Rose Cottage Ltd

When I leave the house in the morning I lock my door. When I leave my car in the parking lot I lock the door. I don’t get paid to do these things – they are just common sense precautions to take if I don’t want my house burgled or my car stolen.

When I read of new scams people are using to rob others I pay attention. I lock my car while I pump gas because I heard about jerks who would steal from cars on one side while the oblivious gas-pumper was say, talking on their phone and paying NO attention to what was going on around them. I pay great attention while in public. One of the most discouraging lessons we learn as we get older and as the world gets more hazardous is that you often need to expect the worst from others. How sad.

It seems the US Government has not made it though this learning process as most of us have – and the government is actually paid and paid well to protect US citizens and our national security. Our southern border is not a border. It’s more like a flat escalator that just shuffles illegal aliens back and forth across the border whenever they feel like doing it. Obama and Kerry have spent millions of tax dollars on this Iran business – which I can’t call a “deal” because it’s only a “deal” for Iran.

And news of the hack attack against the OPM (Office of Personnel Management,) just gets worse and worse. The HR branch of the US Civil Service is now a wide-open book. Have you filled out an application for a security clearance lately? No? Good for you – because otherwise a LOT of your personal info has been hacked.

Here’s a link to a .pdf of the OPM Standard Form (SF) 86. Have a look at how much info you have to provide to get a government security clearance – it is around 100 pages of your personal data – and that of some of your friends, and your relatives. So if they’ve jumped from 4 million to 20 million people allegedly hacked – that doesn’t include the relatives, friends and neighbors who also have THEIR information on YOUR security clearance paperwork.

++ EXCLUSIVE: Entire US national security system possibly compromised by year-long cyber-assault

The threat could include intruders already in the government whose security credentials were stealthily enhanced during the OPM intrusion, which may have lasted a year before it was detected last April.

“There may be people walking around with higher levels of clearance than they should have,” said one of the experts. “I believe the entire national security apparatus is now at risk. It’s mind-boggling.”

So while I and/or many of my fellow citizens may have dutifully filled out the SF86 and may have been waiting months to get the valuable security clearance for a Federal position, hackers have quite possibly granted or upgraded security clearances for some of those already in the system. This is even more frightening since, under this administration, so many from countries NOT allies of the US magically get to the US and quickly get into high-paying and high-clearance jobs in Washington.

“They are saying ‘The horse has left the barn, let’s lock the door,’ ” declared Theresa Payton, who served as White House Chief Information Officer from 2006 to 2008, and now runs her own cyber-security consulting firm, Fortalice Solutions. “This is an unrecoverable situation. Our most sensitive data is in bad peoples’ hands.”

I think we should have shut the barn door a LONG time ago. We also should have never started a Department of Homeland Security or ICE – since they don’t work either. Why is it the NSA spends more time spying on Americans than in protecting OUR data from foreign hackers? Why is this secretive administration letting out the details of this hack in dribbles here and there? Are they so incompetent that they still have no clue how bad our data and systems have been hacked?

I’m guessing that’s it. This expensive facade of ANY security in this country is just that – a facade. We are spending billions on securing our country and I see not once piece of evidence that ANY of it is working.

There’s another chapter for Obama’s “Legacy.”