4um: (All) 3 Candidates' Passport Files Breached

Title: (All) 3 Candidates' Passport Files Breached
Source: The Washington Post
URL Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy ... 008/03/21/ST2008032101821.html
Published: Mar 21, 2008
Author: DESMOND BUTLER and ANNE FLAHERTY
Post Date: 2008-03-21 13:57:05 by robin
Keywords: None
Views: 196
Comments: 11

3 Candidates' Passport Files Breached

SLIDESHOW

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice tells reporters that she has apologized to Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., for an incident in which State Department contractors unnecessarily reviewed his passport file, Friday, March 21, 2008, at the State Department in Washington, during a meeting with Brazil's Defense Minister Nelson Jobim. Rice said she would be "disturbed" if her passport file was viewed in such an unauthorized manner. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) (J. Scott Applewhite - AP)

(J. Scott Applewhite - AP)

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the breaches of McCain and Clinton's passport files were not discovered until Friday, after officials were made aware of the privacy violation regarding Obama's records and a separate search was conducted.

McCormack said the individual who accessed Obama's files also reviewed McCain's file earlier this year. This contract employee has been reprimanded, but not fired. The individual no longer has access to passport records, he said.

"We are reviewing our options with respect to that person and his employment status," McCormack said.

In Clinton's case, an individual last summer accessed her file as part of a training session involving another State Department worker. McCormack said the one-time violation was immediately recognized and the person was admonished.

The incidents raise the question of whether the information was accessed for political purposes.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke with Obama and Clinton on Friday and expressed her regrets. She planned to speak with McCain as well. State Department officials headed to Capitol Hill to brief the staffs of all three candidates.

"The secretary has made it clear . . . to them that this is top priority," McCormack said. "There's nothing else that's more important than make sure go through and do this investigation."

The State Department said the Justice Department would be monitoring the probe in case it needs to get involved. The Justice Department declined to comment on its role.

McCormack declined to name the companies that employed the contractors, despite demands by a senior House Democrat that such information is in the public interest.

"At this point, we just started an investigation," he said. "We want to err on the side of caution."

Sen. McCain, who was in Paris on Friday, said any breach of passport privacy deserves an apology and a full investigation.

"The United States of America values everyone's privacy and corrective action should be taken," McCain said.

It is not clear whether the employees saw anything other than the basic personal data such as name, citizenship, age, Social Security number and place of birth, which is required when a person fills out a passport application.

Aside from the file, the information could allow critics to dig deeper into the candidates' private lives. While the file includes date and place of birth, address at time of application and the countries the person has traveled to, the most important detail would be their Social Security number, which can be used to pull credit reports and other personal information.

The violations were detected because electronic files of high-profile people are flagged.

So much for the cries of "They're out to get Obama!" coming even from people on this board.

America is not at war. The military is at war. America is at the mall and the Congress is out to lunch.

The State Department confirms a security breach that enabled staffers to view the passport files of 2008 presidential contenders Sens. Barack Obama, D-Ill., Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and John McCain, R-Ariz. (ABC News Photo Illustration)

I can hear them now, "Take files from all 3 of 'em, that way they'll never know who done it!"

'Individuals should not take responsibility for their own defense. That’s what the police are for. ... If I oppose individuals defending themselves, I have to support police defending them. I have to support a police state.”' Alan Dershowitz

A guy tied a ribbon on a tree to mark where the leprechaun's gold was, and then left to get a shovel to dig it up, and when the guy came back, all the trees had ribbons on them.

with the guy who hung all those ribbons telling everyone what happened (in hushed tones)

If I had my way, anytime someone runs for public office, everything about them should become public record. Passport files, tax records, bank statements, credit card purchases, attorney files, medical records...EVERYTHING! They should even be tagged with a GPS transponder. You want the power, the price should be any bit of privacy you have. It will make them harder to blackmail and give them an incentive not to hold onto the job like the Pope.

"I'd like to live just long enough to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come with too high a price." Vir Cotto, Babylon 5

Hillary still hasn't made public her tax returns. There must be something she is hoping no one will notice.

Of course she's hiding something. They all are. None of them would have been allowed to get as far as they have it they weren't totally compromised.