The Most Mismanaged Agency Or Department In The United States Government Has Done It Again

By ANN Correspondent Kevin O'Brien

Maybe you've never heard of W. Stephen Thayer III. But prosecutors and criminal defense attorneys in his home state of New Hampshire have. In the topsy-turvy world of inverted ethics that is the TSA, this qualifies him for his position: Deputy Chief of the TSA's Office of National Risk Assessment. In this position, he has run the beleaguered CAPPS II air passenger data mining project. This project has been under fire for, among other things, reckless and irresponsible treatment of passengers' sensitive personal data. Just where you want someone with Thayer's record -- not.

Before we get into the sordid history of personal misconduct and moral turpitude that makes Thayer a natural for the TSA, let's take a look at the pattern of behavior we see with them.

First, there's the crook angle -- we keep hearing about organized gangs of TSA screeners ripping people off, not to mention the singletons.

Then, there's the incompetent/unqualified personnel angle -- exemplified by the continuing hiring of people "proven" in the old, failed system that gave us 9/11 (they hired another airport Fed Security Director with this kind of non-confidence-inspiring record this week), and the dogged insistence that groups of young Arabs traveling on illegal travel documents is no big deal, but granny needs to be proctoscoped because her ticket was bought by a business, or because she rents instead of owns (two actual CAPPS flagging factors).

Finally, there is the denial factor and fear of transparency. In TSA HQ all is rosy. All is fine. In the press area you can find examples of real letters (except for the spelling. And the grammar. And...?) that "just plain people" wrote to praise the TSA. Do they address the theft ring in Ft Lauderdale this month, the four execs sacked in Seattle in May? Nope -- on the TSA website, everybody loves Big Brother.

Thayer is a pluperfect illustration of all three: dishonesty, incompetence, and denial. An ambitious lawyer (what else?), he rose dramatically in political ranks, and, still young, was named a state Supreme Court justice. But he quickly proved that he's one of those people who can't be trusted with the heady power of judges. He tried to use his position on the bench to meddle in his own divorce case, and not to put too fine a point on it, rip off his ex-wife. Regular mortals get thrown in jail for this, but not Thayer; he got off with having to resign from the bench. Still, he's got the dishonesty meter pegged.

The TSA, seldom surpassed in any measure of ineptitude, picked Thayer off the waiver wire; it seems even the local LAW firms wouldn't touch him with a barge pole, and the best he could do is a gig with a political pressure group, thanks to the same connections that got him his short-lived judgeship.

Denial? Well, he worked a deal that was available at his political level, but not to ordinary criminals facing similar charges. As a result he can now say, hey, his record's clean. He said it in so many words: "I committed no criminal act." I don't know about you, but for me, merely having successfully dodged felony charges on a technicality, or through some smoke-filled-backroom deal, is not proof of innocence. It works for the TSA though. As Michael Sniffen and Leslie Miller wrote for the AP:

"[TSA Spokesman Mark] Hatfield said the New Hampshire controversy was reviewed by those who appointed Thayer and posed no bar to his hiring because no charges were filed and no action was taken against him by the state judicial conduct committee or the bar association."

Clinton's been out of office for a while, so perhaps you have gotten out of the habit of parsing mendacious sentences (which the above shows, are a skill not unique to either party). Translated into plain English: "He beat the rap, so he's good to go, by our low standards."

If you're used to dealing with the TSA, you might wonder by now what Hatfield's qualifications for HIS job are, and how he landed his gig. Well, I don't know Hatfield from a hole in the wall, but his full name is Mark O. Hatfield, Jr. Which raises the question: who's "senior"? Turns out Hatfield's pater was the ultimate insider in Washington (the city), a long-serving Senator from Oregon.

Maybe that had absolutely nothing to do with Hatfield's name being the one that a nationwide search turned up. Maybe he got the job entirely on his merits. Maybe he's the exception that proves the rule: the only one in TSA who knows what he's doing.

It's hard to be sure about Hatfield, but any organization that valued integrity, competence and truth-telling would have shown Thayer the door by now (if they hired him at all). At this writing, Thayer remains securely employed as Deputy Chief of the TSA's Office of National Risk Assessment, with access to and decision power over every point of data on you ever collected by government or business.

Draw your own conclusions.

FMI: ANN: CAPPS Cahuna Criminal Conduct Concealed?