Obama's Passport dates back to the Sixties

[Divine Discontent]

After listening to Countdown, and realizing that makes sense considering his background, this does rise to the highest level of incompetent handling, if not direct assault upon Obama's privacy to be used by the GOP to get their slanderous attacks on him straightened out - date-wise - and to see all they can about his past.

I am glad I was disgustingly shocked when I heard about this breach of privacy, and now after watching the facts given on Countdown, I am certain this is a horrible act of malfeasance, regardless of the 3 people's intent, because of the horrible way they permitted it to continue, and how Obama just found out nearly 2 months later! Andrea, Howard, and Keith were amazing.

I am very hopeful that this will help bring down the B*sh-ler Administration. They are Nazis.

[MADem]

1. I think it was poorly paid and poorly briefed CONTRACT WORKERS who were nosy, myself.

The one that didn't get fired is probably the only one in the office who knows how to fix the system when it crashes, or something.

I hope they reveal the people who did it, or they out themselves to some paper and explain themselves.

I think this was just idiots poking around in the database--contractors who didn't READ the security agreement they signed, and slept through the protocol briefing on database access, or maybe, just maybe, weren't even briefed by the cheapass contractor supervisor.

If Bush-Cheney actually WANTED to get at that info for political reasons, they'd just have an Assistant Secretary who was AUTHORIZED to access flagged records do it. That way, there'd be no issues. And the justification could be easily made--all they'd have to do is access McCain's and Clinton's at or near the same time, with a stated/invented idea of checking for VISA approvals, or passport currency something like that, to facilitate the TURNOVER PROCESS for the eventual nominee. Gotta make sure they have an official DIPLOMATIC passport in ADDITION TO that regular one, after all!

It could have easily been passed off as housekeeping, not nefarious intent, in that fashion.

It did serve to "change the subject" though.

[sudopod]

2. If they were just being nosy

then why didn't they look at any other famous people's information?

Why just Obama and only Obama? I'm not saying there's an evil conspiracy, but it is odd.

[Window]

3. I think it's political and may be a cover-up.

I mean, three times!!!

Someone somewhere badly wants info to hurt him even more than they've done to date.

[MADem]

4. Because they probably LIKED Obama.

I'll laugh like hell if one of them is some chubby middle-aged cat lady with a big crush and a poster of BO taped to her wall. I thought I heard one was someone who shared a birth date with Obama, but I didn't focus on the info too much.

These are low-level contractors--they probably do data entry or something along those lines. These aren't even State Department Officials, or REAL employees, who get pensions and benefits and so forth--they're TEMP workers, essentially. Probably from the crowd that was hired to clear the backlog of passport requests due to the closing of the borders to Canada and Mexico for non-passport holders.

[PM7nj]

8. 3 Different people? 3 different times?

It's illegal, the computer tells you what you are doing is illegal! It happened, 3 times, and the State Dept did nothing until yesterday. Also, the fact that they were contract employees makes it even worse! How incompetent is the state dept that they can let "temps" access these files and then try to cover it up!

[MADem]

12. Three different LOCATIONS, too. And Clinton and McCain got it too, turns out.

But that sort of ruins the "Oooooh, some Clinton operative did it!" accusations....that were flying all over here and MSNBC a day ago.

I've worked with contractors, and I dislike the whole concept of contracting out essential government enterprises for this very reason. Accountability is always a fuckup. There's often a closed loop within the contracting enterprise, and only a few points of convergence with the government entity. If you are stuck overseeing a contracting enterprise, you have to do rolling inspections--it's more trouble than it is worth...

[Teaser]

9. I thought that I head that one of them was

purple monkey dishwasher.

[MaryCeleste]

5. I tend to agree with you

if it was being done by operatives it never would have been found

[Tatiana]

6. But according to Shuster, once the file was breached...

the screen would flash a message warning the end user of the security agreement/protocol.

So they had to have seen that message and continued in their pursuit anyway. Why?

Why THREE times?

Why did the third person do the same thing that had already gotten two co-workers fired?

[NashVegas]

7. Why Did the White House Wait til the Third Time

To put a stop to it and announce what was going on?

[PM7nj]

10. Joe Conason was about to break the story.

Edit: Actually, I'm not sure how true that is. I think it may just be a rumor.

[Tatiana]

11. They didn't have whatever they were looking for yet.

Dissemination is a crime. They didn't want to copy or print or do anything to overtly disseminate this information.

So that's why I think they kept going back into the file, even after two people were already fired (and the department was not big, they had to have known). I think their intention was to find the info. and orally pass on the information obtained.

And someone needs to ask State if there were any other breaches of the passport files of any other Democratic presidential candidates. Though we're only hearing about Obama, I suspect he's only the latest victim.

[MADem]

15. There WERE breaches of other candidate files. NT

[MADem]

14. Same reason someone did it to Clinton and McCain's records--curiosity.

Maybe they were on someone else's (already logged in) terminal, and thought they wouldn't get caught.

I know when I used government computers, I got that sort of warning message --privacy act, FOUO, classifcation level-- no matter what I was doing--logging in and checking email, working on documents, accessing programs. You just clicked through and kept going. After awhile, it doesn't even register.

The three people were not all working in the same place, from what I understand.

I don't know if they had the "magic card" technology, where you have to put your personal card into the computer to get it to boot up. They might be still in simple passwordville.

[rainbow4321]

13. So someone has to chop off/mail in their own arm to get a copy of their OWN passport file

Yet some low level contract worker gets access to it with a click of a mouse. What's wrong with this pic?

Thread below has a link for a LONG list of legal munbo jumbo on what it takes for the average person to get a copy of their own information


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=5202848&mesg_id=5202848

[MADem]

16. The odd part of this is, the guy who owned one of the contract companies was first

a former CIA type, and second, a campaign advisor to Obama.

Very strange, that.

The third employee, who has not been fired, worked for The Analysis Corporation (TAC), which is headed by John O. Brennan, a former CIA agent who is an adviser to Mr. Obama's presidential campaign on intelligence and foreign policy.

[MADem]

17. The only info in that file is the info on HIS application--not the application his mother made

His CURRENT application. All that other crap you've seen posted is crap.

The State Department's inquiry began yesterday after a reporter inquired about the breach of Obama's records. After senior management researched the incidents surrounding Obama, they decided to examine whether Clinton's and McCain's records had been breached. This morning, it became clear that they had, McCormack said.

Passport Application

The State Department said the only document kept in an individual's passport file is the application package. The application form includes information such as place of birth and Social Security number. The passport system has between 180 million and 200 million applications in its database.

``Passport files do not contain travel information, such as visa and entry stamps, from previous passports,'' State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. ``Almost all passport files contain only a passport application form as submitted by the applicant.''

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=aRxaoTS9nkuU&refer=home

This won't bring down anyone. In fact, you'd think that Obama's intel advisor, who owned one of the companies involved, would have done a better job protecting the record of the guy he supports.