Passportgate
Passportgate. You saw the word here first. Sorry.
This from the Associated Press:
"Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has told Sen Hillary Rodham Clinton that her passport file was breached in 2007. In a statement from her Senate office, Clinton said she had been contacted by Rice. The State Department plans to brief Clinton's staff Friday about the unauthorized breach.
"The development came just hours after the State Department fired two contract employees and disciplined a third for inappropriately examining the passport file of Clinton's Democratic rival, Sen Barack Obama."
UPDATE:
This is a summary of , with even McCain gettting in on the act. No wonder so many Americans steer clear of passports...
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This is actually a good thing from the perspective of Clinton. As both hers and Obama's passport file was breached Obama can't claim the role of persecuted victim as I'm sure it would have been spun...
Are you kidding me?! That's your blog?
That's all you have to say? You copied and pasted an article from the AP and added 'passportgate' on top?
How much are they paying you for your 'views'? Utterly useless content, next time beeb, dont bother, just have a huge like to the Associated Press site from your homepage, alright?
Nuh-UH! I thought of it last night! ;)
Good
2007 constitutes a bit of a delay considering the system is supposed to electronically flag access and report it to supervisors.
They fired someone? For doing something WRONG in the US government? Pardon me if I'm shocked as a US citizen!
And pardon me also if I'm a little suspicious that all the candidate's passport files have been breached. Whoops! Just a little too coincidental for my liking, but hey, who knows?
Funny thing too that when I want to know what's happening in the US, I turn to the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ (or the "blogosphere") I think the average European would be shocked to see just how horrible our so-called media really are!
Whoopee..... Probably some trainees learning how to use the system and these were the first names that popped into their heads. Big deal, apologize, move on.
Why is this a headline?
Why are the "news" titles sensationalizing this with words like "Breach" and "Passportgate"?
Sorry if this sounds facetious, but I am not entirely sure that I understand the 'big deal' here ? If highly sensitive personal data belonging to these people fell into the public domain, there would be an outcry.
But surely the only data linked to a passport file are things which are already in the public domain for these people, such as address, date of birth and so on.
Or does this 'file' capture information about visas, travel plans and so on electronically ? I think a bit more background information is required about this story, so that we can understand who wanted to view these details, and why.
And McCain too!
Why would checking on a politician's travel history be so bad? Every inspector at Immigration can look through a passport, so there seems to be a double standard. Perhaps Mr Obama has something to hide - a trip to Pakistan or Afghanistan perhaps? In any case, I cannot see that knowledge about either his or Mrs Clinton's travels should not be made available - if tax returns are considered important, why not the places visited?
Dear Justin
I'm sure that a lot of people out there will look at this story - three people examine the passport files of presidential candidates, with no political fallout, and are dismissed for wrongful action, and think - so what? The problem's been resolved, the people have been fired -it's a non-event.
I would ask these people to imagine what would happen if anything of political consequence had been found out by the investigation of these three passport files. Perhaps an undeclared visit to another country or at a sensitive time, i.e. Obama going on a trip with Jeremiah White earlier in the year, or an undeclared trip to Iraq by John McCain, could have completely tilted the shape of an already tectonicly fragile election landscape.
The important thing to remember, is that whilst Clinton, Obama, and McCain are elected representatives, and their lives are subject to scturiny whilst America choose a successor, they are still people with a right to certain records being private. Anything they carry out in their political lives should be, and is, subject to total and absolute examination, but in an election which particularly on the deomocractic side can change on a single advert, it is important to make sure that private details, such as passport forms, remain private. Presidential Candidates are political representatives, and they should be examined as such, but they are also private citizens too.
What is a big worry is that somebody may be able to access the passport information of such influential people so easily. It has emerged that the details of Hillary Clinton were accessed during a mistake in training, which seems far too easy for a secure database of information. What this points to is the increasing databasing of all information on all citizens, which, as demonstrated by the lost data in the UK as well as the intrusion we hear of today, shows that, despite even the authoritarian limits set by today's Republican Party may not be as much of a threat to civil liberties as sheer incompetence.
