about the position of "Program Director for Undergraduate Education" at the National Science Foundation, not really a position that requires access to top secret information
OPM is obscure? First I've heard of its obscurity having been there many times. Every federal employee knows about OPM. The building is cleverly hidden at a prominent location at 1900 E St NW in DC.
My reaction would have been much more polite if you had actually read and commented on the facts presented, instead of making up your own fairy tales to approve of a government action.
They did not ask her about criminal history in the last 10 years, read TFA! They asked her "if she had ever been a member of an organization “dedicated to the use of violence” to overthrow the U.S. government or to prevent others from exercising their constitutional rights." . Good grief man, reading is not that fucking difficult. The dismissal was based on a claim that she lied, because a group she was a member of 35 years ago was affiliated with a group that committed an act of terrorism 1 year after she stopped affiliating with the first groups. (emphasis mine)
Take the same logic to people. If you met someone in college and hung out 35 years ago, and 34 years ago that person met someone that committed a terrorist act you would have to know to claim "yup, I know someone affiliated with a terrorist" when asked the question today. And when you answer "no" they will grill you on that acquaintance from 35 years ago as if you had ESP and could know that they knew someone that committed a terrorist act a year after you last talked to them.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Perhaps scientists should think twice about associating with terrorists.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Their philosophy/purpose was expressed in these following selected sentences:
The first principle of our movement must be anti-imperialism.
In order to fundamentally change the whole system of military, political and economic domination, our solidarity movement must fight imperialism in its totality. .. By opposing the entire imperialist system, our solidarity movement can support the revolutionary forces and actually help them to win a new world order.
The independence struggle of Puerto Rico is a strategic wedge of Latin American revolution that penetrates into the U.S. itself... In response to US imperialism, 5 armed clandestine political-military organizations in Puerto Rico, and the FALN in the US are attacking key US military and corporate targets and leading a growing people's war.
If she had admitted she was a member but had left it years ago she probably would have been okay. But lying about it in the interviews cost her the job.
"(Barr says she wrote to Balagoon occasionally while he was in prison—“it would have been reprehensible for me to drop my correspondence with a dying person,” she explains—and visited him once.)"
This is a big deal. She did have ties to organizations that conducted violence and did not report that because she felt it was not a problem. Sadly, these are exactly the sort of character issues that OPM needs to sort out in their background check of federal employees. There is no right to federal employment or employment of any type in the United States. The fact that you cannot pass a security check is grounds for termination, end of story. As for benign sounding names: what sounds more innocuous than a group of Weathermen? I do not envy the security officer's jobs today. They have to audit so many people for government service and for the thousands of loyal Americans that do enter, there are always a few Rosenbergs, a Walker, and a Snowden. Each officer that cleared those people has to live with the insidious doubt about what they could have done to prevent it. That they may have missed something, asked the wrong question, looked in the wrong place hangs forever in their mind. It is best to be cautious of who we let into the door for federal service.
If you're going to build your career around government programs and government policies, well, you may just have to accept the fact that they can be arbitrary, capricious, irrational, and harmful too. If you didn't realize that before, now you do.
In her 11 August response, Barr questioned whether the special agent who conducted the investigation “can be an impartial evaluator of academic scientists, or anyone with liberal political beliefs.” As evidence, she points to a posting on a blog maintained by the agent, a veteran who served in Iraq, and his family. The item is a copy of a popular Internet meme about an incident that supposedly took place in an introductory college biology course. According to the story, a “typical liberal college professor and avowed atheist” declares his intent to prove that there is no God by giving the creator 15 minutes to strike him from the podium. A few minutes before the deadline, a Marine “just released from active duty and newly registered” walks up to the professor and knocks him out with one punch. When the professor recovers and asks for an explanation, the Marine replies, “God was busy. He sent me.”
