State Dept. fires 2, reprimands 1 for viewing Obama’s passport file
[Quote:]
Two State Department employees were fired and a third has been disciplined for improperly accessing Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s passport file, the State Department announced Thursday night.
Senior Department officials said they learned of the incidents only when a reporter made an inquiry Thursday afternoon. They said an initial investigation indicated the employees - all of whom worked on contract - were motivated by “imprudent curiosity.”
[..]
The employees were each caught because of a computer monitoring system that is alerted when the passport account of a “high-profile person” is accessed, department spokesman Tom Casey said.
In other words, just a bunch of morons. I’m pretty sure State Department tells every employee with access to the system about this monitoring…
March 21st, 2008 at 16:34
What I find disturbing here is the fact that they record so much information. What possible justification is there for recording all that information about anybody in a free country? And what are they doing with it (besides letting contract employees look up the movements of presidential candidates)?
Wouldn’t it also make sense, if you’re going to flag a person as high profile and monitor access, to have instead a mechanism that locks access without more senior level authorisation?
March 21st, 2008 at 20:28
What information do you think they’re recording? It doesn’t say anything in the article beyond the fact that contract employees process passport applications, which would be forms containing fairly general information about the applicant. They have to get SOME information before they issue someone a passport.