Posted on 09/15/2008 12:39:26 PM PDT by SilvieWaldorfMD
An Office of Personnel Management investigator was snooping around my neighborhood today asking questions about one of our neighbors, who apparently is seeking a high-level position with the U.S. Government.
She came to my door, showed her badge and paper work, and I invited her in. After a flurry of questions about my neighbor's personality, jobs, family life, etc., she asked me the following question:
"Is there any reason that you would think or make you believe that this person would not be loyal to the Government of the United States of America?"
And then it dawned on me.... I asked myself the following:
Has Barack Obama been vetted or investigated yet by the OPM, FBI, etc.? Because, when speaking of 'loyalty to the government', I would think that his past associations with Ayers, Klonsky, Wright, et. al. would raise a HUGE RED FLAG in his file. Aren't presidential and V.P. noms supposed to be rigorously investigated?
Only if they’re Republicans.
Bankon it... nothing even one-tenth as rigorous was done to vet Obama.
Good point!
Someone (Obama) is running for President, who would not be able to get a job as an entry-level computer technician at my company — because he would not pass the background check!
Elected positions are not subject to approval by the FBI. Think about how scary a world that would be.
Nobody said he couldn't get elected. Let him get elected (to congress) but keep his ass away from classified material.
As Savage noted last week, based on Obama’s long-term association with known domestic terrorists he would be unlikely to pass the background check to work for the FBI.
Under what controlliong legal authority?
Thread started by me.
Thought I’d pass it along to see what your thoughts are on this matter, if any.
Don’t know.... I’m just posing the question.
By law, the president has a security clearance by virtue of election.
There is no backgrtound check.
To answer your question, no, they are not. They are also given NIE briefings once they are nominated.
It is possible to do that on age, natural-born citizenship and residency only. Any other restrictions would require a constitutional amendment.
It details in depth, his experiences in attempting to get the Clinton White House staff to comply with the law and undergo the required scrutiny for security clearance processing and approval/denial.
Most of them either completely blew him off, or flatly refused.
Neither Bill nor Hillary Clinton ever complied while he was there (they did eventually run him off), and he goes into great detail how, knowing what had at that time become public knowledge about them (Bill's unexplained foreign travel [6 months in Moscow], his flat refusal to release his medical records, persistent reports of heavy drug use while in office in Ark., Whitewater, philandering, her allegded complicity in several S&L failures, etc.), if he had been able to apply the normal standards for processing a clearance request, neither would have qualified for even a Confidential level security clearance.
However, officials elected to the Senate and Executive Office are granted clearance by virtue of their positions, as well as selected members of their staffs.
Sad, but true.
It's scandalous that our elected officials are allowed to bypass the kinds of security checks that we common folk must be subject to. Remember Senator Leahy (aka Senator Depends)? Leahy acknowledged inadvertently leaking a confidential Senate Intelligence Committee report, apologized and resigned from the committee. There are two other reports from the 1980s, which allege that he inadvertently disclosed classified intelligence information in one case and threatened to do so in another.
No, there is no requirements for a security check for being a VP.
However, in the larger realm of discussion is the topic of loyalty.
To be honest, the Oath taken taken by the President is to the Constitution, not the United States of America.
I wouldn’t have it any other way.
The Constitution. is the bible, America could go down the wrong path and I wouldn’t be loyal to it, just the Constitution.
I thought you were going to say, "Well, he does have Obama signs in his front yard."
Hahaha! I'll remember that line for next time!
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