This Washington Post article revealed that Lieutenant Q. Harris Jr., who was a key witness in a federal probe after he told federal authorities that a U.S. Department of State employee had improperly accessed passport information for presidential candidates Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain, which resulted in a series of firings that reached into the agency's top ranks, was fatally shot-You Decide:

Key witness in passport fraud case fatally shot: Posted on The Washington times-Dated Saturday, April 19, 2008:

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

These are pertinent excerpts from this article:

“A key witness in a federal probe into passport information stolen from the State Department was fatally shot in front of a District church, the Metropolitan Police Department said yesterday.

Lt. Quarles Harris Jr., 24, who had been cooperating with 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.

Cmdr. Anzallo said a police officer was patrolling the neighborhood when gunshots were heard, then Lt. Harris was found dead inside the vehicle, which investigators would describe only as a blue car.

Emergency medics pronounced him dead at the scene.

City police said they do not know whether his death was a direct result of his cooperation with federal investigators.

“We don’t have any information right now that connects his murder to that case,” Cmdr. Anzallo said.

Police say a “shot spotter” device helped an officer locate Lt. Harris.

A State Department spokeswoman yesterday declined to comment, saying the investigation into the passport fraud is ongoing.

The Washington Times reported April 5 that contractors for the State Department had improperly accessed passport information for presidential candidates Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain, which resulted in a series of firings that reached into the agency’s top ranks.

One agency employee, who was not identified in documents filed in U.S. District Court, was implicated in a credit-card fraud scheme after Lt. Harris told federal authorities he obtained “passport information from a co-conspirator who works for the U.S. Department of State.”

**This was another Washington Post article that relates to this issue-You Decide:

State Warns Passport Applicants Of Danger of Credit Card Fraud: Posted on The Washington Post- By Glenn Kessler-On Friday, October 31, 2008:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/30/AR2008103004716.html

These are pertinent excerpts from this article:

“The State Department has notified approximately 400 passport applicants in the D.C. area of a breach in its database security that allowed a ring of thieves to obtain confidential information so they could fraudulently use credit cards stolen from the mail, officials said.

The scheme, involving two major government agencies, came to light months ago through a fluke. On March 25, D.C. police officers on a routine patrol stopped a car on the suspicion that its windows were excessively tinted, an apparent violation of city law. Smelling marijuana, the officers searched the car and discovered that the 24-year-old driver was carrying 21 credit cards not in his name and printouts of eight passport applications -- and that four of the names on the passport applications matched the names on four of the credit cards, according to documents filed in U.S. District Court.

Upon his arrest, the driver, Leiutenant Q. Harris Jr., told police that he worked with a co-conspirator who was employed by the State Department and another co-conspirator who worked for the U.S. Postal Service, court documents said. Officers on the scene called American Express about some of the cards in Harris's possession, and were told that they had recently been used and that a fraud alert had been placed on them.

But the investigation was hampered because Harris was fatally shot while getting into his car in Northeast Washington on April 17, just days after appearing in court on fraud charges and shortly after he agreed to cooperate in the probe.

Florence Fultz, the acting managing director of the State Department's Passport Services division, urged applicants whose passport files had been breached to "thoroughly review bank and credit card statements and obtain a copy of your personal credit card history," according to a copy of the letter that was sent out this month. The letter informed recipients that the State Department would provide free credit monitoring for a year and would reimburse out-of-pocket expenses and lost wages resulting from identity theft. The applicant's passport record would be flagged to issue an alert if another application is made, the letter said.

The criminal investigation has not been completed, but the scam is one more black eye for State's passport division. Last year, the department greatly underestimated the number of passport applications it would receive and fell behind in processing them, resulting in ruined vacation plans for many Americans. Then, this year, it was discovered that workers repeatedly snooped without authorization inside the electronic passport records of entertainers, athletes and other high-profile Americans -- including Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

The 192 million passport files maintained by the State Department contain individuals' passport applications, which include Social Security numbers, physical descriptions, and names and places of birth of the applicants' parents -- information that is often requested by credit card companies when they activate cards sent through the mail. The files do not contain records of overseas travel or visa stamps from previous passports.

In July, the State Department's inspector general documented a widespread lack of controls on the personal data of the 127 million Americans who hold passports, finding "a general lack of policies, procedures, guidance and training."

Fultz, in the letter, said: "We are thoroughly examining every aspect of our information security systems and procedures to safeguard against unauthorized access of passport records."

The State Department refused to allow any officials to discuss the case on the record, saying it is still under investigation. But in a written statement provided on the condition of anonymity, a spokesman said the department has "undertaken a number of immediate and long-term measures to significantly improve the protection of personally identifiable information to include mandatory audits, an enhanced monitoring list, improved training and a revamped reporting system. In addition, we have formed a working group to develop long-term systems solutions to improve the security of these records such as a tiered access system to all passport records."

In another statement, the department said that a single State employee was allegedly involved in the fraud and that so far 400 individuals had been identified "whose records may have been accessed by the suspect for illicit purposes." But, the statement added, "to the best of our knowledge, most of these individuals have not experienced identify theft."

Officials declined to say how much money was stolen or how many people were involved in the scheme.”

