Posted on 11/18/2014 12:08:33 PM PST by maggief
Mark Paffrath worked for the Drury hotel chain in Missouri
Paffrath, a Navy veteran, posted photos of dozens of vehicles marked with the logos of the Department of Homeland Security to his Facebook
Vehicles were located about a 30-minute drive from Ferguson, Missouri
A Navy veteran has been fired and branded a terrorist for posting Facebook pictures of scores of Homeland Security SUVs parked at a hotel near Ferguson where he works.
Mark Paffrath, who worked for the Drury hotel chain, took photos and a video of dozens of vehicles marked with the logos of the Department of Homeland Security and Federal Protection Services which arrived in the parking lot of Chesterfield’s Drury Plaza Hotel last week.
The vehicles are parked about a 30-minute drive from Ferguson, Missouri.
(snip)
Paffrath says he was also told by his superiors that he put the hotel's $150, 000 contract with the Department of Homeland Security in jeopardy.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Don't know. Is there anyone the feds are particularly interested in burning alive?
Federal police? We now have a nationwide federal police force?
...
Not only that, but W made sure every federal agency has its own police force.
They have to show up to make sure the riots heat up properly.
What happened to freedom of speech?
What happened to transparency?
If the taxpayers are paying for this, do they not have the right to know what is being done with their money?
Where are the Republicans on this issue?
Silent 90% of the time it seems
If not, the guy has a beef, and maybe a case. Accusing him of being a terrorist is just weird. It would be interesting to know if DHS or someone in the administration demanded the firing. Since the dismissal came a day later, after he had complied with his employer's request to take down the pictures, I suspect some calls were made. If so, inquiring minds want to know by whom, and what rationale was given.
That said, guest privacy should be respected. Richard Cohen (yes, that Richard Cohen) wrote one of his occasional sensible columns a number of years ago about his career as "Cohen of claims." Apparently he worked his way through college as a claims apparatchik for one of the insurance companies. He recounted the time a guy had a minor automobile accident; nothing serious, but the woman in the car with him was not his wife. Oops. He asked that Cohen falsify the report. Then there was the guy who had a minor fender bender in the company car, the problem being that the accident happened at the track at a time when he was supposed to be at work. Could Cohen doctor the record? Etc. Cohen eventually decided he could not play God, and he had to report honestly and let the chips fall where they may.
The point is, sticky complications can arise in any number of unpredictable, sometimes bizarre, ways. I would not be at all surprised if the hotel had a strict rule against employees making public any information about guests.
Nazis had that too, what was their name Gesta...something.
DHS has zero right to privacy. The amount of ignorance on these forums is astounding.
Patterned after el duce’s blackshirts.
Come to think of it, Home Land Security wears black uniforms.
Trust me, you’ll never find a federal bureaucrat staying in a Motel 6; the government has voluminous tables for lodging and per diem rates at various locations around the country, so employees know how much they’ll get for lodging and meals, without having to dip into their own pocket.
During my civil service days, I worked with a few “masters of the travel universe,” who knew how to bilk every penny out of their travel compensation. One former supervisor got herself assigned to a D.C.-based “working group” that met three days out of every month. She always stayed at the Ritz-Carlton in Tyson’s Corner; flew down on Monday, group “met” Tuesday-Thursday and she returned on Friday. An entire week lost on a three-day meeting of marginal value.
Incidentally, this same woman was also part of a NATO working group, so she was off to Europe three times a year as well. One TDY to Norway cost the taxpayers $6,000 for an eight-day trip. Her group spent three years working on an unclassified threat guide that was absolutely worthless, but she was hardly concerned about the actual “work” produced by the team.
Her deputy preferred a more diverse approach; he would (essentially) sign up for any conference or meeting that would get him out of the office. As the group’s budget POC and set travel expenditures for the fiscal year, ensuring that his travels (and those of his boss) were fully funded. At one point, he was TDY 40 weeks out of a year. Not all of his trips filled the entire week, but his time on the road surpassed his time in the office.
Naturally, no one said a word about this abuse of taxpayer money. Plenty of underlings were trying to curry favor with the “tourists,” for bonuses, promotions, or to fund their own trips.
As for the DHS contract with this particular hotel, it would be interesting to know how recently it was signed, and for what period. By my rough calculations, $150,000 would cover a room for over 1,300 nights. Judging from the number of vehicles in the garage, it looks like DHS has booked most of the hotel for an extended period. I’m wondering if the contract predated the trouble in Ferguson and the hotel hosts DHS agents on a wide range of missions in the St Louis area.
Something very fishy about this and it goes well past anything in Ferguson.
He only had access to the garage because of his employment.
Even if the pictures were taken “off the clock” it was an abuse of employee privilege.
The Navy vet is a terrorist for posting pics of LOTS of DHS vehicles parked in a hotel garage.
Rioting thugs threatening local individuals and businesses with theft and violence are not.
The thugs have 1st Amendment rights, the Navy vet does not.
Got it.
Something very fishy about this and it goes well past anything in Ferguson.
He endangered their $150,000 contract with HS? Why were the employees not made aware that it would be a security issue to publicize the presence of the vehicles?
Who answers when you call the phone number on the bottom of the liftgate?
when your employer colludes with fedgov to do illegal things it’s better to be a patriot and expose it. as far as I can tell he isn’t bitching and whining about it, he is just saying he got fired because of it.
yes. and that they will shut someone down for exposing them.
it’s important to see how they operate. otherwise we have people here and of course MSM who’d just say it’s heresay and we’re just making up conspiracies.
If I could read it, I’d call and find out!
What if a guest in the motel took pictures in the parking area and posted them?
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