This makes it look really like this was a single agent who was unhappy with the left-wing views she had. At minimum, it is wildly inappropriate for a government agent in such a position to have that sort of thing on their blog (aside from it being just stupid). That goes together with the statement in the article:
Attorney Joseph Kaplan, of the Washington, D.C., firm Passman & Kaplan, says that, in his experience, the most common reasons for a finding of unsuitability are lying about one’s educational background, one’s employment history, or one’s criminal record. “If OPM determines that the person has misled or provided false information,” he says, “they can be declared unfit for federal service.”
Kaplan says he’s never heard of anyone being drummed out for political activity that occurred decades ago. At the same time, he says, the government’s decision is based not on anything Barr did during the 1980s but on how she explained those activities to federal investigators after coming to work at NSF.
Together this paints a potential picture of a specific agent going after someone they didn't like due to their political views and a bureaucracy going into overdrive to protect that decision. On the other hand, it isn't like she had no connections to the third organization- she knew two of the people who were convicted of the murder and by her own description kept up a correspondence with one of them while he was in prison. But keeping up correspondence with someone in prison is not evidence by itself of any problem, and there's really been no evidence presented that she lied or attempted to mislead in any way.
The article notes that this may be due to more general post-Snowded reactions which are making these sorts of things more common. In that case, this is exactly the wrong response.
2/10
piss poor troll
apply yourself
Barack Hussein Obama is personal friends with 2 terrorists who have killed at least 5 people and wounded over 100 using bombs and guns. William Ayers and Bernadette Dorn. obama was introduced to the killers by his then girlfriend Michelle obama.
This is why I refuse to be politically active. The main-stream parties have won.
fired the government for lying.
the command-n-chimp and how he got over on being a foreign national and an anti-American...
Of course liberals are mad. Lying under oath is what liberals call "free speech."
It's a he said/she said deal in which the special agent who was responsible for the interview didn't make a recording of the interview, and destroyed the notes afterwards. The agent just gave his own subjective impression of what she said. Why don't they make recordings?
It's also an interview by an agent who thinks it's funny to beat up liberal professors. I wouldn't trust him to make fair judgments about "liberals." He shouldn't be working in government.
FTA:
http://news.sciencemag.org/peo...
Barr was given a chance to appeal NSF’s decision, and on 11 August she submitted a letter stating that OPM’s summary report of its investigation “contains many errors or mischaracterizations of my statements.” (As is standard practice, agencies receive only a summary of the OPM investigation, not a full report, and lawyers familiar with the process say that an agent’s interview notes are typically destroyed after the report is written.)...
In her 11 August response, Barr questioned whether the special agent who conducted the investigation “can be an impartial evaluator of academic scientists, or anyone with liberal political beliefs.” As evidence, she points to a posting on a blog maintained by the agent, a veteran who served in Iraq, and his family. The item is a copy of a popular Internet meme about an incident that supposedly took place in an introductory college biology course.
According to the story, a “typical liberal college professor and avowed atheist” declares his intent to prove that there is no God by giving the creator 15 minutes to strike him from the podium. A few minutes before the deadline, a Marine “just released from active duty and newly registered” walks up to the professor and knocks him out with one punch. When the professor recovers and asks for an explanation, the Marine replies, “God was busy. He sent me.”
That agent may have served in Iraq, but he didn't serve to protect our freedom. He served to come back and establish a police state that's starting to adopt a lot of the characteristics of the Soviet Union.
There have been many prosecutions in which the government's star witness testified about the defendant's statements, and then the defense attorney found a tape and it turned out the defendant didn't say anything like that at all.
There's one reason why criminal investigators don't use recordings: So they can make up things and the defendant can't disprove them.
Only belonging to the "Democratic/Republic" party is allowed.
Lol
Yeah, it's almost as innocuous as the "National Socialist Workers' Party."
Oh, wait...
(But seriously, the point is that that "women's committee" might have really been innocuous for all I know, but there's no way to tell just from the name.)
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Actually you are. If you're going to write someone dozens of letters you should know if that person is in prison especially if they committed violent acts against your employer.
By your logic Ted Kazinski's pen-pals should be allowed to work on security detail at the Federal Trade Building. Maybe the Unibomber's buddies should be given jobs at the post office?