Mike Tighe
Manchester, UK
This is an outrage but not a surprise from an administration that has no regard for the privacy or constitutional rights of its citizens. Why did this breach take so long to be disclosed? Why did it have to be disclosed by a news organization first?
I disagree. Immigration officers have a duty to inspect passports, check visas. So what if Obama had take a trip to Pakistan, Afghanistan, Syria, Barbados, Guatemala .. who cares? If the files of all Americans are locked away somewhere in depths of Washington, D.C., I see no reason as to why it should be permissible for presidential candidate's files to be exposed just because of the candidacy. It's never been something to bring into the campaign race before--past travels--and there's no reason to begin speculation on such topics at a time like this.
The reason so many Americans steer clear of passports is that they have no interest in seeing the rest of the world for themselves. This begs the question of what right they have to elect the most powerful person on a planet of which they know little or nothing.
I actually know one of the people who got fired; she accessed Sen. Obama's profile out of curoisty notthing else and she got fired last Friday
Amusing title.
Most of what is found in a passport is a matter of public record. Date and place of birth, address, what countries a public figure visited in at most the last ten years. On the other hand, complete government files for records of 26 million Brits were stolen just a matter of a few months ago. Remember? Yours might have been among them Mr. Webb.
The breach has happened, the government is now on damage control mode. The unfolding events of the last 24 hours seems to give credence to the 'imprudent employee' theory.
Justin, the real scoop would be if you could tell us who these employees are. Get an interview with them to tell you why they were browsing these passports.
Obama's passport was breached 3 times, how many times were Hillary's and McCain's breached? Seems there is a twist in this tale... would be interesting to see how it develops.
I wish someone would break into the office that could tell us this:
a. Where are the interviews with the good Pastor post-Obama speech. Where is he?
b.What is Hillary holding back, to release just before last 2 primaries? [ Obama speaks to Aliens?]
c. Quote from American friend: "I think Obama won't live to see the first Tuesday in November. He's too dangerous." Is this the likely/only outcome?
Justin,
Please don't be running around adding the suffix 'gate' to every little political controversy. Just because every other mouth breather in the media does it doesn't mean you have to. You are so much better than that.
Do we really need to attach gate to ever scandal that comes out of Washington? I mean it is a degradation of the significance of Watergate, and shows the laziness of the media by simply attaching a historical event to any situation that passes beneath their nose.
What do they need a passport for? To see the London Eye or the 'gherkin'?! I applaud any American who doesn't have a passport - their country is practically a continent and there must be a lifetime's worth of sightseeing to do just within America. So no need for disparaging comments about Americans not having passports, please. And to Johan's friend -that kind of 'curiosity' is out of order in a state employee and they should be named and shamed.
Am I the only one who is a little skeptical about the belated announcement of the McCain breach? Surely the bipartisan nature of the lapse in security significantly reduces the controversy of the issue and makes it a State Dept problem rather than a Republican Party problem. If the breaches were related solely to the Democratic candidates then this would look a lot more Watergate-esque and politically motivated.
Maybe Mr McCain has been told that his file hasn’t actually been breached but it would be so much easier (for him and the State Dept.) to say that it has!! A cynical view I admit
With another administration (eg Bush 41), I'd agree thatthis is a non-event. With this administration, how many times have small violations of the law turned out to be the tip of the iceberg?
Why is such a big deal? Ok so the files of everyone should be secret but what is in public files like that that might be shocking and if they are secret files then why are they secret?
Mark,
Those files wre lost by an American company and are somewhere in Iowa. Though I guess it's the British government's fault for trusting yanks with our data.
Johan mentioned that a friend looked at a file for nothing else than curoisty and got fired. Good. There was no reason to look at the file and I will add that it is totally unprofessional and absolutely wrong to look at any file at a place you are employed at unless you have a 'real' business reason to do so. I train my employees to respect the files in our office as they would their own.
