State Department fires 2 for looking at Obama ' s passport file
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1) Two contract employees for the State Department have been fired and a third disciplined for inappropriately looking at the passport file of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, a spokesman said Thursday.
2) Spokesman Sean McCormack said the department itself detected the instances of "imprudent curiosity," which occurred separately on Jan. 9, Feb. 21 and March 14. He would not release the names of those who were fired and disciplined.
3) "We believe this was out of imprudent curiosity, so we are taking steps to reassure ourselves that that is, in fact, the case," McCormack said.
4) Bill Burton, a spokesman for Obama's presidential campaign, called for a complete investigation.
5) "This is an outrageous breach of security and privacy, even from an administration that has shown little regard for either over the last eight years. Our government's duty is to protect the private information of the American people, not use it for political purposes," Burton said.
6) "This is a serious matter that merits a complete investigation, and we demand to know who looked at Senator Obama's passport file, for what purpose, and why it took so long for them to reveal this security breach," he said.
7) McCormack said it was not immediately clear what the contract employees may have seen in the records or what they were looking for. He said he did not know the names of the companies they worked for.
8) The department has informed Obama's Senate office of the breach, and a personal briefing for the senator's staff was scheduled for Friday, McCormack said.


Rice tells Clinton her passport file was breached in 2007
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1) Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has told Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton that her passport file was breached in 2007.
2) In a statement from her Senate office, the Democratic presidential candidate said she had been contacted by Rice. The State Department plans to brief Clinton's staff Friday about the unauthorized breach.
3) The development came just hours after the State Department fired two contract employees and disciplined a third for inappropriately examining the passport file of Clinton's Democratic presidential rival, Sen. Barack Obama.


Passport files for Clinton, Obama, McCain were pried into by State Department workers
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1) State Department workers pried into the supposedly secure passport files of presidential contenders Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain, abashed officials admitted Friday in a revelation that had Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice telephoning the candidates personally to apologize.
2) The snooping incidents raised questions as to a political motivation and why two contractors involved were fired before investigators had a chance to interview them. The State Department's inspector general was probing, with the Justice Department monitoring the effort, but Obama said that was not enough. He urged the involvement of Congress "so it's not simply an internal matter."
3) The digging into supposedly secure government records on politicians recalled a 1992 case in which a Republican political appointee at the State Department was demoted for searching Democrat Bill Clinton's passport records when Clinton was running against President George H.W. Bush.
4) McCain, the Republican nominee-in-waiting, said there should be a full investigation of the new snooping as well as an apology.
5) Democrat Obama said it should include Congress, not just Bush administration investigators.
6) "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 told reporters in Portland, Oregon, where he was campaigning. "I expect a full and thorough investigation. It should be done be in conjunction with those congressional committees that have oversight function so it's not simply an internal matter."
7) Rice was apologetic in public as well as in her private phone calls to the candidates.
8) "None of us wants to have a circumstance in which any American's passport file is looked at in an unauthorized way," she said after speaking with Obama.
9) "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 added. "And therefore, I will stay on top of it and get to the bottom of it."
10) The State Department confirmed Thursday night that Obama's files had been compromised on three occasions: Jan. 9, Feb. 21 and as recently as last week, March 14. By the time senior officials were made aware, two contract employees had been fired and a third disciplined, agency officials said. The fact that the two have been fired could make it more difficult for the State Department to force them to answer questions.
11) The department would not name the company that employed those workers, but The Associated Press learned it was Stanley Inc., a company based in Virginia's Washington suburbs that won this week a five-year, $570-million (euro369.6-million) government contract to support passport services.
12) Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Friday that a separate search conducted after the first revelation showed that workers also had snooped on McCain and Clinton.
13) The individual who had been reprimanded in the Obama incident had also reviewed McCain's records early this year, McCormack said. While the employee has not been fired, that person no longer has access to passport files, he said.
14) "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," McCormack said.
15) In Clinton's case, someone accessed her file last summer as part of a training session involving another State Department worker. McCormack said the violation was immediately recognized and the person was admonished.
16) The department's internal computer system "flags" certain records, including those of high-profile people, to tip off supervisors when someone tries to view the records without an appropriate reason.
17) McCormack said information on the incidents points to workers' "imprudent curiosity" more than to something more sinister.
18) Still, he said, "we are not dismissive of any other possibility, and that's the reason why we have an investigation under way," he said.
19) Likewise, Patrick Kennedy, the top management official at the State Department, briefed the candidates' staffs on Capitol Hill, then said to reporters, "The State Department has very, very rigorous rules about controls and access for privacy material. We review them regularly and we have a large organization with a lot of people in it. Mistakes and errors happen from time to time. ... We caught these and we've got to work and correct that process."
20) Attorney General Michael Mukasey said the case has not yet been referred to the Justice Department for investigation and indicated prosecutors were likely to wait until the State Department's inspector general ends that inquiry. But Mukasey did not rule out the possibility of the Justice Department taking an independent look.
21) "Have they asked us to become involved -- no," Mukasey said. "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."
22) 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."
23) The Washington Times first reported the incident involving Obama.