Interesting thing I didn’t hear mentioned in the media reports about the DHS
Press Guy busted for soliciting a minor. He was a civil servant – not a political
appointee. He worked for Time Magazine prior to working for the Federal
Government and was fired for downloading porn at work. He is also a Democrat
based on his
voter registration.

Based on my somewhat limited knowledge of how these background checks work, I
don’t think they would have caught this. The reasons for this termination from
AOL-TimeWarner were probably not disclosed for legal liability reasons (although
the Govt could change that by statute if it wants). I’m pretty sure trolling for
a persons UseNet/MySpace/LJ/Chatroom posts isn’t part of a standard background
check. As for the OPM interviews of family, friends and neighbors – even if they
suspected something people aren’t gonna want to toss the pedophile label around
without some form of proof (i.e. a “He touched my daughter” kinda thing).