Apologies accepted for 'reduxing' (how's that for a new journalese adverb - you heard it here first!) the hoary "gate" suffix; it is indeed a "sorry" term. But it was arace to the wire to be 'first' to recall it. One of the more interesting allusions came at yesterday's State Dept. press conference, as reported in the New York Times. It seems a cheeky (positively so) Greek reporter, Lambros Papantoniou of the Elephtheros Typos was bold enough to suggest to State Dept. spokesman Sean McCormack that "the whole story looks like a new Watergate scandal". To which a flustered Mr. McCormack replied rather petulantly, "You know what? You know what? That is so outrageous. You just lost your privelege." The heavy hand of an oppressive American government extends in many directions. Maybe the onerous tactics will extend to bombing Elephtheros Typo's offices next, like the government has done to Al Jazeera on more than one occassion. Unauthorized access of anyones's personal information without their awareness or consent is a serious matter. It has been going on quite extensively with less known citizens along with many other intrusive practices for some time. It's only now however, that it's coming to light because they made the mistake of crossing the line and trying it on some of the rich and powerful. That was their real sin.
Second try,
Blocked by ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ last night.
Seems like a 'slow news' day item. Nothing more serious to report?
More to the point what other attempts and successes have been made to access more important information and not revealed to the public. Whislteblowers, malcontents, etc.
I acknowledge that the press has unlimited access to 'priveledged' information world wide. Is it just the editorial slant that prevents all the information becoming public?
No need for a 'gate' we can understand without a drawing!
Although I voted for Obama in the California primary, in part due to his rhetoric, which moved me, I now have changed and would vote against him, due to his actions,which do not move me. He brought his daughters to listen to that man say the ugly things he did in his church, that is significant. He must have nothing against what is referred to as "Black Liberation Theology," which, by the way, is anything but Christ-like. You can not preach hatred and call it Christ-like. You can not be tribal either, for Jesus was egalitarian to his finger tips. I think Obama, when he converted to Christ, was not given the right Christ. Heaven knows what other things he hasn't told us. He truly is an unknown and a roll of the dice.
I can only hope that he doesn't become President. But as Aristotle said: a democracy is as good as its citizens.
Justin,
Okay, I hate to agree with your detractors (I'm a fan most of the time), but this one is a bit lame. You could at least have explained why this matters at all.
As far as I can see the crucial information in the passport files is that they list the Social Security Number, which is the key to LOTS more information.
The other point is that the candidates seem very upset about it - do they have good reason? I mean, is there likely to be additional sensitive information, or are they objecting to government information on anyone being available to anyone whose mildly curious?
Is it passports today, and the CIA tomorrow?
Expand a little, please Justin
Hi,
Have you seen this?
It's a software developed at the Queen's University in Canada which claims to measure spin in speech.
Interesting observation about the candidates.
The developer is blogging here:
Vincent (28),
You might feel differently if you saw the sermons in context, rather than very selective excerpts.
Here's the bulk of the sermon in video:
and
Salaam/Shalom/Shanthi/Dorood/Peace
Namaste -ed
Now that it has been determined that all 3 candidates' passports have been reviewed, can we stop the conspiracy theories?
Besides, we know Obama hasn't been anywhere. He usually votes "present".
Isn't the entire "passportgate" a little bit cynical? For years the US government has spied and snooped on its citizens without warrants. It has used the evidence to prosecute people, while refusing to show it in court, and at the same time claimed immunity for its own breaches of the law. It has abducted people, held them in secret prisons, and very likely tortured them, to get its dirty hands on even more information.
And now the passport records of three rich, famous, upper-class people have been surreptitiously looked at. Shock! Horror! Immediate action required!
I concede that if confidential government information is used to influence an election campaign, that is serious. But the indignation seems very selective and tainted with a large dose of hypocrisy.
The American telephone companies engaged in illegal wiretapping of American citizens at the behest of the White House, and the Bush administration wants to reward them by granting them retroactive immunity.
Seriously, does this revelation surprise ANYONE?
