Federal Workers Pocket Fraudulent Social Security Disability Payments

Some 1,500 federal employees "have wrongly received benefits," according to The Government Accountability Office. So, we know that the real number is probably at least 6,000. It's been going on for a long time.

Federal Workers get Fraudulent Disability Payments

"Our case studies ... confirmed some examples in which individuals received SSA disability payments that they were not entitled to receive," the GAO said in a letter to Sens. Tom Carper, D-Del.; John McCain, R-Ariz.; and Tom Coburn, R-Okla. Some of the payments were attributed to fraud, others to "administrative error," according to the report. The GAO found that the Social Security Administration does not use its own automated system to flag workers who may be earning too much income to qualify for benefits.

"SSA's internal controls did not prevent improper and fraudulent payments," the GAO said.  The report also found thousands of commercial drivers and transportation business owners who may be skirting the law. It focused in part on federal , estimating that 1,500 workers were receiving about $1.7 million monthly. Of them, one-quarter were U.S. Postal Service employees and 16 percent were Defense Department civilians. 

Get this! Do we really think there is only one woman getting paid for "angst?"

According to the report, the TSA employee started receiving disability benefits in 1995 for "mood and anxiety disorders." But she started full-time work in 2003 and earned as much as $50,000; the income cap after which disability payments are supposed to stop was $940 per month in 2008. 

So what happens now? Can the taxpayers get their money back? 

Janet Napolitano Stores Full Body Scans

The U.S. Marshall's office says it has stored "tens of thousands of body scan images taken in one Florida courthouse. We have continually been assured by Janet Napolitano and Homeland Security that all body scans would be destroyed immediately.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group, has filed a lawsuit asking a federal judge to grant an immediate injunction pulling the plug on TSA's body scanning program. In a separate lawsuit, EPIC obtained a letter (PDF) from the Marshals Service, part of the Justice Department, and released it on Tuesday afternoon.

These "devices are designed and deployed in a way that allows the images to be routinely stored and recorded, which is exactly what the Marshals Service is doing," EPIC executive director Marc Rotenberg told CNET. "We think it's significant."...

For its part, the TSA says that body scanning is perfectly constitutional: "The program is designed to respect individual sensibilities regarding privacy, modesty and personal autonomy to the maximum extent possible, while still performing its crucial function of protecting all members of the public from potentially catastrophic events." 

Lying Marxists on full display (no pun intended).

TSA Says Controversial Opinion Okay: No Porn Ban at TSA

The Transportation Security Administration reversed their decision to block TSA employees from viewing undefined "controversial opinion" on government computers. As noted yesterday, porn is still acceptable according to the long history of employee privilege doing so on taxpayer computers. Read that story here. Source for the reversal CBS.

TSA Preserves Porn - Bans Controversial Opinion

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has banned workers using government computers to surf over to websites with controversial opinions. Porn sites, however, have been preserved in keeping with the past history of government workers immersed in pornography.

TSA Preserves Porn, Bans "Controversial Opinion"

TSA has not explained what websites provide a "controversial opinion." CBS asked for a definition of and received no answer. It's doubtful any of the mainstream media is concerned about it, being the shills for Barack Obama that they are.

Five categories are banned for taxpayer servants: Chat and Messaging, Controversial Conservative Opinion, Criminal Activity, Extreme violence and Gruesome content (including cartoon violence), and gaming.

See, no porn in the banned list.

Recently, the Minerals Management Service, responsible for approving BP's out-of-date and deadly faulty plan, admitted they did some meth - METH of all things, and some porn at the office.

While the nation's financial institutions invested your money in risky business, the government workers hired to watch Big Finance, the SEC, viewed porn sites more often than not. (SEC).

Last Fall, porn viewers at the National Science Foundation was "so pervasive"  an internal "watchdog" had to cut back on it's mission of "investigating grant fraud and recovering misspent dollars."

"To manage this dramatic increase without an increase in staff required us to significantly reduce our efforts to investigate grant fraud," the inspector general recently told Congress in a budget request. "We anticipate a significant decline in investigative recoveries and prosecutions in coming years as a direct result."

