Multiple Access of Sen. Obama's Passport Records

Your Mom

According to late, breaking news, Senator Obama's passport information has been accessed on three separate occasions. Piecing together from the CNN article and the Huffington Post, which itself cites NBC News and the Washington Times, it appears that three different contractors working for the Bureau of Consular Affairs accessed the records and each of the events was electronically (making an assumption there) registered. Two of the contractors were fired and one was reprimanded by the contractor; not-so-coincidentally, two were low-level workers and one was mid-level with no management responsibilities. Supposedly, no word was passed to senior level management at the Department, until Condoleeza Rice received a phone call from a reporter. The chances are fairly good that the reporter got that information because someone talked. Notably, the breech itself is not in itself illegal, but the distribution of information would be.

"The dates of the breaches were January 9, February 21, and March 14 -- last Friday. Those correspond, as TPM's Josh Marshall noted, to the New Hampshire primary, the Democratic debate in Texas, and the day the Reverend Jeremiah Wright story became major political news." (Huffington Post, 11pm)

Several sources have dropped mention of actions tied to George H.W. Bush to access Bill Clinton's passport documents in order to prove a wacky, far-right set of theories held at the time which asserted that Bill had attempted to change his citizenship and was even as KGB spy, because he had traveled behind the "Iron Curtain".

At this point, it is purely conjecture that the records access is politically motivated...but I'll point out again that someone had to talk in order for that reporter to have found out.

Kate Monster

Obama has them shaking in their boots, so they will do anything and everything to tarnish his public image. This is shameful, disgusting, and typical.

rhinocero

It's more likely just curiosity, as the article says. Never attribute anything to malice which could be attributed to stupidity, etc., etc.

Kate Monster

It's more likely just curiosity, as the article says. Never attribute anything to malice which could be attributed to stupidity, etc., etc.

Honestly, in the current political environment, I attribute most actions to malice.

That being said, I am an angry little woman at the moment. (Insert pathetic growling.)

Your Mom

It's more likely just curiosity, as the article says. Never attribute anything to malice which could be attributed to stupidity, etc., etc.

Here is the thing though: someone talked. Regardless of whether the three instances happen to be stupidity, somehow this reporter was informed what happened. Either he or she had someone with hacking skills that hacked into the monitoring system only without alerting other computer security monitors (highly unlikely) or someone directly involved with these incidences talked.

The contract company (or companies) has/have a vested interest in keeping their respective noses clean, so any move on their part to tell the media would just be plan stupid, not to mention grounds for dismissal from their high-paying contractor job. The contractor would somehow inform all employees within their access range why a particular employee might be dismissed because repeat occurrences would make that contract company look very bad around contract renewal time. Unless these are three different contractor companies at three different Bureau of Consular Affairs facilities (such as Dept of State Passport Offices, which happen to be in many different cities across the US) and the lower to mid-level civilian workers were made aware of and squashed the problem directly at each of the sites, this doesn't make sense.

The individuals who were fired would presumably not have talked if they wanted to maintain their security clearances if they had not lost it already (those are difficult and costly to obtain), not themselves appear stupid, and not potentially go to jail or be heavily fined for distributing information. Likewise, the individual who was only reprimanded would not do so for the same reasons. The lower to mid-level civilian employees have the same non-disclosure responsibilities and consequences that the contractors in addition to the management responsibilities. Anyone who would physically be working in those sites should have been made directly aware of those responsibilities on several occasions, including during hiring process, so it would not be possible for anyone to feign ignorance.

Even if the three instances can be attributed to stupidity, from a sensible standpoint no one would have enough motivation to talk without political gain when you could potentially be fined up to tens to hundreds of thousands or spend jail time for violating the non-disclosure agreements.

HungryJoe

I really would like to see something come of this, but so far it looks like it'll eventually just be blamed on some lower-level contract worker types and kind of brushed aside and forgotten.

I really hope I'm wrong. I really hope someone in the administration gets his/her hide nailed to the shed, but I don't think it's gonna happen.

Let me finish by saying that what those people did was Obama-nable.

Your Mom

In an interesting new development, the State Department reveals that all three candidates have had their information accessed. Hillary Clinton's passport was accessed in 2007. McCain's files were accessed in 2008 by one of the same employees who reviewed Obama's passport.