Posted on 03/21/2008 8:27:43 AM PDT by indcons
WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Friday apologized to Sen. Barack Obama for a security breach in which three State Department contractors inappropriately reviewed the Democratic presidential candidate's passport file.
The episode raised questions as to whether the actions of the three contractors, two of whom have been fired, were politically motivated.
"I told him that I was sorry, and I told him that I myself would be very disturbed," Rice told reporters.
"None of us wants to have a circumstance where any American's passport files are looked at in an unauthorized way," she said.
Rice, who spoke with Obama by phone, said she was particularly disappointed that senior officials at the State Department were not immediately notified.
"It was not to my knowledge, and we also want to take every step to make sure that this kind of thing doesn't happen again," she said.
The State Department's inspector general is investigating the passport breach, which occurred on three separate occasions — Jan. 9, Feb. 21 and as recently as last week, on March 14. On Friday, the department announced that the Justice Department would be monitoring the probe in case it needs to get involved.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Friday that the State Department would make results of the investigation available to congressional oversight committees and to Obama's office.
Bill Burton, a spokesman for Obama's presidential campaign, has called the incident "an outrageous breach of security and privacy."
Two of the employees were fired for the security breach and the third was disciplined but is still working, the department said Thursday. It would not release the names of those who were fired and disciplined or the names of the two companies for which they worked.
It is not clear whether the employees saw anything other than the basic personal data such as name, citizenship, age, Social Security number and place of birth, which is required when a person fills out a passport application.
Aside from the file, the information could allow Obama's critics to dig deeper into his private life. While the file includes his date and place of birth, address at time of application and the countries he's traveled to, the most important detail would be his Social Security number, which can be used to pull credit reports and other personal information.
"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," Burton said on Thursday.
McCormack said the breaches occurred were detected by internal State Department computer checks. The department's top management officer, Undersecretary Patrick Kennedy, said certain records, including those of high-profile people, are "flagged" with a computer tag that tips off supervisors when someone tries to view the records without a proper reason.
The firings and unspecified discipline of the third employee already had occurred when senior State Department officials learned of the breaches. Kennedy called that a failing.
"I will fully acknowledge this information should have been passed up the line," Kennedy told reporters in a conference call Thursday night. "It was dealt with at the office level."
In answer to a question, Kennedy said the department doesn't look into political affiliation in doing background checks on passport workers. "Now that this has arisen, this becomes a germane question, and that will be something for the appropriate investigation to look into," he said.
The department informed Obama's Senate office of the breach on Thursday. Kennedy said that at the office's request, he will provide a personal briefing for the senator's staff on Friday. No one from the State Department spoke to Obama personally on Thursday, the officials said.
Obama was born in Hawaii and lived in Indonesia for several years as a child before returning to the United States. As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he has traveled to the Middle East; the former Soviet states with Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind.; and Africa, where in 2006 he and his wife, Michelle, publicly took HIV tests in Kenya to encourage people there to do the same.
Obama's father was born in Kenya, and the senator still has relatives there.
The disclosure of inappropriate passport inquiries recalled an incident in 1992, when a Republican political appointee at the State Department was demoted over a search of presidential candidate Bill Clinton's passport records. At the time he was challenging President George H.W. Bush.
The State Department's inspector general said the official had helped arrange the search in an attempt to find politically damaging information about Clinton, who had been rumored to have considered renouncing his citizenship to avoid the Vietnam War draft.
The State Department said the official, Steven Berry, had shown "serious lapses in judgment."
After a three-year, $2.2 million probe, a federal independent counsel exonerated officials in the incident, saying that while some of the actions investigated were "stupid, dumb and partisan," they were not criminal. The independent counsel also said that Berry and others who were disciplined for their involvement were treated unfairly.
Doug Hattaway, a spokesman for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the former first lady who is challenging Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination, said of the current breach: "It's outrageous and the Bush administration has to get to the bottom of it."
Kennedy and McCormack said it was too soon to say whether a crime was committed. The searches may violate the federal Privacy Act, and Kennedy said he is consulting State Department lawyers.
The State Department inspector general's power is limited because two of the employees are no longer working for the department. McCormack said it was premature to consider whether the FBI or Justice Department should be involved.
McCormack said Rice was informed of the breaches on Thursday.
The Washington Times first reported on the breaches.
None of us wanted our FBI files (for those of us who have them) looked into either, but it happened on a much larger scale and the media was silent.
Don’t say his name or mention his race either.
Also, don’t talk about his family, or his friends.
And please don’t call him a liberal... or muslim.
Wonder if he’ll have courage enough to call Condia a typical.... (ok I wont go there my name isn’t Obama or Wright)
They need to release the names of the people fired, and within about five minutes it’ll be discovered whether it was politically motivated.
Yeah, by Clinton.
I am SO disgusted by Hussein, and even more, the media, playing him up as a victim... CNN.com has him as the top story for days now. They are despicable
And Hillary was “deeply saddened!”
Clintons to hundreds of folks who had FBI files "procured": ...crickets chirping....
Oh, I forgot. It was a an administrative glitch.
I still can’t comprehend what would be in passport records that could be used by one’s political adversaries. We (our family) all have passports, my husband is a naturalized citizen, in fact, and there is nothing that is any of our passport info, application, travel log, etc. that if I were running for office, a political adversary would be able to use. Does anybody know how passport info could be used against Obama?
I read this and immediately thought that the hildebeast has the two fired employees on her payroll. It’s not uncommon for the previous administrations to leave people in out-of-sight jobs. Plus, the State Dept is notoriously known for not cleaning hous. Colin Powell didn’t and Condi Rice didn’t. So, the hildebeast has the most to gain from the information, if any, about osama obama. These people were hers or at least sympathetic to her campaign.
One of these peekers named Craig Livingstone?
Three were caught, but the three thousand others were ignored.
Perhaps they were interested in the information submitted to get his first passport before traveling to Indonesia.
That would be his birth certificate and, I guess information on his custody due to divorce. Maybe somebody was wondering about something to do with that.
The Obamawamas wasted no time in blaming Bush:
Bill Burton, a spokesman for Obama’s presidential campaign, called for a complete investigation.
“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,” Burton said. “Our government’s duty is to protect the private information of the American people, not use it for political purposes.”
-from the AP
It wouldn't help him if it was revealed that he made several "personal" trips to Cuba, Syria, China and/or Iran in recent years.
‘tis the season for apologies by GOPers - even when suspected Clinton holdovers are at fault. I read elsewhere that Clintonistas passed this info to Joe Conason of Salon.com and ALL the perps are suspected Hillary-ites.”
DUH!!!! More shenanigans from the same bunch that took FBI files years ago, and have never been indicted for that.
Thanks for posting this. This was outrageous...to take a dig at Bush. Shows you exactly what type of campaign and person Obama is. Blaming everyone but himself. Raised white, but runs as a black. You would have thought a 50% black, 50% white, who has raised with white women, would have been a unifying factor. He could have done this successfully..but not now.
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