How sick are these people, specifically those in Management? I've had enough. How about you?

Robert Harding Withdraws as TSA Nominee

One more down. Maj. Gen. Robert A. Harding withdrew his nomination abruptly on Friday night.

Robert A. Harding

Retired Army Maj. Gen. Robert Harding took himself out of the running Friday night as head of the Transportation Security Administration, another setback for Obama after his first choice withdrew in January because he faced a tough confirmation struggle in Congress. The Obama administration has called the job the most important unfilled position on Obama's team.

Harding's past as a defense contractor raised complications for his nomination. Source

I might not understand the process, but Obama unleased about 15 recess appointments today - the minute Congress left town. Couldn't he appoint Harding? Hmmmmm. Maybe there is more to Harding's story than we know. Maybe this:

General Harding's bid came unraveled after reports that his firm collected more federal money than it was entitled to for providing interrogators in Iraq.

Related and Background:
Erroll Southers Withdraws from TSA Nomination 

Southers Lies to Congress - Congress Knew He Lied

Airport Body Scanners Increase Radiation Exposure: Pregnant Jihadists Should Not be Scanned

In a report not intended for the public to see, we learn that airport full body scanners can raise the levels of the body's radiation, even though the radiation dose is "extremely small." Pregnant women and children should not be subject to full body scanners.

There goes the only opportunity we have to stop pregnant jihadists, whether female or male.

The US has committed $734 million to get scanners into American airports. The TSA has 150 machines on order, and currently have an additional 300 in operation:

“There is little doubt that the doses from the backscatter x-ray systems being proposed for airport security purposes are very low,” Health Protection Agency doctor Michael Clark said by phone from Didcot, England. “The issue raised by the report is that even though doses from the systems are very low, they feel there is still a need for countries to justify exposures.”

What about the person who boards airplanes almost everyday for work? Apparently we receive a small dose of radiation simply from flying, anyway:

Most of the scanners deliver less radiation than a passenger is likely to receive from cosmic rays while airborne, the report said. Scanned passengers may absorb from 0.1 to 5 microsieverts of radiation compared with 5 microsieverts on a flight from Dublin to Paris and 30 microsieverts between Frankfurt and Bangkok, the report said. A sievert is a unit of measure for radiation.

Of course, more studies are on the way way.

Erroll Southers TSA Nomination Withdrawn: Erroll Southers Drops Out

Erroll Southers, President Obama's choice for Transportation Security Administration (TSA) chief, has withdrawn his nomination for the job

Southers lied to Congress about a security breach he perpetrated years ago. The kicker is: Congress knew he lied. His nomination has met resistance from Republicans, not only for the past indiscretions, and his lack of honesty in the nomination process, but because Senator Jim DeMint rang the bell on Southers' fondness for bringing collective bargaining to the TSA.

Related and Background:
Robert Harding Withdraws as TSA Nominee

Southers Lies to Congress - Congress Knew He Lied

Michael Yon Detained and Handcuffed at Seattle Airport: War Correspondent Michael Yon Arrested

Michael Yon says he was detained and handcuffed at the Seattle-Tacoma Airport by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) because he refused to to answer questions "that had nothing to do with national security." You'll recall the TSA could not find the bomb in the underpants of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. Updates as available.

Michael Yon

Via Goomba News, via Hot Air:

Got arrested at the Seattle airport for refusing to say how much money I make. (The uniformed ones say I was not “arrested”, but they definitely handcuffed me.) Their videos and audios should show that I was polite, but simply refused questions that had nothing to do with national security. Port authority police eventually came — they were professionals — and rescued me from the border bullies.

When they handcuffed me, I said that no country has ever treated me so badly. Not China. Not Vietnam. Not Afghanistan. Definitely not Singapore or India or Nepal or Germany, not Brunei, not Indonesia, or Malaysia, or Kuwait or Qatar or United Arab Emirates. No county has treated me with the disrespect can that can be expected from our border bullies.

