Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Homeland Security aide suspended after sex sting

Deputy press secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Brian Doyle is shown in a booking photo taken April 4, 2006. (Montgomery County Police Department/Handout/Reuters)

This is off Yahoo News:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The deputy press secretary of the U.S. Department of
Homeland Security was put on leave and his security clearance suspended on Wednesday after being arrested on charges of using the Internet to try to seduce a 14-year-old girl, an official said.

Brian Doyle, 55, was arrested on Tuesday night in a sex- sting operation and accused of obscenely propositioning an undercover agent he thought was a teen-ager.

The Homeland Security department is one of the federal agencies responsible for investigating child pornography and online exploitation of children, through its immigration and customs unit and the Secret Service. Department officials said those agencies were not involved in this case.

Doyle faces 23 charges in Polk County, Florida, related to use of a computer to seduce a child and transmitting harmful materials to a minor. He was being held in a suburban Washington jail pending extradition to Florida.

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said Doyle was taken into custody at his home in Silver Spring, Maryland, while he was online with undercover detectives.

A statement issued by the sheriff's office said Doyle contacted a 14-year-old girl whose profile was posted on the Internet and initiated a sexually explicit conversation. The "girl" was actually an undercover Polk County detective.

It said Doyle gave his office phone number and his government-issued cell phone number. He also was accused of using the Internet to send pornographic movie clips and having explicit sexual conversations in online chats with the supposed girl.

My question here is how is our country becoming safe, when the Department of Homeland Security--which is responsible for investigating child pornography and online exploitation of children--is being staffed by sexual predators who are trying to exploit the same children they are sworn to protect? And what is more, Doyle wasn't even caught by the Homeland Security Department, which is suppose to be protecting our children, but rather by the local Polk County Sheriff's Department in a "sting" operation!

Talk about hypocrisy here.

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