Seriously how childish is this latest episode on the campaign trail. Just as Obama began having a conversation with America on race, the economy and the war, this crap has to be dropped on us....on a Thursday night of all times. Supposedly these guys who looked at his information were low-level contractors, but it is still testament to the lack of security and right to privacy that the Bush Administration does not care about. Even worse, this comes out about the front runner that is out to take control of the Presidency back from the Republicans.
From NBC:
Two contract employees of the State Department were fired and a third person was disciplined for accessing passport records of Sen. Barack Obama "without a need to do so," State Department officials confirmed to NBC News.The three people who had access to Obama's passport records were contract employees of the department's Bureau of Consular Affairs, NBC News has learned. The unauthorized activity concerning Obama's passport information occurred in January.
"A monitoring system was tripped when an employee accessed the records of a high-profile individual," a department official told NBC News. "When the monitoring system is tripped, we immediately seek an explanation for the records access. If the explanation is not satisfactory, the supervisor is notified."
Well thats nice that you have a system set up to catch this type of stuff. Too bad for the DoS's explanation, since it was actually a reporter that called them out on it. The other part of the explanation from Condi Rice and pals is that the whole thing was just imprudent curiosity and nothing more. Well that is possible, I will say that, but knowing the Bush Administration and their record of political maneuvers using private information held by the government...I agree with Barack Obama's campaign and demand a full independent investigation.
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