**This was an article that reported that President-Elect’s Intelligence Advisor Involved In Security Breach-You Decide:

Newsmax: President-Elect’s Intelligence Advisor Involved in Security Breach:Posted The Right Side of Life-By Phil-On January 13, 2009:

http://www.therightsideoflife.com/?p=2746

These are pertinent excerpts from this article:

““Newsmax.com reported yesterday the following:

Obama’s top terrorism and intelligence adviser, John O. Brennan, heads a firm that was cited in March for breaching sensitive files in the State Department’s passport office, according to a State Department Inspector General’s report released this past July.

The security breach, first reported by the Washington Times and later confirmed by State Department spokesman Sean McCormack, involved a contract employee of Brennan’s firm, The Analysis Corp., which has earned millions of dollars providing intelligence-related consulting services to federal agencies and private companies.

During a State Department briefing on March 21, 2008, McCormack confirmed that the contractor had accessed the passport files of presidential candidates Barack Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and John McCain, and that the inspector general had launched an investigation.

Sources who tracked the investigation tell Newsmax that the main target of the breach was the Obama passport file, and that the contractor accessed the file in order to “cauterize” the records of potentially embarrassing information.

“They looked at the McCain and Clinton files as well to create confusion,” one knowledgeable source told Newsmax. “But this was basically an attempt to cauterize the Obama file.”

At the time of the breach, Brennan was working as an unpaid adviser to the Obama campaign. …

The passport files include “personally identifiable information such as the applicant’s name, gender, social security number, date and place of birth, and passport number,” according to the inspector general report.

The files may contain additional information including “original copies of the associated documents,” the report added. Such documents include birth certificates, naturalization certificates, or oaths of allegiance for U.S.-born persons who adopted the citizenship of a foreign country as minors.

The Obama campaign acknowledged at its “Fight the Smears” Web site [my links here and here] that Obama was a foreign national until the age of 18, by virtue of his father’s British then Kenyan citizenship. …

However, “native citizen” is a colloquialism, not a legal term. It is not the same as “natural-born citizen,” the requirement to be president set out in Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution. …

The State Department chalked up the passport file snooping discovered in March 2008 to “imprudent curiosity” by contract employees hired to help process passport applications.

Asked by reporters during a campaign stop in Portland, Ore., to comment on the breach, Obama said that attempts to “tap into people’s personal records” were “a problem not just for me but for how our government functions.

“I expect a full and thorough investigation. It should be done in conjunction with those congressional committees that have oversight so it’s not simply an internal matter,” he added.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice phoned Obama and personally apologized for the breach. “I told him that I myself would be very disturbed if I learned that somebody had looked into my passport file,” Rice told reporters. She phoned Clinton and McCain and offered similar apologies. …

The State Department Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued a 104-page report on the breach last July. Although it is stamped “Sensitive but Unclassified,” the report was heavily redacted in the version released to the public, with page after page blacked out entirely.

The problems posed by the breach were so serious that the inspector general recommended that the State Department conduct “vulnerability and risk assessments of all passport systems” to identify security weaknesses and suggest “a timetable for implementing corrective actions.”

Acting Assistant secretary for administration William H. Moser sent a six-page reply concurring with the recommendation, all but one paragraph of which was blacked out because of the sensitivity of the information it contained.

Had Brennan been appointed CIA director, as rumored in the Obama campaign shortly after the election, senators also would have questioned him about an article he wrote in an obscure foreign policy magazine over the summer.

The article, entitled “The Conundrum of Iran: Strengthening Moderates without Acquiescing to Belligerence,” appeared in the July issue of “The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.”

Among other recommendations, it argued that the next U.S. administration should grant political legitimacy to the terrorist organizations Hezbollah and Hamas, and should exercise “strategic patience” with Iran rather than engaging in “bellicose” rhetoric and coercive diplomacy. [emphasis mine]

An interesting site to check out is eyeball-series.org’s research into the National Counterterrorism Center.

Is it possible that there is additional documentation — to include passport information — that points in the direction (especially as emphasized, above) that the President-Elect is not a natural born citizen? Absolutely. However, at this point, we continue to sit in a position of looking at unverified, circumstantial evidence; it’s by no means enough to draw firm conclusions, but it is enough to prove, beyond reasonable doubt, the legitimacy of asking the President-Elect:

Can you prove that you are, in fact, a natural born citizen and subsequently eligible to hold the office of the American presidency?

Update: Jeff has some interesting comments about this, including the following:

From the beginning, this controversy to me has not been about Barack Obama. It’s never been a question of Democrat versus Republican, conservative versus Marxist. It’s been about the Constitution and the guidelines set forth by our founders in Article II, Section 1. It’s been about simple yet unanswered questions as to straightforward and innocuous aspects of the personal history of the man who next week will be the most powerful man in the world. Nothing groundbreaking. Just standard information generally known about high-profile world leaders, especially in this age of technology.

Good on Ken Timmerman and Newsmax for picking up on the story and bringing it out again at such an appropriate time. I had known about the breach–and may have written about it here a few months ago–but did not know that an Obama surrogate was there in the background. I may be a skeptic by nature, and I still may be unsure about the conspiratorial aspects of many of the claims put forth by Philip Berg and Leo Donofrio and Orly Taitz and others, but this just seems a little too convenient, even for me.

I know I saw a Drudge headline on this back in the beginning of 2008; a cursory search of his archives turned up nothing.

·Phil”

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Semper Fi!