State Department: Someone snooped in Obama's passport file

Who's saying one wasn't? Maybe they saw the breach, and set up a trap/sting to catch whoever was responsible.

I mean, look, none of us knows any of the details yet.

On top of that, this isn't a significant story. His passport application may have been looked at inappropriately right? Why is this worthy of Anderson Cooper hyperventilating as he delivers the breaking story?

 

Sweetheart Condoleezza Rice has apologized to Barack Obama.

 

Does it sadden you that no one bites on your BS anymore?

 

So I guess the Patriot Act that Obama voted for didn't protect him.

 

Anderson Cooper just came out of his operation so he's a little edgy these days.

 

The contractors were just patriotic Americans trying to verify if Hussein Ubama did in fact go to terrorist training ca... er, madrassas as a child. I hope Hannity brings them onto his show

 

Let's all play the honest game:
If I'm a plumber and I go in to snake a Barbie head out the toilet at the Obama home, if left alone, I peek into the Medicine chest. You do too.

"Wow, Michelle uses the sponge!"

 

maybe they need to see if he and wright went to some mooslim country to get help to destroy the good ole usofa

 

When I posted about the IGs. I completely forgot about Cookie...

Edit: I can see why, if it was low-level folks acting on curiosity, you would not release the names. However, that doesn't apply to the company running the contract.

 

Simple: because they thought they could effectively bury it. A leak was about to start, so they made their announcement. The timing is weird though. The administration usually makes these sorts of coughs on late Friday afternoon, the worst for the news cycle.

 

Hum…

Shades of Watergate?

Spying on a political opponent?

 

Well, it's significant to a lot of us. I for one find illegal government activity much more interesting than sifting through millions of hours of preacher tape to find legal but controversial phrases. I'm crazy like that.

 

CNN Is reporting that Hillary's passport info was breached too.

[edit] In 2007 when it looked like she was going to be the nominee.

hum...

 

I'm guessing that there have been many passport files breached. Sean Penn could be next. I'll bet that anybody who has money and a reputation to protect has been breached.

That does not mean that the administration did it.

I'm sure that there will be people who try to pin this on McCain, despite there being no evidence that he was involved.

 

All true, but again, we need more info before the State Dept's story can be accepted. Given what's happened in past campaigns, what happened with the State IG, with the contracting initiatives undertaken by this administration, with the overt politicization of areas of our government that had before remained somewhat immune, this seems the rational approach.

I haven't heard anyone suggesting that. It could be out there I guess.

 

It is the next logical step in the argument. The administration did it naturally flows to allegations against McCain. Same party, blah blah blah.

If McCain actually did something wrong here, then I want to know about it. Such an act would, IMO, disqualify him from the presidency.

All that being said...I do not believe that McCain or his campaign were involved.

I similarly do not believe that the administration undertook this activity. If there is evidence to the contrary that comes to light, then action will need to be taken against those officials who are involved.

 

http://www.sacbee.com/749/story/802819.html

All three presidential candidates had passport files breached

Last Updated 9:22 am PDT Friday, March 21, 2008

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WASHINGTON -- State Department employees inappropriately examined the passport files of Democratic Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republican candidate Sen. John McCain, a security breach that forced Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to apologize to Obama.

Rice said Friday she apologized to Obama for a security breach in which three State Department contractors reviewed his file on three occasions earlier this year. Two of the employees were fired and a third disciplined.

"I told him that I was sorry, and I told him that I myself would be very disturbed," Rice told reporters.

Separately, Clinton issued a statement saying Rice told her that her passport file was breached in 2007.

The State Department said the same contract employee who examined Barack Obama�s file also looked at McCain�s.

The State Department's inspector general is investigating the Obama passport breach, which occurred on three separate occasions -- Jan. 9, Feb. 21 and as recently as last week, on March 14. On Friday, the department announced that the Justice Department would be monitoring the probe in case it needs to get involved.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Friday that the State Department would make results of the investigation available to congressional oversight committees and to Obama's office.