This exclusive from BigGovernment:

Yon was returning to the United States from Hong Kong to visit family when TSA officials stopped him during a routine security checkpoint.  “Officials asked me what was in my bag—nothing wrong with this question,” Yon said in an interview with BigGovernment.com.  “I told them it was normal stuff, clothes and toothbrushes.”

At this point the TSA officials escorted Yon to a designated screening area where they examined the contents of his bag.  “Then they asked me how much money I make,” Yon said.  Yon suggested to the TSA officials that the question was inappropriate and unrelated to transportation security.  The award-winning blogger noted another TSA officer approached Yon: “he asked who do I work for.”  ”I did not answer the question which clearly was upsetting to the TSA officers.”

Yon was escorted to a room elsewhere in the airport where he said he remained silent during much of the questioning.   According to Yon, “they handcuffed me for failing to cooperate.  They said I was impeding their ability to do their job.”

There's obviously more to this story, maybe this it:

In January of 2009, Yon’s article “Border Bullies” detailed a Homeland Security officer coercing a friend to give up her e-mail password so that he could read private email correspondences between her and Yon.

Regarding the incident in Seattle, Yon was adamant the TSA agents had overstepped their bounds: “If I am the guy on that passport and I don’t have any contraband in my luggage, it is a matter for the FBI, not the TSA.”

“TSA people are out of control,” he said. “They are not doing their jobs, they are harassing people, creating animosity.  They ask you ‘what time is your connective flight?’ and they bully you until you miss the flight.”

TSA - out-of-control and obviously inept, as supported by the failure to find the bomb in the underpants of Christmas Day bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. What? Maybe Yon doesn't like Seattle's famous coffees?

Erroll Southers Lies to Congress: Congress Knew Southers Lied

President Obama's nominee to head the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) lied to Congress. His confirmation to the office has been moved-up to tomorrow (just kidding - but probably). Not only did he lie, but some in Congress knew he lied before advancing his nomination in November 2009. See video below.

Erroll Southers

Unfortunately, the names of the Senators privvy to the lies, who voted for him anyway, are not in print. TSA is a division of Homeland Security. If Southers' confirmation is successful, he is scheduled to take the position in January 2010:

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 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.

Southers gave a sworn affidavit in October 2009 - and apparently lied.

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.

Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) has opposed Southers' nomination, saying Southers intends to allow TSA workers to unionize, and he points out the danger in doing so:

"Today, the TSA has flexibility to make real-time decisions that allowed it to quickly improve security measures in response to this attempted attack," he said in a statement sent to Sphere by his staff. "Yet, many Americans aren't aware that the president's nominee to lead the TSA appears ready to give union bosses the power to veto or delay future security improvements at our airports."

 An "aviation security consultant Rich Roth says DeMint's concern is not  valid because the White House and the head of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, will make the final decision about unionization.

Democrats intimate had Southers been in place at the TSA, the Christmas Day Underwear Bomber may have been thwarted. DeMint says Obama took 243 days to nominate a candidate for the position:

"President Obama did not make this a priority, waiting 243 days in office before making a nomination, and Harry Reid has been too busy trading earmarks for votes on health care to schedule debate on the nominee."

This report from Bill Wilson at Americans for Limited Government, places blame on Senator Harry Reid and Barack Obama:

“Harry Reid’s own compulsive obsessive behavior in ruthlessly, recklessly pushing through his government health care takeover is what prevented Southers from being confirmed,” Wilson said. “And if any political action opened the door to a terrorist walking unmolested onto a domestic airline, it was Barack Obama’s laissez faire, politically correct attitude towards Islamic radicalism, not Jim DeMint following Senate rules.”

In the video below, you'll hear DeMint explain that collective bargaining (unions) has never been allowed inside the TSA. DeMint says there is a good reason for this and gives the example that when an emergency happens, we can't wait for union bosses to decide whether or not a worker can be moved from one place within an airport to another. Obama will win this one, and of course, TSA workers will be unionized.

Embedded video from CNN Video

Senator Jim DeMint - Erroll Southers (video)