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Thursday, March 20, 2008

Obama’s Passport File Breached

posted by on March 20 at 18:06 PM

By State Department contract workers (two of whom have now been fired).

From the Obama campaign, via Ben Smith:

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.

RSS icon Comments

1

bush administration crooked and stupid - no fucking way

Posted by McG | March 20, 2008 6:32 PM
2

This is all Hillary's fault.

Posted by Michigan Matt (soon to be Balt-o-matt) | March 20, 2008 6:38 PM
3

The same thing happened to Clinton & others in '92, I think.

Posted by Fitz | March 20, 2008 6:47 PM
4

How many minutes before we get a YouTube link to the Chris Crocker LEAVE BARACK ALONE! video?

Posted by Andy Niable | March 20, 2008 6:48 PM
5

impeach bush NOW!

Posted by NO MORE! no | March 20, 2008 6:55 PM
6

Holy Passportgate! Apparently Andrea Mitchell *was* pointing to the Clinton campaign and noting that the three breaches strangely coincided with Obama victories and such. As far as I know, the Clinton campaign wasn't involved. You know, as far as I know. That can't be good for Clinton, though--to have people thinking she'd stoop even lower than she already has.

Posted by Michigan Matt (soon to be Balt-o-matt) | March 20, 2008 7:25 PM
7

Memo
From: Slog News dept.
To:
Slog reporters

Remember, concentrate on silly things like a passport security breach that led to...nothing. This is important to ensure our readers do not see actual news like at
http://www.surveyusa.com/

showing Obama dropping like a stone against McCain in state after state.

Obama tied with McCain in Mass. and similar "news" could be very harmful if released.

Posted by Slogobama | March 20, 2008 9:41 PM
8

The bad news is it happened.

The good news is we heard about it.

Posted by Andy Niable | March 20, 2008 9:45 PM
9

They were contractors. The State Department is not the White House. Leave Bush alone!

Posted by raindrop | March 20, 2008 10:13 PM
10

Probably just more typical white people trying to damage poor, sweet above-it-all Obama.

Posted by MNG | March 20, 2008 10:38 PM
11

MSNBC reports that the State Department official in charge of the Bureau Of Consular Affairs during the first two breaches of Obama's passport has a connection to the Clinton administration. "Mora Hardy was a consular affairs chief until the end of last month when she retired from foreign service work. Before her stint as the assistant secretary of state of consular affairs, Hardy was an ambassador to Paraguay under President Bill Clinton. She was also an executive assistant to Warren Christopher."

The dates of the breaches were January 9, February 21, and March 14 -- last Friday. Those correspond to the dates of the New Hampshire primary, the Democratic debate in Texas, and the day that Reverend Jeremiah Wright story became major political news.

How the State Department handled the incidents is as noteworthy as the breaches themselves.

Posted by ! | March 20, 2008 10:44 PM
12

Yeah, I'm guessing Bush wasn't in on this one. Although I'm sure Cheney is going to take them out to lunch now.

Posted by monkey | March 21, 2008 1:33 AM
13

Between Jan.1 and today there have been how many primaries? Any breach would be near some vote and why would it matter. What possible connection could there be to a vote - hey Obama just won in Iowa let's see where he was traveling in 1982. Hey Obama just won SC let's see if he was in Kenya on this date in 1994.

Any spying is a bad thing but the lame attempt to blame the Clintons without evidence or a reasonable motive is sad and pathetic.

BTW the link above to SurveyUsa should cause some pause.

Posted by McG | March 21, 2008 8:30 AM
14

msnbc and cnn are now reporting that hillary's file was breached in 2007. now maybe it IS bush's fault.

Posted by jayme | March 21, 2008 8:53 AM
15

For those too lazy to check SurveyUsa
they took polls 2/28 and 3/16

That's before Wright (BW) and after Wright but before the Speech (AWBS) the chart represents Obama's numbers against McCain

BW AWBS
AL -14 - -27
MN +7 - -1
WI +11 - +4
CA +11 - +14
MA +7 - 0

Clinton up by 2 in MO Obama down by 8.
Kentucky Clinton down by 10 Obama down by 36.

If the speech and time doesn't fix this soon, O and the Dems are in deep trouble. Draft Gore.

Posted by McG | March 21, 2008 9:03 AM
16

At least it helps Obama get that angry black preacher out of the news. They must be pretty relieved about that. But it's still over. His campaign is imploding...

Posted by fluteprof | March 21, 2008 9:36 AM
17

this is outrageous. i'm surprised more people aren't upset by this. we have a government constantly gathering more and more information on us. they must guarantee our right to privacy if they are going to do this. firing is hardly a punishment that fits the crime.

Posted by infrequent | March 21, 2008 9:36 AM
18

This is so damn silly. I wish someone would define "breach"... because Passport contractors handle private information all day, every day. Seeing an applicant's birthday, social security, address, high school, etc. is no more difficult than looking at the mail-in packet sent in by the applicant... which is part of the job. Did these people sell the information to telemarketers? Use it to take out credit cards in Obama's name?

Tempest in a bloody teacup... again. This country makes me tired.

Posted by FrantikGirl | March 21, 2008 9:49 AM

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