Is this a story? Don't know yet.

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/pol ... nds_p.html

Obama demands probe over passport breach
Barack Obama's campaign tonight is demanding a full investigation of reports that his passport files at the State Department were viewed without authorization.

“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. 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,” Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement.

NBC News is reporting that several low-level State Department employees have been fired over the January incident, and the department is conducting an internal investigation.

it depends on where it shows he has visited...

or does it?

this is not a story.

george bush didnt even have a passport before 2000 - i dont think he ever left the country.

Probably shows him visiting afghanistan in early September of 2001.

Well, I don't think there are any secrets about places he's been.

The issue is really whether other personal information may have been compromised, by whom, and why.

What does that even mean to "compromise" personal information? You mean access it? If so, then yes.



I thought the State Department was pretty clear -- it was 3 government contractors.



They were curious -- nothing more, nothing less.

And I like how the story is "Obama Demands Investigation" rather than focusing on the fact that his passport information was accessed. Is the "story" demanding an investigation and turning this into a "Bush tramples peoples' privacy rights" or the fact that some rogue contractors were curious?

What in the fuck does this have to do with the administration?

I think he had only been to Mexico. I could be wrong though.

What's a passport file? If the State Dept. has it, why can't they open it?

I don't understand this story.

Well I just heard on CNN that one of the people who looked at Obama's passport file was hired by the Clintons as an ambassador to Uruguay and is a Clinton associate. They didn't say if the Clintons had anything to do with opening his passport records without authorization, though.

OK, this seems to be the story right now.

3 contract employees, perhaps doing computer database related work that would have enabled, but not allowed, access to personal files, on three separate occasions, January 9, February 21, and March 14, accessed Obama's personal passport files. The facts of this were leaked to the Washington Times. The Times reporter informed a high level official at State today, and they immediately contacted Obama. The contract employees were either fired or disciplined at teh time of the incidents, but it appears that the fact of the incidents never made it above mid-management until today, when they were informed by a reporter. The official who it seems may have failed to report up was once appointed Ambassador to Uruguay by President Clinton.


If the "curious" folks shared any information whatsoever from the files with anyone else, it's a felony. The information would include not only the obvious social security numbers and such, but also all of his international travel records for teh past 40 years. I doubt there's anything juicy in that info since Obama has been pretty transparent about, well everything, but someone may have thought they could find something on him.


Who are these employees? What companies did they work for directly? Did their companies or did they personally have any political motivations besides idle curiosity? Come on, Chris. At least ask the initial questions that might be warranted.


You don't know that. The State Department doesn't even know that because they haven't investigated this. If they're telling the truth, that upper management just learned of this today, they couldn't have investigated it. Not to mention, I'm not even sure they have an Inspector General right now, since the old one was implicated in some failure to investigate something for political reasons back in teh fall. Y'all remember that story? It's a little hazy to me.


Nobody is accusing Bush or the administration of anything yet, other than probable incompetence in how they've handled it so far. 70+ days between the first incident and when upper management learns that a sitting United States Senator, the Democratic frontrunner for the Presidential nomination, has had his personal passport file compromised? Hell yeah, there should be an investigation. If it was just three completely unrelated idiots who wanted to look at Obama's personal information because he's a celebrity, then let's find that out. If it was more, let's find that out.

C'mon David, you can't honestly be in a position to write this. Nobody can be. And to casually slip in the "yet" really drives home the point that it's impossible for some to put aside their anti-everything-related-to-Bush sentiment when discussing things.

Is this a story? Yes. But am I or you or anyone else in any position to portray it as anything other or more than simply 3 curious, rogue contractors acting on their own? Hell no. These contractors were fired. We don't know what's going on. But to suggest that the Bush Administration has somehow been or will be complicit or demonstrated "probable incompetence" is a bit premature and smacks of politics and does nothing to suggest that you're even remotely interested in simply uncovering the truth.

At the same time, I don't blame David Axelrod. For the first time since the beginning of February, Obama is losing in the polls to Clinton. He has taken a tremendous hit from the controversy surrounding his racist pastor's comments. Consequently, the Obama camp would like nothing more than to portray Obama as a bigger victim, to do it as quickly as possible, to somehow link this to the current administration, and to make a campaign issue out of it. I don't agree with it, but it's understandable. And you can't seriously see this for anything other than what it is at this early stage.



Great, let's have the investigation. I have no problem with that. My problem, as I think I tried to convey earlier, is that the story is not so much about the accessing of confidential personal information, but rather about how Obama wants an investigation and, in the process, proclaim that the Bushies have been lax on protecting privacy rights. Why? Again, so he can make a campaign issue out of it. The Obama camp has already implied as much with respect to the Administration. And this is what turns me off -- it reeks of politics and has nothing to do with actually uncovering the truth.

Sorry. I think I've been very fair in not jumping to any conclusions about this, but it's impossible with the current administration's record to simply "trust them" when they say that there is nothing to see here.


I think you're being too rough on me. I've not suggested administration involvement. But I'm also not going to declare their innocence yet either.


Oh, absolutely. This is a gift from God politically. Can't argue with that.




As has often happened, it's not the crime, it's teh cover-up that gets you. I can't call this a cover-up even without more information, but the way this was handled within State is a fishy and needs to be sniffed out. If Obama can make some political hay over it at a time when he needed a good break, his people would be foolish to not do so.

CNN is reporting that all three major candidates had their info looked snooped on.

David, I think they're probably Mossad operatives, what do you think?

I mean, McCain was just in Israel...JESUS CHRIST IT'S ALL COMING TOGETHER!!

You're welcome to have fun with silly speculation. I will be waiting for the investigation, thanks.

To claim that the "Joos did it!" is never silly speculation. Its a reasonable conclusion made after a careful analysis of the information at hand. It is also the case 9 times out of 10, so its a pretty safe bet.

Everybody's got a record. Everybody. As he's shown this week, even Obama has a record. But that doesn't mean that every time something happens there should be an assumption that there's more to it than meets the eye and that the onus turns to the other person to prove a negative.



You're the one that mentioned "probable incompetence" and that no one's "blaming Bush yet" right out of the box. I really don't think that I'm being too rough on you.



And I'm sure we're just a couple of hours away from Pelosi (where has she been anyway?) or Schumer demanding Mukasey to rush to judgment. There will be calls for Rice to submit her resignation. We'll have hearings on the Hill. And then to top it all off, we'll have improper and overly broad subpoenas issued to the White House simply to create another issue to deflect the fact that there's no substance to the very thing that was supposed to be investigted to begin with. Yes, it's about that time again.