Mon, Jan 04, 2010
Southers Changes Facts On Privacy Breach Story
Erroll Southers, the White House
nominee to head up the TSA, changed the story on his illegal use of
law enforcement records in the 80's one day after confirmation by
the Senate homeland security committee. The new information
and the convenient timing of the revelation adds to the concerns
about Southers' being placed in charge of TSA databases full of
private information.
Southers reported in a sworn affidavit on Oct. 22 that he used
his position at the FBI to access information about his ex-wife and
her boyfriend. He was censured by his superiors at the time
of the incident.
Almost a month after submitting the affidavit, Southers sent a
letter to Senate committee chairman Joe Lieberman and ranking
Republican Susan Collins revising his testimony. The letter
says that Southers illegally downloaded the files himself,
correcting his previous statement that he asked a police department
employee to access the files and simply pass them on to him.
"I am distressed by the inconsistencies between my recollection
and the contemporaneous documents, but I assure you that the
mistake was inadvertent, and that I have at all times taken full
responsibility for what I know to have been a grave error in
judgment," Southers wrote in the letter.
"Southers has never tried to hide this incident and has
expressed that these were errors he made in judgment that he deeply
regretted and an error that he made in an account of events that
happened over 20 years ago," said White House spokesman Nick
Shapiro.
A statement from Leiberman's office supports Southers'
nomination even after the timeline recollection. "Senator
Lieberman is satisfied that the totality of Mr. Southers' career
more than qualifies him for the position to which he was
nominated."
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