Election News and Features
Presidential Candidates’ Passport Records Breached
by
findingDulcinea Staff
News that State Department employees accessed Barack Obama’s files led to admissions that Hillary Clinton’s and John McCain’s files have also been breached.
30-Second Summary
Just hours after two State Department employees were fired, and a third disciplined, for improperly accessing Sen. Barack Obama’s passport records, reports surfaced that the passport files of all three major presidential candidates have been breached.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reportedly called Hillary Clinton Friday morning to tell her that her passport file was improperly accessed in 2007.
MSNBC also reports that Republican candidate John McCain had his passport file breached by one of the same individuals who looked at Obama’s records.
The State Department has stated that it is briefing all three candidates’ offices as the cases progress.
"There is no indication that there was any political motivation. It [appears to have been] prurient interest," an unidentified State Department official said Thursday.
But Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton called the incident “an outrageous breach of security and privacy, even from an administration that has shown little regard for either over the last eight years.” Burton has called for a complete investigation.
Bloggers have been posting furiously since the security breach into Obama’s passport files was reported Thursday. Some, like Mark Kleiman at the Reality-Based Community Blog, are suggesting the incidents seem “more consistent with either curiosity or venality.”
Others, like Joe Sudbay on Americablog, write that the incident is typical of the Bush campaign: “We know how much we can trust anyone who works for George Bush. NOT AT ALL.”
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reportedly called Hillary Clinton Friday morning to tell her that her passport file was improperly accessed in 2007.
MSNBC also reports that Republican candidate John McCain had his passport file breached by one of the same individuals who looked at Obama’s records.
The State Department has stated that it is briefing all three candidates’ offices as the cases progress.
"There is no indication that there was any political motivation. It [appears to have been] prurient interest," an unidentified State Department official said Thursday.
But Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton called the incident “an outrageous breach of security and privacy, even from an administration that has shown little regard for either over the last eight years.” Burton has called for a complete investigation.
Bloggers have been posting furiously since the security breach into Obama’s passport files was reported Thursday. Some, like Mark Kleiman at the Reality-Based Community Blog, are suggesting the incidents seem “more consistent with either curiosity or venality.”
Others, like Joe Sudbay on Americablog, write that the incident is typical of the Bush campaign: “We know how much we can trust anyone who works for George Bush. NOT AT ALL.”
Headline Links: Passport security breaches for all major candidates
The news that Clinton and McCain’s passport files had been improperly accessed came just hours after the State Department took action against the three employees who looked at Obama’s records. Now it appears that one of the same unnamed employees also snooped in McCain’s passport records. “The episodes have raised questions as to whether the breaches stemmed from political motivation,” reports MSNBC.
Source: MSNBC
A State Department employee, who asked to remain unnamed, told Reuters that when a prominent person’s passport records are accessed, it triggers an alarm in the department and that person is questioned about the incident. "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,” said Obama spokesman Bill Burton.
Source: Reuters
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack stated that the department had detected separate incidents of “imprudent curiosity” on Jan. 9, Feb. 21, and March 14. He also said he was not sure what the employees could have seen or what they were looking for in the files.
Source: The Wall Street Journal (registration may be required)
Condoleezza Rice addressed reporters about the incident, saying she has apologized to Obama and would be very upset herself if someone took an unauthorized look at her passport files. “None of us wants to have a circumstance in which any American’s passport file is looked at in an unauthorized way and, in this case, it should have been known to senior management, it was not to my knowledge, and we also want to take every step that we can to make sure this kind of thing doesn’t happen again,” she said. The video is available on MSNBC.
Source: MSNBC
Opinion & Analysis: Simple curiosity or political motivation?
Mark Kleiman at the blog The Reality-Based Community said he “wouldn't jump to the conclusion that snooping into Obama's passport records was some sort of Administration plot” because three violations on three different dates seems consistent with pure curiosity. However, it does seem strange that the January incident is just now coming to management’s attention.
Source: The Reality-Based Community blog
Following the initial news of Obama’s files being accessed, Joe Sudbay wrote on Americablog that “this is not good. We know how much we can trust anyone who works for George Bush. NOT AT ALL.”
Source: Americablog
Joe Klein suggested on Swampland, the Time magazine political blog, that there are two theories to the Obama security breach. One is that it was “a witting attempt by an opposing political operative to flesh out the scurrilous Obama as Islamic Manchurian Candidate rumors.” The other is that “it was stupid, but essentially innocent, consular joyriding by low-level idiots, curious about Obama ... which is, for now, the official story.”
Source: Swampland
Related Topics: An ‘epidemic’ of snooping and McConnell’s new Cyber-Security Policy
The Associated Press recently reported on a nationwide “epidemic” of employees snooping into corporate computer databases to obtain personal information, using Milwaukee-based WE Energies as an example. The security problem at WE Energies initially came to light in 2004 during a heated race for Milwaukee mayor. An employee leaked the information that incumbent Mayor Marvin Pratt was often behind on his heating bills. Pratt then lost to current Mayor Tom Barrett. “Pratt said he's convinced the disclosure cost him votes and unfairly damaged his reputation,” reported the AP.
Source: TechNewsWorld
National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell is drafting a Cyber-Security Policy that would undoubtedly reignite the debate over privacy rights in the United States. The plan, which would closely monitor all Internet traffic, would make the current debate over surveillance law, look like “a walk in the park” in comparison, McConnell said in a Jan. 21 story profile in The New Yorker.
Source: The New Yorker
Siobhan Gorman wrote on The Wall Street Journal blog that in order to accomplish McConnell’s plan, “the government must have the ability to read all the information crossing the Internet in the United States in order to protect it from abuse." She also wrote that “congressional aides tell The Journal that they, too, are also anticipating a fight over civil liberties that will rival the battles over the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act."
Source: The Wall Street Journal (registration may be required)
Britney Spears falls victim to a security breach too
Earlier this month, UCLA Medical Center fired at least 13 employees and suspended at least six others for accessing Britney Spear’s medical records while she was being hospitalized in the psychiatric unit. Workers were also disciplined for snooping in the pop star’s records after she gave birth to her first son, Sean Preston, in 2005. "It's not only surprising, it's very frustrating and it's very disappointing," said Jeri Simpson, the Santa Monica hospital's director of human resources.
Source: Los Angeles Times
Reference: Passport records and the Privacy Act of 1974
Computerworld answers the question “What exactly is a passport record?” also providing information on how the records are protected: “All records containing personal information at the State Department are kept in secured file cabinets or in restricted areas to which only authorized personnel have access. All employees and contractors accessing the system must undergo a background check and have valid identification cards.”
Source: Computerworld
Passport records normally consist of the application for United States passports and supporting evidence of United States citizenship, and are protected by the Privacy Act of 1974. Obtaining copies of one’s own passport records requires submitting a notarized request containing a bevy of personal details including the requester’s name, address, place of birth, phone number and reason for applying.
Source: The State Department
The Privacy Act of 1974 “can generally be characterized as an omnibus ‘code of fair information practices’ that attempts to regulate the collection, maintenance, use, and dissemination of personal information by federal executive branch agencies. However, the act's imprecise language, limited legislative history, and somewhat outdated regulatory guidelines have rendered it a difficult statute to decipher and apply,” according to an overview of the Privacy Act provided by the United States Department of Justice in 2004.
Source: United States Department of Justice
© 2012 Dulcinea Media, Inc.
