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.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the violations of McCain and Clinton's passport files were not discovered until Friday, after officials were made aware of the unauthorized access of Obama's records and a separate search was conducted.....
This is an incredible story about how this administration is not even protecting our security within its own government. I was listening to the Ed Schultz radio show and a person who identified himself as an IT specialist said that there could be even more problems than just the breaches of security and privacy. Someone could have altered information within each of those passport files. What if someone changed names, dates, and the places visited? Was this breach intentional? Are these temporary contractors American citizens, members or associates of terrorist organizations or members of an extreme political movement? Did someone ask or pay them to access these files? What was done with the information they found?
Now that we know that three presidential candidates had their passport files breached, do we know if these contractors accessed any other private or secure information? Why does Rice's department allow temporary workers to have access to this secure information?
....Meanwhile, Rep. Henry A. Waxman , D-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, demanded that the State Department release the names of the companies through which passport records for the three presidential candidates were breached. “I am writing to request that you provide the Oversight Committee by Monday with the identities of the companies involved in these breaches,” Waxman said in a letter to Rice. “I also believe this information should be made publicly available.” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard L. Berman , D-Calif., said his panel also would investigate the breach..... This all reminds me of the Watergate break-in story that said some low-level burglars had broken into the office of the Democratic National Committee. Is this breach the new break-in for the computer age?