State dinner crashers met Obama

2009-11-28T00:00:00.001-08:00

A reality TV hopeful and her husband who crashed a presidential dinner met President Barack Obama in the receiving line, the White House said Friday, as a "deeply concerned and embarrassed" Secret Service acknowledged its officers failed to check whether the couple was on the guest list.

The White House released a photo showing Michaele and Tareq Salahi in the receiving line in the Blue Room with Obama and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, in whose honor the dinner was held. Obama and Michaele Salahi, a candidate for Bravo's "The Real Housewives of D.C.," are smiling as she grasps his right hand with both of hers and her husband looks on. Singh is standing to the Obama's left.

The Secret Service earlier this week had said the president was not in danger because the Virginia couple — like others at the dinner — had gone through magnetometers. But in light of their close proximity to the president, no such claim was made Friday.

The Salahis were not on the guest list and should have been prohibited from entering last Tuesday's dinner on the White House South Lawn for the prime minister of India, said Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan.

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On Friday, Sullivan was apologetic in a written statement, saying the agency that protects the president is "deeply concerned and embarrassed" that procedures were not followed.

"As our investigation continues, appropriate measures have been taken to ensure this is not repeated," Sullivan said.

Secret Service spokesman Jim Mackin said officers at the checkpoint had a clipboard with names of the invited guests. Even though the Salahis names weren't on it, they were allowed to proceed. The officers should have called either someone on the White House staff or Secret Service personnel before allowing them past the checkpoint, Mackin said.

Earlier, Mackin said the Secret Service may pursue a criminal investigation of the Salahis.

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Sullivan said, "The preliminary findings of our internal investigation have determined established protocols were not followed at an initial checkpoint, verifying that two individuals were on the guest list.

"Although these individuals went through magnetometers and other levels of screening, they should have been prohibited from entering the event entirely. That failing is ours," he said.

Sullivan said it wasn't good enough that his agency screened more than 1.2 million visitors last year to the White House complex and protected more than 10,000 sites for the president, vice president and others.

"Even with these successes, we need to be right 100 percent of the time," he said. "While we have protocols in place to address these situations, we must ensure that they are followed each and every time."

It is unclear what the couple told officers at the checkpoint that allowed them to go through the security screening. Federal law makes it a crime to knowingly and willfully falsify statements on matters within the federal government's jurisdiction.

"As this moves closer to a criminal investigation there's less that we can say," Mackin said. "I don't want to jeopardize what could be a criminal investigation. We're not leaving any option off the table at this point."

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Twelve Scams of Christmas

2009-11-24T23:42:00.001-08:00

We're about to enter the holiday shopping season headlong, and while vigilance is always important when you're shopping online, scams and such always seem to get worse during the colder months of the year.

As a helpful reminder, our friends at McAfee put together this handy guide to the 12 most common online scams to which the unsuspecting fall prey to at this time of year. Their list follows, with some commentary...

Scam I: Charity Phishing Scams - Be Careful Who You Give To

Many an email purports to come from a legit charity but actually links to a fake web site designed to steal donations, credit card information, and the identities of donors.

Scam II: Fake Invoices from Delivery Services to Steal Your Money

During the holidays, cybercriminals often send fake invoices and delivery notifications appearing to be from Federal Express or UPS. Again, your information is stolen or malware is automatically installed on their computer when the "invoice" is opened.

Scam III: Social Networking - A Cybercriminal "Wants to be Your Friend"

Cybercriminals take advantage of this social time of the year by sending authentic-looking "New Friend Request" e-mails from social networking sites. These links actually install malware on your PC, often stealing your social network password along the way.

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Scam IV: The Dangers of Holiday E-Cards

Many e-cards forwarded around during the holidays harbor all manner of malware.

Scam V: "Luxury" Holiday Jewelry Comes at a High Price

Sorry, that Gucci bag on deep discount isn't real. Order it and you receive nothing.

Scam VI: Practice Safe Holiday Shopping - Online Identity Theft on the Rise

It might be overkill, but McAfee tells users never to shop online from a public computer or on an open Wi-Fi network because you never know who's snooping.

Scam VII: Christmas Carol Lyrics Can Be Dangerous - Risky Holiday Searches

Can you believe that websites with lyrics for Christmas carols, as well as wallpaper and ringtones, can be festooned with malware?

Scam VIII: Out of Work - Job-Related E-mail Scams

With unemployment at record highs, expect work-at-home scams to be more common than ever right about now, along with the promise of jobs that simply don't exist... but which will happily take a "setup" fee to give you more information about them.

Scam IX: Outbidding for Crime - Auction Site Fraud

More deals too good to be true; auctions are always risky propositions.

Scam X: Password Stealing Scams

Once a crook hacks a single user account using off-the-shelf software, it's usually a simple matter to break down other accounts either because they have the same password or are linked to provide a new password via a recovery system.

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Scam XI: E-Mail Banking Scams

Standard phishing attacks often in the guise of a warning that you'll be locked out of the account if you don't comply with some bogus instructions.

Scam XII: Your Files for Ransom - Ransomware Scams

A new scareware tactic encrypts your files and holds them ransom until you pay up to have them decrypted.

Protect yourself by keeping security software up to date and using common sense: Don't open attachments promising holiday cheer, even those sent by friends (they may have been infected without even knowing it), and don't click on or shop from strange web links.

Read more at Here .

Xi Yang Yang

State dinner crashers met Obama

Twelve Scams of Christmas