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I moved this back to the top because of the latest update [link at the bottom]. As long as Condi was telephoning Obama to apologize about the snooping, she apparently decided to call everyone who was snooped. Like Hillary Cinton. Like John McCain.
The State Department has fired two contract employees and disciplined a third for accessing Sen. Barack Obama’s passport file…
The employees were each caught because of a computer-monitoring system that is triggered when the passport accounts of a “high-profile person” are accessed, he said. The system was put in place after the State Department was embroiled in a scandal involving the access of the passport records of then-presidential candidate Bill Clinton in 1992.
Though the workers were caught by a computer system that focuses on high-profile people, Casey said that a computer report is generated on every access to passport records and that spot checks are taken to ensure that employees are not violating the Privacy Act.
“This is an outrageous breach of security and privacy, even from an administration that has shown little regard for either over the last eight years,” Obama spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement. “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.”
I didn’t think there were any limits on snooping left in government.
UPDATE: Turns out Hillary’s passport files were snooped!
AND – John McCain’s files, too.
Thanks, K B
“I didn’t think there were any limits on snooping left in government.”
That seems a bit wrong here, the govt sacked the snoops.
While I am sure there is lots of shocking government snooping going on this is going the other way for once.
Gee what a big surprise. I’m sure they did this on thier own, without any orders from above. Just like the Plame leak.
Now that Scooters gone wonder who’ll get the scapegoat hat this time.
We gotta get these Nazis out of office.
NO NO NO.
You don’t see the wider picture. I suppose you believe that they did this unasked and they’ve just been found out (do you also believe in fairies, I ask?)
This is good – bloody good!
These unworthys are starting to eat each other in the competition to be top of the hill. EVERY ‘in control’ group which practices excesses has NEVER stopped at penalising perceived opposition outside their immediate group, they always start to destroy their supporters. They become blind to their own excesses, the game becomes one of keep the excesses going, keep tightening the screw. When you run out of identifiable enemies, the important thing is to keep supply of ‘enemies’ going. So called ‘democracies’ have leaders who continuously re-define what ‘democracy’ is. In the UK we have a ‘Parliamentary Democracy’ (a total invention, how can you have a ‘democracy’ in which the majority do not decide, it’s a direct contradiction of democracy) one which has just tried to gag coroners correctly identifying those responsible for soldier deaths. One which penalises those who have different views? Ain’t possible matey. No. Let these buggers self consume, let them eat their own bodies. Bet you a million that when Obama is elected, and he probably will be, he will be no different. If he is, I’ll eat my own body in retribution. Until then I’ll stick to the old steak egg and chips (I’m a healthy diet fan).
While I abhor that this type of behavior occurs, surely people are aware access to personal data is a “perq” commonly enjoyed in government, business and medical offices. If you don’t know what staff with any kind of access do for amusement, you are naive.
I had a friend that used to work in a bank. You know, you can look up a hell of a lot of information on one of those terminals behind the counter. My friend used to do it frequently.
Just one of those perks.
You don’t think Hillary could be behind this do you? I mean if the Administration wanted that information they could tell the NSA to get it.
I’m cynical enough to agree with #2. The sniffing was probably being leaked; so, you need the appearance of living up to the law – for a change.
There is a glaring hole in this logic. If the government wanted the data, we wouldn’t know about it.
These were contract employees. Probably systems design or something of that nature. They have to have access to work on the system. Do you really thing W needs to outsource to these contract employees to get this data? He can tell the State Department to give him these records. It is in his pervue to access basically all sensitive data held by the State Department.
Someone please insert a picture of a tin foil hat.
#8 Are you sure you’re not Goldie Locks?
No tolerance for anything that is too hot or too cold, too big or too small, too firm or too soft. She wanted everything to be just right.
You know what? It’s not all right.
If this does go higher, then its an indicator that the Republicans think Obama will be going against McCain and need some ammo.
First its “is he black enough?”, then it was “He is Muslim!” and now its whether he was “naturally born”. Don’t they have fact checkers in Hell?
If these are the worst things Clinton and McCain can drum up on Obama then he deserves to be President by default for being the cleanest politician on record.
Voters are fed-up with this kind of politics and if they truely want “change” then send a message to them by not voting for Clinton or McCain. They will get the message real quick.
Whacko Agents for Rash Limpdick, no doubt !!!
#12
That’s a possibility. I wouldn’t be shocked if it was someone from the media (Rush, Coulter) or even someone from Hillary’s camp. They could have paid these contractors to access the data for them.
I was just saying it’s not the government. If the government wanted it, they can get it. They don’t need to go through intermediaries, they have people on staff who do this sort of thing for a living.