Get real.
Read the article. The terrorist group wasn't tangentially related to the organizations she belonged too, they were "affiliated." As in, "officially attached to or connected." Not "oh a few people were in both groups," like many people are suggesting. The article doesn't explain the connection, but presumably they were all of the same blanket organization. She visited a convicted terrorist from the group in prison, suggesting that she knew the terrorists and was in an organization that she knew was connected to terrorism, even if she herself did not assist with any terrorist acts.
Knowing terrorists and having been tangentially involved in a terrorist organization is not in itself a crime, but yes without a doubt that is something she should have disclosed. Essentially, she lied on her background check and got fired. Good.
Of course not everything should be asked on background checks. I think it's fair to say, sexuality shouldn't be asked, or political affiliation, or a number of other things. The potential for abuse is too high. But if you can't ask employees if they have a connection to terrorism, what are background checks for at all?
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
Oh, and Ted's buddies should DEFINATLY be given that job if they LIE about knowing Ted at all! What could go wrong?
One time at the airport, my checked luggage was inspected by "customs" aka Homeland Security, and I was almost denied entry into the states because I said checked the box "no" to the "dangerous weapons" question.
My checked luggage contained lighter fluid for my Zippo. And they took umbrage at the fact it was "too large" of a container of Zippo fluid, and that they considered it a "dangerous weapon". They were also skeptical of why I would bring it, and accused me of lying about the "dangerous weapons" checkbox.
I said, I buy that size cuz its cheap ~$10 for the 4xSize, instead of $5 for the smallest size. After something like 10+ mins of back and forth on that issue, she finally relented with the reccomendation that I never bring zippo fluid on vacation again, and buy it at my destination instead.
I'm pretty sure if the agent in question had had a slightly worse day, I would of wound up on a plane back home instead of being able to continue on my vacation.
Personally, I was flabbergasted at the whole incident, that a container of zippo fluid would be considered such, and that I would be detained over it. Almost missing my flight anyways due to the length of time I had to wait to be questioned.
Many people in positions of so-called-power just look for reasons to exercise their authority.
Exhibit A: GWB Bush, Iraq war on False Flag
Exhibit B: Tony Blair, Iraq war on False Flag
Exhibit C: Angela Merkel, who wanted to take part in Crime.
So, just ignore those gov-monkeys, they cant police their realm.
...we had a guy who was afiliated with Terror (once policeman shot, at least) who later became Foreign Minister. Mr Fischer, namley.
Lately he sucks up to Ms Albright, so "all is OK".
See how it works ? You can be a Terror Supporter, but still become a big shot, as long as you Suck Up To Imperium.
...it was not Ollie, it was Ronald Reagan who should have been impeached for this. Ollie was just the scapegoat, while Ronnie ordered the meal.
She was in the Tea Party???!!!???
"Nooooooooooooooo!!!!!!"-Darth Vader
Depending on which way the wind is blowing, anything could be labeled a terror group. Perhaps she didn't know the group was considered a terror group when filling out the application...
Oh the irony. The NSA are dishonest from the leader on down.
"Researcher fired at NSF". What's NSF, and why is firing researchers at it making news? She's a researcher! This is research! For science! And cake, and all that!
I say, fire away!
Going from being labelled "a “worker bee” on behalf of two groups advocating for women and Puerto Rican independence" to a terrorist is quite a stretch; especially with no evidence. "Barr answered “no” when asked if she had ever been a member of an organization “dedicated to the use of violence” to overthrow the U.S. government or to prevent others from exercising their constitutional rights." It would appear that something as innocuous as fighting for women's rights could get you labelled a terrorist by the over-paranoid U.S. Government. This is just crazy.
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
"Colleagues who decry Barr's fate worry that the incident could make other scientists think twice about coming to work for NSF"
No, her fate will make other scientists think twice about getting involved with terrorist organizations and then lying about it on their background check applications.
...join 3 letter agencies if you have any beliefs. Duh. They want blank minds to mold to fit very certain positions. If that's you, fine, but if you already have your own belief system, it's not for you.
