Stupid Is As Stupid Does
Jul 30
All the so-called “questions” about Barack Obama’s place of birth seem to have been too much for two Atlanta area police officers. Two DeKalb County officers have been placed on paid administrative leave after an investigation revealed they ran a background check on President Barack Obama.
“Officials said Obama’s name was typed into a computer inside a DeKalb County police car on July 20 and ran through the National Crime Information Center. The secret service was immediately notified and contacted the DeKalb County Police Department.”
I’m not exactly sure what the two police officers were thinking when they decided to query the President’s name against the National Crime Information Center’s database. How they didn’t immediately lose their jobs is beyond me, but it just goes to show how obsessed some people are with trying to discredit the President. Either that, or these two guys just happened to be dumber than a bag of hammers.
UPDATE: A similar incident has occurred in Philadelphia. A police officer there has also run an unauthorized background check on the President and is now being investigated by the department.
Jim
July 30th, 2009 at 10:48 pm
did something turn up? any speeding tickets?
Coward
July 31st, 2009 at 5:05 am
It wouldn’t be too far out of line with some of Obama’s government transparency proposals to have elected official’s (or even candidates’) criminal records published and even freely available online.
I don’t think Obama has anything to hide in that area, but in general I’m not sure I see what the big deal is. It’s a problem if a police officer looks up his daughter’s new boy friend or the star of a new movie without just cause, but I’m not sure elected officials should have the same privacy. They are asking for the public’s trust.
The officers were abusing the system in a prohibited way, and ought to be penalized, but I think the fact that it was Obama that they looked up makes it a lesser offense, not a greater one.
Ged
July 31st, 2009 at 9:00 am
I’m curious why anyone would just assume that Obama has a “record”. I believe the majority of Americans do not. They’ve never been arrested, done drugs, or even gotten speeding tickets. Why would Obama be any different?
Michael Critz
July 31st, 2009 at 2:08 pm
It’s not like Obama was caught with a DUI in 1976 or anything criminal like that…
Greg Maletic
August 5th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
It’s impossible to say, but I don’t think this is necessarily sinister. If I had access to that database and a few hours to kill, I’d probably type in the name of every celebrity I could think of.