Justin
Sorry but your blog is becoming frankly embarassing in its bias. All 3 passports were breached. Yet you are spinning this to suggest Hillary has had some terrible wrong done to her only. The State Dept has said its simply a case of imprudent curiosity. There is no story here. Also your Passportgate is not original or new if you read the US papers. I expect better journalism from the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ even if you do have a very pro Republican bias to maintain the supposed horse race which incidently Hillary mathematically can't win.
cedric clemenceau said...
"That's all you have to say? You copied and pasted an article from the AP and added 'passportgate' on top? "
I'm afraid that's journalism these days Cedric. It makes more business sense for one person at AP or Reuters to write an article, with all the other journalists just chopping sections out and doing a little bit of rewording.
This does of course make the Mainstream Media (MSM) more useless than ever. The worlds top journalists; people like Seymour Hersh, recognise this and are quite vocal in the contempt they hold for the MSM.
Vincent Virom, posting 28
It seesm you have sent your comments to the wrong blog. This is about the passport scandal currently being patched up by the government to avoid its political fallout.
I would humbly suggest that you and others who are rightfully deeply upset with Rev. Wright and Obama take the time to see the full transcript of Wright's sermon.
Its available online and it shows clearly that those 'offensive' statements were not the Rev own words, he was quoting Edward Peck, former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq.
A few fairminded journalist and news networks have made this point clear, but here in the UK and on Justin's blog, its not been clarified. See the transcript, it will help you.
I DO want to know the name of this person who accessed Mr. McCain's passport and was it TRULY accessed and how and when and .. and...because this has the look of a Republican Party type thing.
No conspiracy, just hoodlum politics -- per THEIR usual (habits). :)
Where do I go to have my passport breached so that I can be outraged?
Passportgate has to be the most irrelevent event in this election. Far more interesting is the electoral fall-out of the Wright issue.
If state-by-state polls are examined the results would be Clinton 268 McCain 246 with 24 electoral votes too close to call - so a Clinton-McCain contest is wide open.
Now before the Obama supporters jump up and down with delight - the polls are worse for your man. State-by-state polls show the result would be Obama 231 McCain 292 with 15 electoral votes too close to call. In this contest McCain wins comfortably.
Why?
Because the blue collar voters won't back Obama but will back Clinton.
Your blog is getting boring. But so this election. All three candidates are fairly close in policy and none of them are like Bush2. Any of the three will be an improvement for the rest of the world. Importantly none seem to have an electoral debt to large arms manufacturers, oil companies or the fundamental religious right.
This is really a non-issue being blown up by Obama to detract from the Pastor Jeremiah Wright fiasco.
Passport files contain no private data with respect to these presidential candidates. All of the information contained in the passport files are already in the public realm.
While it is true that the files should be kept confidential, the files were apparently brached by employees of a company owned by one of Obama's staffers.
The motive was probably curiosity or the hope of some enrichment, by selling the information to a private investigator.
The really disturbing thing is that this was only discovered due to the fact that there was a sort of "trigger mechanism" designed to set off a warning that the files of high-profile politicians had been breeched.
I highly doubt any such mechanism exists for the majority of Americans with passports. What's to protect low-profile people from such an intrusion if it was so easy to access the records of 3 Senators?
Meanwhile, does anyone consider it a bit odd that this was prevented from turning into a huge news story by the later news that Hillary Clinton and John McCain's files had been breeched as well. That's a bit convinient, don't you think? Can you imagine the uproar if it had just been Obama's records that were looked at? It's also disturbing that it happened 3 times to him, starting in January. I wonder when the records of McCain and Clinton were accessed? Late enough to make this a wash?
Let's be serious.. The main aim of breaching the passpaort files is to scrutinize Barack Obama. They also breached the other candidates just to cover up the messy situation. Barack Obama's files has been accessed three times or even more.. for what reason? He is a US congress Man but his files were never breached until he became Democratic Presidential Candidate that pulled such a wide support both nationwide and overseas. We all know that the "Security Agencies" under the present administration is "Above the law.." They do any thing they want with your PRIVACY.. Don't be suprised that at the end those committed this shameful act will be set free in the name of the current "Anti-terrorist Patriot Act". Well l just want to inform them that (1) Hawaii is not in japan but in the US. (2) Honululu is the capital of hawaii (3) Barack Obama was born Aug. 4, 1961, in Honolulu (4) He is the incumbent US senator from lllinois.
