State Department

[Carnut]

Rice Facing Criticism for U.N. Job Performance, Low Profile on Key Issues

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations is facing revived criticism of her job performance after she chose to stay in Washington during Monday's emergency meeting over the Israeli raid on an aid flotilla bound for the Gaza Strip.

Susan Rice, who lives in the nation's capital and works most days in New York City, where the U.N. is headquartered, was with her family on Memorial Day when the news broke that the clash between Israeli forces and pro-Palestinian activists had left at least nine dead and dozens more wounded.

In her place, Deputy U.S. Representative Alejandro Wolff successfully pressed the U.N. Security Council to tone down its rebuke of Israel.

A U.N. official said Rice was fully engaged the entire time, "managing the situation and in constant communication." The official said Wolff attended the marathon 12-hour meeting because he was already in New York, and that Rice was the one giving the orders from Washington. She has since traveled to New York.

But one of Rice's foremost critics slammed the U.S. ambassador, calling her absence part of a pattern of passivity.

Richard Grenell, who served as U.S. spokesman at the United Nations under four different ambassadors during George W. Bush's administration, called it "troublesome" that Rice would remain in Washington while the crisis was unfolding.

"It's just unbelievable that Susan Rice didn't go out there," Grenell said. "She had plenty of time to get to New York."

Grenell previously has accused Rice of not spending enough time in New York and not pressing U.S. interests at the United Nations forcefully enough.

"She clearly wants to be the popular ambassador and has demonstrated that she's unwilling to take on the controversial issues," he said.

Rice has tackled some hot-button, top-shelf controversies at the United Nations, working with other influential members to pass sanctions against North Korea last year and to draft a new round of sanctions against Iran this year. The U.N. official described Rice as the leader of those talks, "literally at the table with her counterparts going line through line."

While Rice rarely grants extensive interviews with the media, the official dismissed the notion that her low profile in public spoke to anything about her profile at the United Nations.

"Look at the results rather than the number of television appearances," the official said.

But at the same time, the U.S. delegation has been relatively silent on U.N. developments that would normally entail a certain outrage factor for the United States.

The United States just endorsed a U.N. resolution on nuclear non-proliferation that singled out Israel's nuclear program but not Iran's.

That came after Libya, a country with ties to terror groups, won a seat last month on the U.N. Human Rights Council. Rice at the time criticized the council -- which the Obama administration has joined -- as "flawed," but she would not specifically address Libya's election.

The U.S. was successful in lobbying against Iran's bid for a seat on the same council, but in late April the Islamic Republic won election to the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women. The U.S. delegation did not issue any objection during the acclamation vote.

While an official with the U.S. Mission to the U.N. said at the time that there was "no opportunity" to object to the women's council vote and that the U.S. was powerless to stop Iran because it faced no competition for the seat, Grenell said the U.S. delegation could have drummed up a competitor.

Claudia Rosett, a journalist in residence with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the U.S. delegation is sending the message that "America doesn't mind."

"I think they believe that they can horse-trade their way at the United Nations to a more peaceful world, and they're wrong," Rosett said.

She said she doesn't question whether Rice "puts in the hours" at her job, but said she should have been in New York on Monday. She suggested that the elevation of Rice's job to a Cabinet-level position has put a strain on her time -- essentially requiring her to be both in Washington and New York City for different aspects of the job.

Still, she said, Wolff provided the "voice of reason" at the emergency meeting Monday and that the U.S. delegation was more effective than usual.

U.N. Security Council notes from that meeting show that Wolff was just about the only member not expressing "shock" at Israel's actions. He balanced calls for an investigation with an acknowledgement that Hamas' "interference" in the Gaza Strip has "complicated humanitarian efforts."

Rice, who served as an assistant secretary of state in the Clinton administration, is one of several top-ranking Obama administration members who have put a premium on restoring ties with the international community, and the United Nations as a whole, in the wake of what they say was a hostile approach from the Bush administration.

Rice said last year that "patient diplomacy" would mark U.S. leadership abroad. She appeared from the start to take a warmer approach to her post -- Rice told Vogue in an interview last June that she might have met all 192 permanent representatives in the period of a month.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/06/01/rice-facing-criticism-job-performance-low-profile-key-issues/

[Carnut]

Peruvian Leader Abandons Hillary Clinton at News Conference

Maybe it was something she didn't say.

