How a Federal Employee with Fake Diplomas Worked at the Department of the Interior for Five Years

National Journal ^ | 7/15/15 | Kaveh Waddell

[markomalley]

A federal employee occupied a high-ranking technology position at the Department of the Interior for several years before an investigation found that he had faked his education, according to a report published by the agency's inspector general in 2013 and obtained by National Journal.

The man, Faisal Ahmed, was the assistant director of the technology division of the Interior Department's Office of Law Enforcement and Security between 2007 and 2013.

The report, which has not been made public, was unexpectedly revealed at a Wednesday committee hearing, during a rocky few months for the government's information technology services. The director of the Office of Personnel Management stepped down last week after her agency revealed that a total of more than 22 million individuals were affected by a pair of data breaches, and other departments and agencies have come under scrutiny for their IT practices.

Faisal's name is redacted in the report, but Wyoming Rep. Cynthia Lummis referred to him by his full name multiple times while discussing the report at a Wednesday subcommittee hearing of the House Oversight Committee. Lummis is chairwoman of the committee's subpanel on the Interior Department.

According to the report, Ahmed obtained false university transcripts through an online service. He claimed to have obtained a bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh and a master's degree from the University of Central Florida, and submitted fake transcripts to his government file.

Lummis said Wednesday she was disturbed by the level of access Ahmed had. "I'm a little concerned—no, well, I'm more than a little concerned that he had access to law enforcement sensitive materials and other secure information, that he had falsified his background, and that now it appears that he is working for another federal agency, the U.S. Census Bureau," she said.

A spokesperson at the bureau said Wednesday that Ahmed was an employee there as recently as April, but that he no longer works there. A spokesperson for the Interior Department's Office of the Inspector General would not comment on the report.

Ahmed worked for the Department of the Interior for more than five years before he was investigated for the false transcripts. He resigned from the Department of the Interior three days after the investigation began in early July 2013, according to the report.

LinkedIn was Ahmed's undoing. In 2013, a representative of the University of Central Florida's alumni association was searching for graduates of the university living in the Washington, D.C. area when she found Ahmed's LinkedIn profile, which claimed he received a master's in technology management there in 1993, the report said.

The alumni representative invited Ahmed to connect with her on LinkedIn. He accepted, but later deleted the connection. Finding this behavior strange, she called up the university registrar, and found that Ahmed never even attended the institution, according to the report. She then reached out to his employer, setting off the investigation.

Ahmed told investigators that the only formal education he ever received was at the Harvard Kennedy School, a program he attended after joining the Department of the Interior. The government paid for him to attend the program.

An internal newsletter from 2011 published in response to a Freedom of Information Act request announced Ahmed completed the Harvard Senior Executive Fellows Program and returned to his job at the Interior Department from on May 15, 2011.

[Baynative]

So now what - is this a chargeable offense along the lines of embezzlement, fraud or out right theft?

[truth_seeker]

When went to work for a major international US based corporation, within a few months THEY had obtained verification of my university completion, directly from the school, based on my signed permission for them to do so.

That being in the mid 70s, I had not expected we had slid so far down the incompetence incline.

But alas, that was a publicly traded corporation, not a government entity. Excuse me for expecting a government to do what corporations have done for dcades.

We are living in an age of incompetence in government, where screw ups are the norm, and excellence is the exception.

—Health Care system computer programs

—VA Hospitals & treatment

—Sanctuary cities

—Add to the list

[boycott]

They shouldn’t not have just been fired but sent to jail for about 6 months. They were paid extra for a degree they didn’t earn. That’s lying and stealing.