I really doubt McCain was behind it. It would be a waste of resources to go after Obama this early. If he had the nomination hands-down, then McCain would be on the forefront of suspects. However, right now the Dems are tearing each other apart so McCain’s smart play is to sit back and enjoy the show. After the nomination is finalized, he can get to the dirty tricks.
However, Occam’s razor urges me to go for the simplest solution. Simplest solution? These contractors were curious, and went after the data. I’ve been tempted in my industry as well.
On the other hand, all this info should be available to the public on line all the time.
The crime here is what the government keeps secret.
This sounds like the Clinton’s with the FBI files. Oh, wait not it doesn’t this was just a trio of flunkys that had access to the computer. Not the POTUS & FLOTUS.
You should have Hillary’s picture there.
Lee Feinstein, the campaign’s national security director, asked a question:
As voters evaluate you as a potential Commander-in-Chief, do you think it’s legitimate for people to be concerned that you have traveled to only one NATO country, on a brief stopover trip in 2005, and have never traveled to Latin America?
Was it a slip and he meant to say AS SENATOR, or does he know?
The article states that they are ‘contract’ employees, and thus probably a couple of students. For the Obama camp to issue that inflammatory statement is outrageous. Yes it was wrong, but a couple of kids don’t represent the current regime.
So, is this going to be CONDI-Gate?
Now, the nutball apologists get to make excuses for spying all over again.
Diversion. Todays news should be Obama discussing his “typical whiter person” comment.
Yeah, right… The day AFTER the story about Obama’s passport file being breached comes out, Bushco, Inc. comes out with a fairy tale that Clinton’s and McCain’s passport files were breached as well.
If you believe what they are telling you, I have a bridge for sale… Cheap!
#20 – what is this? A new excuse?
You’re saying the liars are lying about snooping? Cripes. They were caught – the FBI and DOJ are running simultaneous investigations.
I just wonder who else, what else, may come out.
Watching this on the news, right now – the dirt comes out that both contract and permanent employees were involved. It goes back to 2007.
An interesting sidenote is that – I guess just to cheap out on benefits – the number of contract employees in the passport dept. is 45% larger than the number of permanent employees.
Heck, this should be nothing new to these politicians; they’ve let companies get away with security breaches on consumer identity for years now….
I look at this as payback.
I agree, but your wasting your breath here. This bunch believe Bush is responsible for everything from the Lincoln assassination to sun spots.
Libs, stop for a second and think. If Bush wanted to know where Obama had been, why would he hire some contractors to go into a database that his administration is in charge of monitoring for exactly this, and then after the data was accessed go and tell Obama? It just doesn’t make since, if he wanted to know the information he would have just asked the NSA to get it for him, I am willing to bet they have a dossier on Obama, Bush, McCain, ect..
No this was some contractors who were working in a secured area, and thought to themselves, “Hey lets look up where some famous people have been.” No, they should not have done it, and probably did not know about the monitoring program that caught them, and they are being punished.
What I am hearing from you neo-libs is: “I don’t care if there is not proof of wrong doing by the administration in this, and tons of proof that what they say is the truth, I don’t like them, so they must be guilty.”
#24 – is that the best copout you can come up with? The White House nutballs tell the truth? What rock did you find that under? You’re talking about your cult faith – not reality.
The investigation by DOJ and FBI is just starting – months after the recording of the breaches.
You know, that makes more sense. One thing that’s been bothering me, if your record of travel is in a database, what’s the point of stamping the passports? Now I find out, that in fact this passport file doesn’t have the record of where you’ve travelled, which puts Hillary in the clear too.
And, then, #23 – gq – genuflects in the direction of the White House. All reasonable folks have been discussing yet another breach of privacy in a corrupt administration.
The wussy whiners are so tied to Saint Bush they rush in to defend the patron of holy lying – even when no reports have mentioned him. Just his cronies. And, of course, he takes no responsibility for who he puts in charge.
Your paranoia is laughable. You may now return to self-flagellation.
As more and more government functions get outsourced to private contractors, our own government has less control over their sensitive information than the company that submitted the lowest bid for the contract, assuming the process wasn’t another no-bid affair.
There are two relevant words: Plausible deniability. The tiniest bit of fabri[cation] is good enough for True Believers. That’s all that counts, right?
As for the agents of theft and rookery? They have sound precedent: Any of the Watergate burglars die penniless in a homeless shelter?
Guys, does the passport file contain information about where you travelled? If the answer is no, then who has a motive to look into this file? People who don’t know that there is no such info there!