You know that the USA was build by people you would call terrorists?
This is also a great way to legitimize age bias. The older you are, the more chance you've had to do something boneheaded. Snowden had no record as he was barely out of diapers.
This is her fault. #1 thing you don't do is lie during any kind of background check for the gov. Most of the time they're not looking for if you did anything bad in your past, but whether you're an honest person or not. Lying flags you as dishonest and you will be fired or not-hired in the first place.
So the opinions used to form the Constitution and create the wording can't be used to determine your opinion of the meaning of the Constitution? Are you really trying to make that claim?
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
In this nation one is supposed to be punished only when one is convicted in court of a crime. Everyone else is innocent. Further in the era mentioned we were in shock in finding that recent president Nixon was indeed a criminal in every sense of the word and equal justice for all was in the toilet as Nixon did not go to prison. Further we had very ugly dealings with other nations suggesting that our government was an enemy of humanity. With events like arms for the Contra and the importation of cocaine to pay for guns provided by our government as well as the crushing of a few really good governments it is no wonder that many citizens were not ready to take up arms against the government. Today we still see treasonous filth called the republican party doing wrong as fast as they can and filling the public ear with lies and propaganda. A House of Representatives dedicated to doing nothing during a financial collapse deserves whatever the public gives it. A Supreme Court that claims that corporations are people is enough to drive most normal folk to rage. Too big to fail is another thriller. Equal justice for all is rotting in the city dump and no longer applies in America. Allowing privileges to corporations denied to poor people is enough reason to put people into a revolutionary spirit. Revolution is almost always the wrong thing to do but what else can be done when the system refuses to correct itself?
This is about a woman who lied about her background. And somehow it has devolved into a discussion about the 2nd amendment, politics and the Tea Party. She Lied. If she had told the truth, chances are good that she still would have gotten the job. Look at the other bomb throwers that have been put into positions in this administration, and look at this administrations friends. I have been thru several levels of background checks and one thing I know for certain, it is a crime to lie to these investigators. It is also grounds to deny the clearance. No matter what it was for, even if it was just getting a job.
NSF everywhere, JC. Your orders are to shoot on sight.
Factual error in TFA. OPM (nee Civil Service Commission) is an independent agency within the Executive Branch. Executive Branch != White House.
Moreover, it's hardly obscure, in that anyone who has worked for the Federal Government, or sought to, has dealt directly with OPM; that undoubtedly is millions of people. But I suppose "obscure" makes it sound more sinister.
So, skimming part of the article, she was affiliated with two groups that had "ties" to extremist organizations.
Please define the word "ties". For example, prove with hard evidence that the members of the group knew that they were directly supporting extremist groups. Or even that the officers were. Or that ANYONE OTHER THAN, say, one or two people who were *also* in other groups, including the fringe around the "terrorist" groups.
Go look up the Attorney General's List from the fifties and sixties. "Womens' Strike for Peace" was on it, and try to tell me that was a "terrorist" organization.
Fuck, the Abraham Lincoln Brigade was on it - they were Americans who went to Spain in the mid-thirties, to fight with the legally-elected left wing government against the fascists of Franco, who was supported by Hitler and Mussolini, and that's *NOT* an exaggeration. Oh, that's right, they were "pre-opposing" the fascists.
Yeah, "ties" - that's nothing more than a GOP, neofascist witch hunt against the woman.
mark
it's not the involvement that cost her the job, its the lying.
Same as on a job resume.
no need to make this into something to be "outraged" about. If ya want to avoid trouble, don't lie.
and if you think it's "bad" enough that you need to lie, it probably is.
http://wh.gov/iqd4M
How her colleagues are ignoring that she lied on her background check... They probably never got to the point where they investigated her involvement with the group (which, if she had disclosed it initially may or may not have barred her from working at the NSF).
Is it really acceptable yo lie on federal background checks?
Ken
She'll be fine. Celebrity comes with this kind of notoriety, especially in academe.
It is all structured for maximum opportunity control.