Peruvian President Alan Garcia Perez walked out on Secretary Hillary Clinton on Monday during a joint news conference in Lima, Peru, creating an awkward moment for the secretary of state.

Garcia made a statement in Spanish, praising Clinton for being "a woman who represents modernity, a woman who has fought a virtuous struggle for women's rights for a very long time."

He then walked out of the room, leaving Clinton alone to wait for the translation of his comments and to make her own remarks to reporters.

"Well, first let me thank the president for his very kind hospitality today," she said without a hint of irony. Later, she apologized for "keeping him so late that he was behind in his schedule." Then Clinton excused herself, saying she had a meeting to attend.

Pedro Bravo, an official in the Peruvian embassy's political department, told FoxNews.com that it's "not rare" for Peruvian leaders to meet the press individually. But he added he didn't know the details of Perez's ditching of Clinton.

Other officials in the Peru Embassy and officials in the U.S. State Department did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

Clinton was in Peru as part of her weeklong trip to Latin America and the Caribbean for the General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS), which bills itself as "the Western Hemisphere's premier multilateral organization."

In his statement, Garcia cited Clinton's work as first lady, advocating for women's rights in Beijing and her unsuccessful bid for health care overhaul.

"So we know that she has a calling to serve women, to serve the poor, to serve the people," he said. "And that is why we are very happy to have her here to show that this is – her presence here shows that our friendship will continue our friendship with Peru and the United States."

Former President Bill Clinton headed to Lima Tuesday to meet with Garcia and receive the keys to the city from the mayor, Luis Castaneda Lossio.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/06/08/peruvian-leader-ditches-hillary-clinton-news-conference/

[Puma]

Well, heck, Bill did it a few times.   

[Carnut]

Report: State Department Unaware of Ability to Limit Passports to Sex Offenders

By Sharon Kehnemui

The State Department did not know until this year that it has the authority -- signed into law by President Bush in December 2008 -- to deny passports to people convicted of crimes relating to the sex tourism industry, according to a Government Accountability Office report released Tuesday.

That same report revealed that 4,500 registered sex offenders, including 30 federal employees, received U.S. passports in fiscal year 2008.

GAO reported that the State Department was informed of its authority in April 2010 after congressional investigators began to study the number of sex offenders who are granted U.S. passports.

The State Department does not have the authority to deny passports to Americans based on their registry in the sex offender database.

However, the GAO report, issued to Senate Finance Committee co-chairmen Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, noted that the State Department can deny passports to people who "crossed an international border to commit an act based on which the individual was subsequently convicted under the federal 'sex tourism' statute, but only during the period the individual is imprisoned or on parole or supervised release."

"I'm shocked that GAO had to inform the State Department that Congress made individuals convicted of sex tourism ineligible for passports back in December 2008," Grassley said in a statement to FoxNews.com. "It's inexcusable that the State Department did nothing to enforce that provision for 14 months.

In its investigation of 30 randomly picked individuals identified as on the Sex Offender Registry and receiving passports, the GAO found several troubling cases. 

"In one case study, the sex offender was issued a passport in his name while in prison, which is allowed under federal law, while another was issued a passport after becoming delinquent in child support, an offense for which State must deny passports. Based on interviews with local police departments, several of our cases showed that sex offenders left the country and moved to Mexico," the report reads.

The State Department lists Mexico as a sex tourism destination.

In its response, the State Department complained to GAO that the report suggests the department was lax in its enforcement. The report "appears to suggest, without any foundation, that the department's issuance of passports to certain Americans facilitated their commission of sex offenses abroad. There are no facts in the report which show that any of the 30 individuals included in the case studies used his passport to travel to a foreign country to commit a sex crime," it wrote.

The conclusions, forwarded by James Millette, chief financial officer at the State Department, stated that the department is interested in studying any proposed legislation to give it additional authority to deny passports to sex offenders, and that it is working with the Department of Justice to track sex tourism convictions and develop a procedure to notify the State Department.

But the department listed several other concerns about the report, including that GAO did not list the number of convictions by the Department of Justice under the relevant sex tourism statute and whether the passport could have been denied based on the conviction.

GAO responded that the law was not enacted during the time frame it studied.

The State Department also took issue with the title of the GAO report, "Passports Issued to Thousands of Registered Sex Offenders," calling it "misleading."

