Who's looking at your passport file?
It appears State Department contract employees have been getting their kicks out of snooping through the passport files of the major presidential candidates. But is something more sinister at work here?
Federal officials confirmed today that the passport files of Sens. Barack Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain have been breached. Call me crazy, but it seems highly unlikely that this was just done "out of curiosity."
In this matter, we again saw the Bush Administration's routine lack of outrage for Americans' privacy. I'm surprised the president didn't use the 9/11 defense for this snooping: "If we didn't look at these passport records, America would be a terrorist training ground."
The State Department initially waved off the seriouness of this breach. Here's what the State Department spokesman said about the issue: "Mistakes and errors happen from time to time. ... We caught these and we've got to work and correct that process," said Undersecretary Patrick Kennedy.
This isn't about correcting a process. We need to know how this happened and how many other federal agencies are being used for political purposes. Are the IRS computers being tapped to find incriminating tax information on the candidates? Who else is on the Bush Administration's enemies list?
Comments
The next thing you know is they'll be looking into our churches!
Condi should be miffed that she had to find out from a reporter, even though this happened months ago. But then again, where does the buck stop?
Posted by: scharton | March 21, 2008 1:56 PM
How come there was no uproar from you when the Clinton administration gave Linda Tripp's info to the press? Or when Hillary's toadies reviewed all kinds of info via the FBI re Republicans? Besides, I think it has been reported that the people who looked at the passport apps were contractors who were employed to speed up the passport issuing process...and not State Dept. employees!!
Posted by: Leonard E. Goldberg | March 21, 2008 8:28 PM
I don't believe this has anything to do with the Bush Administartion. I think it is just some people checking for themselves to see where he has been cause they don't believe that he is not a muslim and has probably been to the middle east a number of times getting money from people over there and making promises to them if he is elected. There are snoopers everywhere and the IRS has a good system for catching these folks as do other agencies.
Posted by: Jackie Krage | March 21, 2008 9:24 PM
Maybe some of these left over liberals in the State Department are trying to make the administration look bad?No kookier than Jim's paranoid rant.What ever happened to all the files the Clinton's ended up with? They are probably still useful as long as one of them is running for something.
Posted by: Brian Murray | March 22, 2008 6:11 AM
Mr. Boren,
I can't recall if you were on any editorial boards from 1992-2000, but how did [do] you feel about stacks of confidential FBI files on the kitchen table of then-First Lady/now-candidate Hillary Clinton? Could that be the political purpose behind the passport snooping (instead of Bush)?
Posted by: Matt McIntyre | March 22, 2008 7:40 AM
Brian,
Nobody has to try and make the Adminstration look bad, they do a great job themselves.
Posted by: Rich | March 24, 2008 9:53 AM