seriousness of passportgate

[damndude]

regardless of it's obama or clinton, surely everyone has to understand the implications of anyone working for a republican controlled state department invading the private information of any elected official in the opposing party let alone a presidential candidate. this does rise to the level of a watergate considering the potential for dirty tricks.
like i said, it doesn't matter which candidate it involves. this is dangerous.

[npincus]

1. I wondering if it goes all the way up to the Chimp

[rug]

6. Maybe Pelosi will get up from the credentials committee and put impeachment back on the table.

[SunsetDreams]

2. Exactly...

Bush Sr administration did it to Bill Clinton in 1992

Now Bush Jr. administration is doing it to Barack Obama

This is serious!

[joshcryer]

3. Many people have that access, there's no real underlying conspiracy.

[SunsetDreams]

5. There is a conspiracy

if its done under a GOP administration both times

[GoldieAZ49]

4. It is a violation of privacy - they were contract employees

Two contract employees for the State Department have been fired and a third disciplined for inappropriately looking at the passport file of Democratic Sen. Barack Obama's passport file, a spokesman said Thursday.
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.

"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.

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. Our government's duty is to protect the private information of the American people, not use it for political purposes," Burton said.

"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.

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.

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.

[eleny]

7. now saying that the information didn't get kicked upstairs until very recent days

having worked in a public bureaucracy for the better part of 30 years, i find this hard to believe. for some low level supervisor who may very well be a government career employee to protect a couple of random, snoopy contract workers - this doesn't pass the smell test.

btw, the very screens all these people viewed has got to be known. i worked for our state dept. of human services and everything we did on our desktops was known. every screen and every download. what those people accessed is known down to the keystrokes.

office level supervisors failed to get the info up to higher levels? bullshit.