NBC BREAKING NEWS: Two Fired Due to Obama Passport File Breach (UPDATED)
A big story is now breaking on MSNBC: Democratic Senator Barack Obama’s passport file was accessed and two State Department contract employees have been fired:
See UPDATES below.
Two contract employees of the State Department were fired and a third person was disciplined for accessing passport records of Sen. Barack Obama “without a need to do so,” State Department officials confirmed to NBC News.
The three people who had access to Obama’s passport records were contract employees of the department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs, NBC News has learned. The unauthorized activity concerning Obama’s passport information occurred in January.
“A monitoring system was tripped when an employee accessed the records of a high-profile individual,” a department official told NBC News. “When the monitoring system is tripped, we immediately seek an explanation for the records access. If the explanation is not satisfactory, the supervisor is notified.”
Newsweek’s Howard Fineman noted on MSNBC that candidate Bill Clinton’s passport file was accessed by the first George Bush administration.
Explaining why the contractors had access to the files, the official said: “The State Department uses cleared contractors to design, build and maintain our systems and cleared contract employees provide support to government employees and several steps of passport processing including data entry, file searches, customer service and quality control.
“Each time an employee logs on, he or she acknowledges the records are protected by the privacy act and that they are only available on a need-to-know basis,” the official added.
We’ll have more details later, but this promises to be a big national story for several reasons due to some questions:
–Who accessed the file?
–Was it done out of mere curiosity or at the behest of someone in the government or for political gain?
–According to the discussion on MSNBC, this actually took place a few months ago. Why did it take so long for Obama’s office to be informed?
None of this has emerged yet — and as of this writing it has NOT been confirmed by Fineman, or NBC’s Andrea Mitchell that this was a political act. Look for lots of specific questions from reporters.
UPDATES:
The Washington Times:
The officials, all contract workers, used their authorized computer network access to look up files within the department’s consular affairs section, which processes and stores passport information, and read Mr. Obama’s passport application and other records, in violation of department privacy rules, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was notified of the security breach yesterday, and responded by saying security measures used to monitor records of high-profile Americans worked properly in detecting the breaches.
Mr. McCormack said the officials did not appear to be seeking information on behalf of any political candidate or party.
“As far as we can tell, in each of the three cases, it was imprudent curiosity,” Mr. McCormack told The Washington Times.
Nonetheless, expect the press to ask a lot of specific questions to Rice and other administrations. Also: this is the kind of story journalists love to report so it will be a story with “legs,” for a while. at least.
One instance of “imprudent curiosity” can inspire an “OK.” Two or three, inspires raised eyebrows.
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15 Responses to “NBC BREAKING NEWS: Two Fired Due to Obama Passport File Breach (UPDATED)”
[...] Its clear to say this: One instance of “imprudent curiosity” can inspire an “OK.” Two or three, inspires raised eye…. I don’t like candidate Obama. I don’t like candidate Clinton either. But a [...]
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We don't know at this point whether his files were accessed for political purposes or not, but if we assume that there was no political purpose, that the files were accessed out of curiosity, there is a delay in letting Obama know that his right to privacy had been breached.
We've all heard that many competent life long government employees have left (or been forced out) of civil service due to Bush's mismanagement of government. This is a perfect example of that incompetence. State Department management should have made their expectations clear- that when there is a breach of privacy, especially of a presidential front runner, then that breach of privacy should be reported up through the chain.
So even if there wasn't a nefarious political purpose behind it, ultimately this shows the Bush administration's incompetence.
That said, let's not blow it out of proportion.
TPM reports that the first happened the day after the NH primary. The second on the day of the Texas debate and the third the day the Wright story broke.
Seems very coincidental. I am not much for conspiracy theories, thinking them rather silly but, who's to say it was not oppo research by the gop or even the Clintons.
It's just too pat and feels fishy.
[...] by three US government officials in recent months, the Bush administration said …www.news.com.auNBC BREAKING NEWS: Two Fired Due to Obama Passport File Breach – The Moderate VoiceNewsweek??s Howard Fineman noted on MSNBC that candidate Bill Clinton??s passport file was accessed [...]
It does seem too coincidental. Especially when the same type of security breach happened with Bill Clinton's passport in the '90's when he was running against Bush Sr. Could be Republican dirty tricks.
Before the Obama supporters start screaming about notification of loss of privacy, they may want to think about the refusal of the social security administration and the internal revenue service refusals to notify normal citizens if employment or tax records are submitted using their social security numbers or identity.
If the Democrats are going to get excited about Senator Obama's loss of privacy, it would be nice and less hypocritical if they demonstrated the same concern for everyone else. However, my guess is that sucking up to ilegal immigrants rates as more important than caring about the privacy of common citizens.
Malevolence or incompetence?
It's hard to say, this being the Bush Administration.
SD- Nice way to change the subject from the politicization of a US agency for use in dirty campaign tricks to the loss of privacy for all US citizens.
George- I'd say the Bush administration is usually both. The intent is usually malevolent, but the maneuver is usually handled incompetently, as with the US atty scandal.
I don't know if Obama's records were accessed by Bush supporters for political purposes or not. At the very least, and regardless of who accessed the records for whatever reason, this shows mismanagement. And certainly government mismanagement is epidemic in this administration. The only reason this got out is that it involved a high profile individual.
Until the full story is known as to who and why the records were accessed, we shouldn't blow this up into a huge political issue- unless the facts support it.
[...] Its clear to say this: One instance of “imprudent curiosity” can inspire an “OK.” Two or three, inspires raised eye…. I don’t like candidate Obama. I don’t like candidate Clinton either. But a violation [...]
Even though they threatened to fire people who had no need to know when they accessed computerized passsport records, what would any organzation do to keep people out. UCLA Medical Center had to fire 13 people to peeked at Britney Spears's medical records.
As more records are put on line, more people will give into temptation and peek at people's records.
Of course, Senator Obama does not believe that government organizations like the Social Security Administration should investigate misuse of social security number or identity theft. Senator Obama does not believe that the IRS should investigate tax returns of people without legitimate identifies. So I feel little compassion that Senator Obama had his own records abused.
“BREAKING NEWS
NBC News and news services
updated 2 minutes ago
WASHINGTON – The passport files of the three major presidential candidates have all been breached, officials said Friday.”