"We are concerned that it conveys more 'shock value' than factual accuracy," reads the response.

"The title also fails to convey that GAO found no evidence that the offenders used their passports to commit sex offenses abroad," the letter reads.

According to GAO, about half of the 4,500 sex offenders who received passports lived in five states -- California, Texas, Florida, New York, and Michigan -- and at least 12 individuals were approved landlords in the Department of Housing and Urban Development's Section 8 housing program during the two years before the study's time frame.

Additionally, 30 of the sex offenders who are federal employees were identified through salary data provided by the Department of the Treasury, the U.S. Postal Service and the Defense Finance and Accounting Service.

"It also is disturbing that the GAO found examples prior to that new law where the State Department issued passports to convicted sex offenders who fled law enforcement, received government housing subsidies and work for the Post Office. This report raises a lot of serious questions about how effectively the government protects us from child predators," Grassley said.

The GAO report noted that the U.S. Postal Service recently announced its intention to start identifying any current Postal Service employees who are required by law to register as sex offenders.

The GAO acknowledged that the number of sex offenders it found receiving passports might have been low, because the data compared passport database records to the National Sex Offender Registry, which could lack or contain invalid Social Security numbers.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/07/15/thousands-sex-offenders-issued-passports-travel-abroad/

[Puma]

Great.  Keep building our confidence in the feds, especially now that they're going to protect us from abuses by big banks and Wall Street as well as insurance companies and health care providers.     Canada, anyone? 

[Carnut]

Sting Shows Holes in Passport Security

by: Steve Centanni

Try applying for a U.S. passport using a counterfeit birth certificate. Give one location as a home address, and another as a permanent residence. Use someone else’s picture and a Social Security number that was issued just last year. Then, for good measure, use the name of someone who’s already dead. What do you think your chances of getting a valid passport would be? If the results of an undercover sting operation by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) are any indication, your chances would be at least 3 in 7. Not bad odds.

As a way to check up on the State Department, the GAO used all these shady practices to apply for seven passports in different places. Three of the passports were issued, two were caught and recovered by the Passport Office after they were mailed out, and two were denied. In a classic understatement, GAO Managing Director Gregory Kutz said of the phony information given, “These were fraud indicators that should have been identified and questioned by State.” One would think.

In response to the GAO report, State Department Spokesman P.J. Crowley said they still have work to do but points out it issues 13 million passports a year and says there will be human error. All of this was aired in public Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Terrorism and Homeland Security Subcommittee chaired by Senator Ben Cardin, D-Md. As Cardin put it in his opening statement, “The integrity and security of the passport issuance process is extremely important because it can have a profound impact on the national security of the United States.”

Republican Senator John Kyl of Arizona put a finer point on the danger by raising the specter of 9/11. “It’s been a long time now but we tend to forget what happened back then and why it was that people could operate freely in this country-- because they had obtained fraudulent documents,” Kyl said.

This sting follows a similar operation two years ago. That time, the GAO was able to obtain four genuine passports using fake information. The State Department says it made some improvements in the wake of that investigation, including more fraud training and better information sharing with law enforcement and the Social Security Administration.

In her Senate testimony today, Brenda Sprague, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Passport Services, said this latest sting wasn’t as bad as it could have been. She acknowledged that “even one passport issued in error is too many,” but went on to maintain that lessons have been learned. “It was exactly the improvements which we put in place after the 2009 GAO operation that allowed us to recognize this operation before the GAO notified us.” The operation was exposed when passport officials used facial recognition technology to discover the same picture had been used on multiple applications. The picture was that of a GAO investigator.

While State says it improved it’s information sharing after the 2009 GAO probe, everyone agrees more needs to be done in that regard. Sprague says, “Our efforts to gain access to information are hampered because Consular Affairs is not considered a law enforcement entity for information sharing purposes. We need this designation.”

Cardin has introduced a bill that would give certain passport officials that new power to access criminal records databases. The bill would also increase the use of biometrics in the passport application process—especially facial recognition programs.

In the meantime, some national security danger may still lurk in the passport application and approval process, according to Kutz, who says, “People attempting to obtain a U.S. passport illegally are often seeking to use the guise of a U.S. citizen to conceal their involvement with more serious crimes, such as terrorism, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, and murder.”

http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/07/29/sting-shows-holes-in-passport-security/