Passport snoops: Nosy workers, or something more?
Clinton, McCain, Obama files rifledBY ZACHARY COILE San Francisco Chronicle
WASHINGTON – Maybe it was just an act of “imprudent curiosity” by low-level employees, as State Department spokesman Sean McCormack dubbed it Friday.
But others saw something more sinister in the breach of privacy that allowed at least four State Department workers to rifle the electronic passport files of all three leading presidential candidates.
The breach is reminiscent of 1992, when a Republican political appointee was demoted for searching the passport file of Democratic candidate Bill Clinton, who was in a battle with then-President George H.W. Bush. The GOP was eager to know if Clinton had tried to renounce his U.S. citizenship to avoid being drafted into service in Vietnam.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called all three candidates to apologize Friday and launched an inquiry by the agency’s inspector general. But Illinois Sen. Barack Obama said he also wants Congress to investigate, “so it’s not simply an internal matter.” Two House committees have begun their own inquiries.
“The circumstances in this case may be different from the George H.W. Bush administration’s snooping into Bill Clinton’s passport records during the 1992 presidential campaign,” said Rep. Howard Berman, D-Los Angeles, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which will conduct an inquiry. “But it is worth noting that that earlier situation also was characterized as isolated and nonpolitical when the news initially emerged.”
Rep. Henry Waxman of Los Angeles – the Democratic bulldog investigator whose House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has been investigating abuses by government contractors – sent a letter to the State Department on Friday demanding details about the private firms whose employees improperly accessed the files.
The two contractors were identified late Friday as The Analysis Corp. of McClean, Va., and Stanley Inc., an Arlington, Va., firm that earlier this week won a five-year, $570 million extension of its contract to perform passport services.
State Department officials said their review showed that Obama’s file was accessed improperly on three occasions.
On Jan. 9, the day after the New Hampshire primary, a Stanley contract employee accessed Obama’s records and was fired within days, officials told The Associated Press. A second worker, employed by The Analysis Corp., looked into Obama’s files on Feb. 21, but was not fired. On March 14, another Stanley employee pried into the Democrat’s files and was terminated.
It was not immediately clear why employees at the two firms were treated differently. But in a statement issued late Friday, The Analysis Corp. said it was honoring the State Department’s request to delay firing its consultant in order to give investigators time to conduct their inquiry.
“This individual’s actions were taken without the knowledge or direction of anyone at TAC and are wholly inconsistent with our professional and ethical standards,” the company said.
In a statement, Stanley said it regretted the “rare occurrence” of private information being improperly accessed.
The Analysis Corp. worker who had pried into Obama’s files also looked into the files of Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, department officials said. The worker has been disciplined and removed from working on passport files.
Asked why the employee is still working for the contractor, McCormack said, “I can assure you that person’s going to be at the top of the list of the inspector general when they talk to people, and we are currently reviewing our (disciplinary) options with respect to that person.”
New York Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton’s files also were accessed last summer during a training session for an employee. The worker, a full-time State Department employee, had been called in to help with the backlog of passport requests.
“Usually in these training circumstances, people are encouraged to enter a family member’s name, just for training purposes,” McCormack said. “This person chose Senator Clinton’s name. It was immediately recognized, they were immediately admonished and it didn’t happen again.”
McCain, who was in Paris on an official trip, called for a full investigation. “The United States of America values everyone’s privacy and corrective action should be taken,” he said.
Obama, in Portland for an event in which he was endorsed by New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, said Congress must conduct its own investigation.
“When you have not just one but a series of attempts to tap into people’s personal records, that’s a problem not just for me but for how our government functions,” Obama said.
Campaign staffers and the media scrambled to find a motive for the breach.
Passport files often contain mundane details – such as date and place of birth, occupation, family status and physical characteristics. They do not show evidence of travel, such as entrance and exit stamps.
But they can contain sensitive documents that are part of the process of granting or denying passport applications – such as copies of birth or baptismal certificates, medical, personal and financial reports or arrest warrants – as well as the person’s Social Security number.
Privacy experts said the breach of the candidates’ Social Security number alone was a serious concern.
“It’s a key problem because the Social Security number provides access to a credit report, to online phone records, to financial data,” said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. “It’s essentially the passport to a person’s private life.”
