A spokesman for the State Department says two contract employees have been fired and a third disciplined for inappropriately looking at the passport files of Democratic Sen. Barack Obama.Indeed, even if this wasn't politically motivated, why was the inspector general and Sen. Obama not notified of these security breaches before now?
Spokesman Sean McCormack Thursday night confirmed instances of what he called "imprudent curiosity" by the State Department employees.
McCormack said the department itself detected the breaches, which occurred separately on Jan. 9, Feb. 21 and March 14.
A spokesman for Obama's presidential campaign called for a complete investigation. The spokesman, Bill Burton, also demanded to know who looked at the file and why, and why the State Department did not reveal details of the security breach until now.
UPDATE: The Huffington Post has a good update on this.
UPDATE II: All three major candidates' passport files were accessed. Congressman Howard L. Berman, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has said he will investigate the matter.
1 comment:
I'm going to say that a little curiosity is actually the most probable explanation for the behavior of these contractors. However, given the fact that this sort of thing happened before, it's not impossible that there could be more behind it (what exactly were the contractors going to do with what they found? Might that info make it's way to the RNC?) then there certainly should be a fuller investigation. And I imagine that Senior State officials are pretty peeved to find out about this because a reporter came asking about it, and not because their underlings told them about it; either that of their lying (also always a possibility with government officials.)
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