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They really do ..

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Chief of firm involved in breach is Obama adviser

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WASHINGTON (CNN) — The CEO of a company whose employee is accused of improperly looking at the passport files of presidential candidates is a consultant to the Barack Obama campaign, a source said Saturday.

John O. Brennan, president and CEO of the Analysis Corp., advises the Illinois Democrat on foreign policy and intelligence issues, the source said.

Brennan briefed the media on behalf of the campaign this month.

The executive is a former senior CIA official and former interim director of the National Counterterrorism Center.

He contributed $2,300 to the Obama campaign in January.

When asked about the contribution, a State Department official told CNN’s Zain Verjee, “We ethically awarded contracts. Political affiliation is not one of the factors that we check.”

On Friday, the department revealed that Obama’s passport file was improperly accessed three times this year, and the security of passport files of the two other major presidential candidates — Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican John McCain — had also been breached.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/03/22/passport.files/index.html

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Dec 30 2009, 5:59 pm by Marc Ambinder
White House Grants Ethics Waiver To John Brennan

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President Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser, John O. Brennan, will lead the White House review of intelligence community information practices and aviation security, even though he was CEO of the private company the government used to help manage a key terrorism database before he joined the administration.

In response to questions about Brennan’s potential conflict of interest, White House ethics counsel Norm Eisen has issued a waiver for Brennan, official said.

Before he served as CEO of The Analysis Corporation, or TAC, Brennan was the interim director of the first incarnation of the National Counterterrorism Center.

In that position, he oversaw the government’s first post 9-11 attempts at community-wide data sharing. Before joining the administration, Brennan spent 35 years in the intelligence community, mostly at the CIA, and served in senior management.

http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/12/white_house_grants_ethics_waiver_to_john_brennan.php

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Lest we forget, there’s at least one murder (unsolved) connected to Brennan’s pursuits by his employee’s passport peeking: Lt. Quarles Harris Jr

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Key witness in passport fraud case fatally shot

Lt. Quarles Harris Jr., 24,

***who had been cooperating with a federal investigators,

was found late Thursday night slumped dead inside a car, in front of the Judah House Praise Baptist Church in Northeast, said Cmdr. Michael Anzallo, head of the department’s Criminal Investigations Division.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/apr/19/key-witness-in-passport-fraud-case-fatally-shot/

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/us/politics/08council.html

Obama Is Reported Set to Revise Counterterrorism Efforts
New York Times, The (NY) - Thursday, January 8, 2009
Author: PETER BAKER

Abstract: Pres-elect Obama reportedly is preparing to scrap Bush administration’s approach to overseeing domestic security and name former CIA official John O Brennan to coordinate counterterrorism; plan would eliminate independent homeland security adviser’s office and assign those duties to National Security Council;

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/08/AR2009010804108.html

Obama Taps CIA Veteran As Adviser On Terror - Brennan Has Drawn Fire on Interrogations
Washington Post, The (DC) - Friday, January 9, 2009
Author: R. Jeffrey Smith, Washington Post Staff Writer
Barack Obama has picked John O. Brennan as his top adviser on counterterrorism, a role that will give the CIA veteran a powerful voice on the government’s use of security contractors and on other sensitive issues in which he recently has played a private-sector role.

By appointing Brennan to a senior White House position not subject to Senate approval, Obama is also making him an influential adviser on the Middle East and on Iran, a topic on which Brennan has called for a sharp break with past U.S. policy.

The president-elect’s decision comes only six weeks after Brennan was forced to pull out of contention for the directorship of the CIA because of fears that his statements supporting some controversial interrogation techniques would have complicated his confirmation.

The firm Brennan heads, the Analysis Corp., and its corporate parent have earned millions of dollars over the past decade assisting several federal agencies and private firms on counterterrorism. Those oil and telecommunications firms have worked in countries beset by violence, including Mozambique, Liberia, Colombia and Pakistan — all of which have been topics of intense policy debate in Washington.

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/08/roundup080709.html

National Security
Sustainable Security 101

The Center continued its work on “sustainable security” by publishing an introduction to the subject after Senior Counterterrorism Advisor John O. Brennan said that the United States must redefine its strategy to include all facets of national power.

CAP’s CEO and President John D. Podesta accompanied former President Bill Clinton to North Korea on a mission to secure the freedom of journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee. And Colin Thomas-Jensen offered an analysis on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to the Democratic Republic of Congo in an Ask the Expert video.