Okay, here's the initial skinny on the Passport breach that was linked on the Drudge Report. Given that this seems to have been reported by the administration and nobody is yet claiming any kind of cover up, unless there is more than what has been reported, it should be a pretty shallow story to have much legs:
Obama passport files violated; 2 workers at State fired; 1 rebuked
By Bill Gertz
March 20, 2008
Two State Department employees were fired recently and a third disciplined for improperly accessing electronic personal data on Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, Bush administration officials said yesterday.
The officials, all contract workers, used their authorized computer network access to look up files within the department's consular affairs section, which processes and stores passport information, and read Mr. Obama's passport application and other records, in violation of department privacy rules, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was notified of the security breach yesterday, and responded by saying security measures used to monitor records of high-profile Americans worked properly in detecting the breaches.
Mr. McCormack said the officials did not appear to be seeking information on behalf of any political candidate or party.
"As far as we can tell, in each of the three cases, it was imprudent curiosity," Mr. McCormack told The Washington Times.
A similar data breach took place in 1992 when State Department officials looked up data on presidential candidate Bill Clinton, in an attempt to find out information from the late 1960s, amid unfounded political campaign rumors that Mr. Clinton had sought to renounce his citizenship to dodge the draft during the Vietnam War while a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford.
That incident triggered a three-year investigation by a special prosecutor, who found that no laws were violated but officials exercised poor judgment. The 1992 search of Mr. Clinton's passport records was part of an effort to speed up Freedom of Information Act requests.
The Obama campaign denounced the accessing as "an outrageous breach of security and privacy, even from an Administration that has shown little regard for either over the last eight years."
Spokesman Bill Burton said "our government's duty is to protect the private information of the American people, not use it for political purposes. 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."
http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080320/NATION/541139809/1001