The employees were caught because of a software system that alerts supervisors when files of a “high-profile person” are searched. The system, which mostly covers politicians and celebrities, was a response to the snooping into Bill Clinton’s passport files in 1992.
But the system clearly has weaknesses. While it can trigger an alert, it can’t stop an employee from accessing a file. And while superiors in passport offices were alerted about the improper access, top State Department officials said they did not learn of the alleged violations until a reporter called Thursday.
Rice, after calling Obama, went before TV cameras to make a public apology.
“I told him that I was sorry, and I told him that I, myself, would be very disturbed if I learned that somebody had looked into my passport file,” she said. “I will stay on top of it and get to the bottom of it.”
Privacy advocates said the breach – which some bloggers already are calling “Passport-gate – is a reminder of the potential dangers of the government storing and sharing vast amounts of the public’s personal information.
David Sobel, senior counsel for the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, noted that the State Department’s software would probably never catch an employee who simply wanted to glance at the private files of his neighbor.
“They have put in place a mechanism for the flagging of access involving prominent people,” Sobel said. “But what about everyone else?”
The Washington Times first reported the incident involving Obama
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The story is interesting and not at all very telling of anything except the average American may and could have their records looked at and no one would know.
First, all 3 records were checked. Response: Well, they looked at McCains to cover their tracks.
Second, why did they look at Hillary's passport? EVERYTHING about the woman, EVERYTHING is known and we know. EVERYTHING. We know every detail about this woman including her social security number if you would like to do a little searching. EVERYTHING. So why look at her record? Response: To cover their tracks.
Third, why look at Barack Obama's passport? The article tells us what COULD BE IN A FILE:
-copies of birth certificates
-baptismal certificates
- medical
- personal and financial reports
- arrest warrants
- Social Security number
We all know about his birth certificate and baptismal records. No surprise and no secret.
Medical - it really is not that private even if we believe our records are private. PLUS dum dums, a much easier way to learn what his medical records are - check Illinois Dept of health or whatever they call it in Illinois. The State medical office will possess records on all patients in the state of Illinois and said information would be available to any interested party. Much easier than violating federal law to find information.
Personal and Financial Records: We already know this. Last year for records, Obama and his wife made over $983,826 and received a refund from the federal government. My tax accountant has a copy of Obama's 1040 on his wall so this is surely not secret information. We will also learn about financial records via a trial ongoing in Illinois and nothing in the passport would have any interesting information anyway.
Arrest Warrants - none. We all know that if 1 existed the media would have found it and Hillary would have plastered it on the Drudge Report.
Social Security - What you are not told in this story or any other is Social Security has its own protections for 'special' people in case their numbers are used. the chance his number is ever discovered and used - same as a meteor hitting the Empire State building.
So what is all the hue and cry for?
Politics. To try again to make Bush look bad.
Note: Waxman's comments. The same guy who goes after baseball players and spends tens of thousands of dollars of tax payer money to investigate a baseball player using steroids. He has suggested it is a pattern of behavior and he must investigate to find the truth ... just like the political agenda behind Clinton's file being searched in 1992.
A few examples taken from 1992:
That was the case with Mr. Clinton's file, although political appointees in the State Department were trying to find a rumored note from the Vietnam era in which Mr. Clinton was purportedly either renouncing his citizenship or requesting information on the procedure. The justification for the search was requests under the Freedom of Information Act.So, members of Congress, Republican most likely, wanted to know whether Clinton had renounced his citizenship. They called up and requested a FOIA search. Because they are the Congress and not Joe Blow, it was pushed to the top and individuals went and did the search.
Would it have been used politically if anything had existed? Yes. Did members of congress ask to see the records, yes. It had nothing to do with rogue individuals in the State Department.
Additionally, they also searched Perot's files ...
Two weeks after they conducted an unusual late-night hunt for the passport files of Bill Clinton and his mother, State Department officials returned to a National Archives depository in suburban Maryland to search and retrieve the passport records of independent presidential candidate Ross Perot, according to a National Archives memo.
The internal memo states that Richard P. McClevey, chief of the State Department's Office of Program Support, and two unnamed department officials visited the National Records Center in Suitland on Oct. 13 "and researched the passport application files for H. Ross Perot."
The memo states that McClevey, a deputy to assistant secretary for consular affairs ...
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