Friday, October 19, 2012

Boy, doesn't this make you feel good about the Department of Energy?


Current and former agents in the DOE’s Office of Special Operations (OSO), which is tasked with protecting the secretary and other senior officials, allege a stunning lapse in security guidelines and procedures intended to deal with a catastrophic situation, according to a recent letter sent to lawmakers and obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
The agents’ letter exposes a dysfunctional security office marred by corruption.
From wasteful spending habits to agents consuming alcohol on the job, the security officers decry a culture of “mismanagement” and cronyism that has led at least 14 “highly qualified and experienced line agents” to quit their posts in protest over the past several years.
For the moment let us skip over why the DOE needs a 'special operations' unit to protect the fat ass of the Energy Secretary 'and other senior officials'(and just how much does having their own specops unit cost us?); for the moment I'd like to focus on one thing in particular:
No clear guidelines have been issued for the legal use of firearms by security agents, the letter states.
There has been a “failure to provide clarification of legal standing, scope of authority, or firearms policy by General Council despite frequent requests,” the whistleblowers claim.
So they've got armed federal agents and there is no training on the legal use of those arms?  That, personal opinion, is one of the more idiotic things I've heard in a while(and in an election year that's saying something).  The potential for being sued is enormous("So, Agent Smith, you did not know that you should not shoot Ms. James because she bumped into the secretary?  How could you NOT know that?  Oh.  So you had NO TRAINING, no official guidelines in the use of a lethal weapon?"  Insert sound of cash register chinging), and-more important- it's unprofessional as hell.

 
Now go read the rest of it.

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