Home Paper Shredder Hurts Toddler
Home Paper shredders have become more and more common,
with sales growing in the double digits yearly, mirroring
the rise in identity theft and fraud. Currently over twenty
million homes have a paper shredder. An unfortunate
consequence of the widespread use of shredding equipment, is
the number of accidents associated with these devices.
One such accident as summarized by the Consumer Product
Safety Commission involved a 23 month old boy, who had his
fingers caught in a shredder.
Although major media outlets have provided but a whisper
on the matter, Sandy Berger stole secret government
documents and shredded them. Berger, a former
presidential national security advisor during the Clinton
years, began to be investigated by the FBI in late 2003 and
had his home and office searched via Federal search warrants
in January of 2004. His crime? He is guilty of
stealing five copies of various briefings the Clinton
administration had on terrorism threats from the National
Archives in 2003. He upon his own admission cut up
three of the documents with scissors (some have reported
that he shredded the papers), and the other two he replaced,
but said that he misfiled them.
For his actions he was given a slap on the wrist in the
form of a $ 10,000 dollar fine and a three year loss of his
security clearance. the question begs to be asked that
if anyone else had stolen, then shred or destroyed
government documents, would they have escaped jail time, and
would they ever be capable of receiving a security
clearance? The major media outlets have blanched from
raising this question, and have given Berger a pass, much as
he was given a get out of jail free card. It is safe to
assume that anyone who had stolen a map of Montana from the
National Archives and then shredded it, would have suffered
worse consequences. His sentence was no doubt
ameliorated due to the fact that the documents he destroyed
were copies of the originals.
Berger will have the opportunity to regain his security
clearance in 2008, just in time for elections.
Scissors sure make for a nice portable paper shredder, but
if you decide to follow in Berger's footsteps, don't count
on receiving such a nice plea deal.
