March 22, 2008
http://seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/2004298835_snoop22.html
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The companies that provided the contractors were The Analysis Corp. and Stanley Inc. Stanley, based in Arlington, Va., this week won a five-year, $570 million government contract extension to support passport services.
The State Department confirmed Thursday night that Obama's files had been compromised as recently as last week, on March 14.
According to agency officials, a Stanley employee improperly accessed Obama's records on Jan. 9 and was fired within days. The second contractor, employed by The Analysis Corp., pried into similar records on Feb. 21 but was not terminated. The third incident involved another Stanley employee, who was swiftly fired.
The firings could make it more difficult for the State Department to force the workers to answer questions. Unless they agree to comply, they would have to be served with a grand-jury subpoena compelling them to testify.
Stanley said it regretted the "rare occurrence" of unauthorized access of any individual's private information. The Analysis Corp., or TAC, issued a statement late Friday saying it had been notified earlier in the day that one of its contractors had acted improperly. The company said it had decided to honor the department's request to delay firing its consultant in order to aid the investigation.
The worker who had been reprimanded in the Obama incident had also reviewed McCain's records earlier this year, said McCormack, the State Department spokesman. While the employee has not been fired, that person no longer has access to passport files, he said.
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Contrary to popular opinion, however, the records do not "maintain evidence of travel, such as entrance/exit stamps, visas or residence permits, since this information is entered into the passport book after it is issued," according to a Jan. 9 notice in the Federal Register.
The records do contain information such as registrations of Americans living abroad, reports of the births abroad of U.S. citizens and certificates of witnesses to marriage. They can also include paperwork accompanying some passport applications, such as birth and baptismal certificates, court orders and arrest warrants.
2 Fired in Passport Case With Va. Firm
April 3, 2008
http://seattletimes.com/html/politics/2004295828_apobamapassport.html
State Department employees snooped through the passport files of three presidential candidates _ Sens. Barack Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain _ and the department's inspector general is investigating.
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The State Department said the Justice Department would be monitoring the probe in case it needs to get involved.
Attorney General Michael Mukasey said the case has not yet been referred to the Justice Department for investigation, and indicated prosecutors likely would wait until the State Department's inspector general concludes its inquiry. But Mukasey did not rule out the possibility of the Justice Department taking an independent look at the passport breach.
"Have they asked us to become involved _ no," Mukasey told reporters during a Friday briefing. "When, as, and if we have a basis for an investigation, including a reference _ that is, one basis would be a reference _ we could conduct one."
Asked what another basis could be, Mukasey said: "I don't want to speculate but if somebody walked in here with a box full of evidence, they wouldn't be turned away."
In Clinton's case, 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.
Obama's records were accessed without permission on three separate occasions _ Jan. 9, Feb. 21 and as recently as last week, on March 14.
McCormack declined to name the companies that employed the contractors, despite demands by a senior House Democrat that such information is in the public interest.
"At this point, we just started an investigation," he said. "We want to err on the side of caution."
McCain, who was in Paris on Friday, said any breach of passport privacy deserves an apology and a full investigation.
"The United States of America values everyone's privacy and corrective action should be taken," he said.
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 critics to dig deeper into the candidates' private lives. While the file includes date and place of birth, address at time of application and the countries the person has traveled to, the most important detail would be their Social Security number, which can be used to pull credit reports and other personal information.
The firings and unspecified discipline of the third employee already had occurred when senior State Department officials learned of the break-ins to the files. Rice learned about it Thursday, after a reporter inquired about Obama's case.
The violations were detected by internal State Department computer checks because 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.