Bill Burton, a spokesman for Obama's presidential campaign, has called the incident "an outrageous breach of security and privacy."

Two of the employees were fired for the security breach and the third was disciplined but is still working, the department said Thursday. It would not release the names of those who were fired and disciplined or the names of the two companies for which they worked.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, asked Rice in a letter on Friday to release the names of the contracting companies involved, contending that such information is in the public interest.

Former Independent Counsel Joseph diGenova said the firings of the two contract employees will make the investigation more difficult because the inspector general can't compel them to talk.

"My guess is if he tries to talk to them now, in all likelihood they will take the Fifth," DiGenova said, referring to the Fifth Amendment's protection against self-incrimination.

DiGenova said he didn't think a basic investigation would take long, perhaps a week to 10 days and that someone should be held responsible.

"Is inconceivable to me that civil servants working in a department which was part of a scandal in 1992 on this very subject would not understand that it was a management necessity to inform superiors.

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 Obama's critics to dig deeper into his private life. While the file includes his date and place of birth, address at time of application and the countries he's traveled to, the most important detail would be his Social Security number, which can be used to pull credit reports and other personal information.

"This is a serious matter that merits a complete investigation, and we demand to know who looked at Senator Obama's passport file, for what purpose and why it took so long for them to reveal this security breach," Burton said on Thursday.

McCormack said the breaches occurred were detected by internal State Department computer checks. The department's top management officer, Undersecretary Patrick Kennedy, said certain records, including those of high-profile people, are "flagged" with a computer tag that tips off supervisors when someone tries to view the records without a proper reason.

The firings and unspecified discipline of the third employee already had occurred when senior State Department officials learned of the breaches. Kennedy called that a failing. Rice only learned about the breaches Thursday.

"I will fully acknowledge this information should have been passed up the line," Kennedy told reporters in a conference call Thursday night. "It was dealt with at the office level."

In answer to a question, Kennedy said the department doesn't look into political affiliation in doing background checks on passport workers. "Now that this has arisen, this becomes a germane question, and that will be something for the appropriate investigation to look into," he said.

The department informed Obama's Senate office of the breach on Thursday. Kennedy said that at the office's request, he will provide a personal briefing for the senator's staff on Friday.

Obama was born in Hawaii and lived in Indonesia for several years as a child before returning to the United States. As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he has traveled to the Middle East; the former Soviet states with Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind.; and Africa, where in 2006 he and his wife, Michelle, publicly took HIV tests in Kenya to encourage people there to do the same.

Obama's father was born in Kenya, and the senator still has relatives there.

The disclosure of inappropriate passport inquiries recalled an incident in 1992, when a Republican political appointee at the State Department was demoted over a search of presidential candidate Bill Clinton's passport records. At the time he was challenging President George H.W. Bush.

 

Interesting.

Now that it's a front page issue, the data will come out, and perhaps that's the real intent of all this. "Where exactly has Obama gone lately?" That sort of thing, if someone is trying to add more fuel to the Obama-as-international-mystery-agent-of-islam-ooO-scary scenario.

I really doubt anyone tries to tie McCain to this, Refman. But I should never hold my hopes for either side too high I guess!

 

I don't think that's the next logical step. I think it is entirely conceivable that some GOP operative attached to the administration or some is behind this, but we don't have the info yet.

I also think McCain's role throughout the campaign will be to tut-tut dirty tricks after they occur, but do little if nothing to prevent them from occurring.

 

It could be very innocent...

Many moons ago while working for the Social Security Administration it was frowned upon, but not uncommon, for employees to look up famous people's records out of sheer curiosity.

Someone once tried to pull up Reagan's SSA earnings record and set off some bell's and whistles in Quantico...

Needless to say, the Homer Garrison Federal building in Lufkin, TX got a call from Washington that day. Good times.