State Dept. investigating passport-data snooping
The passport files of presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and John McCain were breached, the State Department announced Friday, a day after it revealed Senator Barack Obama’s file was also accessed without authorization.
The revelations prompted calls from Congressional leaders who demanded more details and promised their own inquiries.
INCIDENT: 2 fired for peeking at Obama passport file
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A contract employee in a passport office who had accessed Obama’s file, also tapped into McCain's file, said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.
The employee has been disciplined, but remains on the job.
“We are reviewing our options with respect to that individual’s continued employment with the contractor working at the State Department,” McCormack said. “I can tell you that individual no longer has access to that kind of information.”
Two other employees in two other State Department locations were fired for accessing Obama’s file.
They worked for a Virginia-based company called Stanley Inc., according to the Associated Press.
Earlier this week, the 3,500-person firm won a five-year, $570-million contract to support passport services at the State Department.
The company is referring all questions to the State Department. An agency official confirmed that the two contractors had been employed at Stanley. The official requested anonymity because the information had not been publicly released.
McCormack said the employees likely accessed the files out of “imprudent curiousity,” but that the department is investigating.
Clinton's file was breached in 2007 when 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 questions as to whether the information may have been accessed for political purposes.
In 1992, a Republican political appointee at the State Department was demoted over a search of presidential candidate Bill Clinton's passport records.
At the time, Clinton was challenging President George H.W. Bush.
McCormack declined to reveal what information was accessed in the breaches.
“I don't know what is in each of these passport files,” he said. “At a minimum, what is in a passport file is your passport application.”
He acknowledged that “there could be more in the file” but did not elaborate.
McCormack said the breaches of McCain and Clinton's passport files were not discovered until Friday, after officials were made aware of the privacy breach regarding Obama’s records and a separate search was conducted.
The department is ordering an investigation through the State Department's Inspector General’s office.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke with the three presidential candidates on Friday to apologize.
In a press conference answering questions about the Obama incident, Rice said “there will be a full investigation.”
She says she told Obama, “I was sorry and that I myself would be very disturbed if I learned somebody had looked into my passport file and therefore I will stay on top of it.”
Rice said she's “very concerned” about the snooping and that “it should have been known to senior management.”
Obama’s records were accessed without permission on three separate occasions — Jan. 9, Feb. 21 and most recently, March 14.
His campaign called for a thorough investigation.
Clinton's senate office released a statement saying the senator would “closely monitor the State Department's investigation into this and the other breaches of private passport information.”
McCain, who is in France, said in a statement that the federal government has the responsibility to respect the privacy of all Americans.
“It appears that privacy was breached and I expect a thorough review and a change in procedures as necessary to ensure the privacy of all passport files,” he said.
As of this month, there are about 2,600 contract employees working in the passport services division, McCormack said.
He declined to name the contractors who breached the candidates’ files or the names of the companies they work for.
“We're not prepared to release the name of the contractors. There could be a point at which we will,” he says. “We just started an investigation. We want to err on the side of caution.”
Last year, the State Department issued 18 million passports.
A passport file typically contains a person's applications for a U.S. passport, along with supporting evidence of U.S. citizenship, such as the person's date and place of birth, naturalization details, family status, occupation and physical attributes.
The State Department's website also says passport records do not include evidence of travel, such as exit and entrance stamps, visas or residence permits.
There are generally a “handful of cases every single year” of unauthorized access to passport files, McCormack said.
The department is drawing ire from legislators calling for their own investigations and the public release of the names of the contractors and employees.
Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he will conduct an investigation through the committee.
In a letter to Rice on Friday, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., asked the department to provide the House Oversight Committee the identities of the contract companies by Monday. Waxman chairs the committee.
Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, based in Washington, said passport files contain sensitive information that could make victims of privacy breaches vulnerable to financial crimes.
It “includes not only name and address, but date of birth, place of birth, citizenship and Social Security number. It's exactly the type of information that an identity thief would want to be able to impersonate someone else,” he said.
The files also may contain other personal information, particularly if the State Department shares information with other federal agencies, he said.
Rotenberg believes that the files of less famous Americans also are breached, but the breaches are never discovered.
“Those breaches are less likely to be reported,” he said. “They don't trigger the same degree of attention that he disclosure of information of a presidential candidate would trigger.”
David Sobel, senior counsel for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said these kinds of breaches will become more routine as the federal government continues to collect more and more personal data on individuals. He said the contract employees could face legal trouble because accessing someone’s passport file without authorization is a violation of the Privacy Act of 1974.
“This is not a problem unique to Senator Obama,” he said. “We all have very detailed information about travel activities in a variety of federal databases and the information is not adequately protected. I think any citizen runs a similar risk.”
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-03-21-rice-breach_N.htm
Response to Post #6669 Reg. Obama Passport Breach
There were 3 contract employees that assessed Obama’s passport.
Two employees that were fired worked for Stanley Inc.
The other employee worked for Analysis Corporation, whose CEO WORKS FOR THE OBAMA CAMPAIGN. This employee was not fired.
Here is link to article:http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/03/22/passport.files/index.html
EXCERPT: “WASHINGTON (CNN) — The CEO of a company whose employee is accused of improperly looking at the passport files of presidential candidates is a consultant to the Barack Obama campaign, a source said Saturday.
Analysis Corp. President John Brennan, shown here in 2004, advises Barack Obama, a source tells CNN.
John O. Brennan, president and CEO of the Analysis Corp., advises the Illinois Democrat on foreign policy and intelligence issues, the source said.
Brennan briefed the media on behalf of the campaign this month.
The executive is a former senior CIA official and former interim director of the National Counterterrorism Center.
He contributed $2,300 to the Obama campaign in January.”
The story media outlets put out was that these employees were just “curious.”
With the Analysis Corp. CEO working on Obama’s campaign, one needs to ask the question if perhaps the possibility exists that Obama’s passport might have been accessed to CHANGE some info...and the other candidate’s passports were looked at to help with the ruse to hide the real reason his passport file was accessed.