The State Department says employees who improperly accessed the passport files of the three major presidential candidates were guilty of "imprudent curiosity." It makes one wonder how many other employees or independent contractors in the vast federal bureaucracy are similarly curious. How it could be so easy to improperly access passport files that imprudently curious employees can do so on a whim during training sessions. Were they being trained in domestic surveillance? Do they have similar access to restricted files while on their coffee breaks? How about at home? It's disconcerting that senior State Department officials only learned of this incident after a reporter contacted them about it. It suggests they don't run a very tight ship when it comes to guarding Americans' personal information. This from the administration that so desperately wants to implement the Real ID Act, a law that would consolidate Americans' DMV records into a network of interlinking databases accessible to the federal government and bureaucrats throughout the 50 states and U.S. territories. These records, possibly including digital copies of birth certificates, Social Security cards and other sensitive documents, would be accessible to thousands of state and federal bureaucrats - some of whom are certain to be imprudently curious. The Bush administration has made sure there are no limits in place in the amount of information kept in the Real ID database. The potential for abuse is boundless. This is one of many reasons why the New York Civil Liberties Union is fighting to block the implementation of the Real ID Act in New York and throughout the country. Government bureaucrats can and do make mistakes. Our lawmakers should do everything possible to ensure that Americans' personal information is secure. They could start by repealing the Real ID Act.

Now we are hearing that Hillary had her passport looked into as well.

The Bush Administration and the GOP attack machine are in DEEP trouble. This means quite clearly that there is a concentrated effort on behalf of SOMEONE to destroy or hurt the democratic nominee.

In 2007 when Hillary was the "inevitable" candidate, they looked at hers, then as she began to lose that sheen and actually fell away from the nomination they concentrated on Obama.

Wow.  

Ultimately the State Dept. is going to take a major Hit for this.

There's more...

From CNN's from page:

Hillary Clinton's passport file was breached in 2007, Secretary of State Rice told Clinton, according to the senator's office

Sounds like the Bush Administration has been up to some shady stuff with both of the Democratic nominees passport files...

There's more...

From a CNN alert:

The State Department says security on Barack Obama's passport file has been breached, campaign officials tell CNN.

DailyKos diarist Scoopster has more via Keith:

The Dept. of Justice has launched an investigation into the compromising of Sen. Obama's passport data file by two contract employees at the State Department.  A third has been disciplined for accessing the information without necessity.

Cycloptichorn has more in the diaries:

Keith is citing a release from State that the breach occurred on three different occasions, on 9 January, 21 February and 14 March.  They also are saying there is no political motivation behind this breach, it was "...simply curiosity..."

Ah, sure, what's a little benign snooping among spooks? No biggie. How pathetic.

The Obama campaign took the opportunity to slam the Bush administration for presiding over a government that breaches citizens' security rather than protecting it.

"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.

Nice.

Update [2008-3-20 21:3:16 by Jonathan Singer]: You think this was the first time that a Bush State Department was caught spying on a Democratic presidential candidate? Think again. Here's The New York TimesRobert Pear in November 1992:

A State Department official who carried out the two-day search of passport files for information about Gov. Bill Clinton said today that he had resigned, just 48 hours before Federal investigators are expected to issue a report criticizing the search.

The official, Steven M. Moheban, was a top aide to Elizabeth M. Tamposi, the Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs who was dismissed last week by President Bush for her role in the search of files on Mr. Clinton, his mother, Virginia Kelley, and Ross Perot, the independent Presidential candidate.

[...]

Ms. Tamposi has said that White House officials encouraged the search of Mr. Clinton's records and that her superiors approved it. The inspector general has interviewed White House officials. But it is not clear whether he will assign any responsibility for the search to senior officials at the White House and the State Department, or will merely focus on Ms. Tamposi and lower-ranking employees.

Is this really the we do things in the United States?

[editor's note, by Todd Beeton]I had updated the post with info from Cycloptichorn's diary -- restored above -- but it got lost in the updating madness. Sorry about that.

There's more...