In response to Paul D (14): The reason most Americans don't have passports is because, until recently, we didn't need a passport to visit the countries we travel to most often, namely Canada, Mexico, Jamaica, Bahamas etc.
One thing that's in passport records which isn't trivial is the passport holder's Social Security Number. That is as close to a national identification number as U.S. citizens have. The social security number gets you into all kinds of other files in all kinds of places. The universal advice in the U.S. concerning identity theft is to closely guard your Social Security number. Armed with the Social Security number, name, address, etc. a hacker can go on a full-fledged fishing expedition through a victim's personal and financial records. If inappropriate access of sensitive files can happen when those records are of prominent citizens and have been flagged for security alerts, what about the rest of us? That's the really outrageous thing about these incidents.
Paul D has apparently talked with every single American because he states that many have no interest in the outside world. He then asks why we should be able to elect the most powerful person on the planet. Let me see, maybe it's because it's our damn country!
The three principle reasons why Americans don't have passports are
(1) They didn't, until recently, need them. An American could travel almost anywhere in the Americas without one. So why bother if you don't need one?
(2) Short Holidays. Compared to Europeans, Americans get very short holiday breaks. Two weeks if you are lucky. It is hard to justify a trip to Europe, Asia, or Australia with less than 10 days after travel time is factored in.
(3) Plenty to see and do here. The US, and the Americas are a huge and diverse place. There deserts, tropics, jungles, mountains, wilderness, and large cities.
So there ya go. You didn't need one for every place that you could get to in the short vacation time you have. And there is plenty to choose from that is closer and cheaper.
The idea that is it because we don't want to see the world is bogus. We want to travel and explore just as much as the next guy.
All i think about the latest happenings is that Obama is being targeted as he looks like winning the ticket. Clintons are using their influence( past experience in White house) to bring him down in the eyes of the American People and media is fully playing its partial role.
Following up on Clinton's exaggeration of her experience as mentioned previously with respect to NI. This time it's Bosnia
Justin -
I agree with previous posters on one thing: there's no need for flippant comments regarding the number of Americans who hold passports.
In addition to having an enormous country to explore, US citizens did not require passports to visit Canada, Mexico, the Carribean or many Central American countries until this year. Predictably, the introduction of new passport requirements completely overwhelmed US passport agencies. It's a fallacy that Americans don't travel simply because many don't hold passports... and it's precisely this sort of comment that turns so many Americans away from quality news sources like the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳!
Is there anything more to this than some bored State Department employees and/or contract employees accessing files that they should not have? The only thing that bothers me about this is that conseqences for improperly reading a politician's file were much more severe than improperly reading an ordinary citizen's file.
Justin #25: Yeah you shouldnt've. Come on now, you should know better than that. Everyone knows that the United States can hardly do anything right, but especially under the Bush administration and especially when it comes to anything having to do with the UK!!
In all seriousness though, perhaps leaving your citizens's private data with a "US" company wasn't the wisest of decisions, given that we are the single most unpopular country in the world, and the fact that your nation is in enough hot water as it is with your leaders having to batt away accusations of being our "poodle" etc, but that aside, I should like to think that we are/would be, in any other circumstance, just as trustworthy as the next guy, or is there just simply no hope in humanity left? I must say, however, that your inability to step back and see it in a possibly different light, suggest a very dangerously narrow mindset indeed, which can't be good!!
On a side note, not all Republicans are "fear mongers". Bush obviously is, shall we say not a rooky in that area, but to brand all Republicans as such is extreemly hurtful and predgidous indeed!! O, and this comming from the stawnchest "European" liberal you'll ever meet!!
Your judgement and sinicism alarms and overwelms me!
Does anyone really care about this? Obama does; it got the news vultures off of his Rev. Wright problem.